Works of John Dryden. Volume 12 Plays: Ambboyna. The State of Innocence. Aureng-Zebe [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520913646

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T H E

WORKS

OF

JOHN

DRYDEN

Editor V I N T O N A. DEARING

VOLUME

TWELVE

EDITOR

Vinton A. Dearing

M A R Y B E A T R I C E O F MODENA, D E D I C A T E E O F

The State of Innocence Courtesy of Victoria Art Gallery, Bath City Council

VOLUME

XII

The Works of John Dryden Plays AMBOYNA THE STATE OF INNOCENCE AUREN G-ZEBE

University of California Press Berkeley

Los Angeles

1994

London

UNIVERSITY OF C A L I F O R N I A PRESS

Berkeley

and Los Angeles,

California

UNIVERSITY O F C A L I F O R N I A PRESS, LTD.

London,

England

The copy texts of this edition have been drawn in the main from the Dryden Collection of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

22 21 20 19 18 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Copyright

© 1994 by The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 0-520-08247-8 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 55-J149 Designed by Ward Ritchie

To Henry Hinckley Dearing III Susan Ryf Dearing Jonathan Bradford Dearing Elizabeth Jane Dearing

The preparation of this volume of the California edition of The Works of John Dryden has been made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, and by a matching grant from The UCLA Foundation.

Preface The present volume shows Dryden master of his craft of playwriting and putting it to new uses. In Amboyna he combines past history and contemporary politics, members of the middle class and high tragedy. In The State of Innocence he puts Paradise Lost not only into dramatic form but also into rhyme. In AurengZebe he places serious drama in an exotic but contemporary setting, with succession to an empire and a royal marriage uncertain to the last. Was Dryden giving up rhyme while enriching the texture of his verse in his plays during this period? Was he saying farewell to the heroic view of life? Was he making progress in the journeywork of dramatic composition? The reader must decide. There is no consensus. We have, however, argued strongly, against past currents of opinion, that Amboyna should be recognized as an important work of art with an equally important message for today. Amboyna also presents the textual critic with a classical problem in the matter of author's intentions. Dryden wrote it in verse, and as we have said, he wrote it as a serious contribution to the drama, not merely to set the political and his own pot aboil. That is, while it is certainly a contribution in support of the Third Dutch War for which he was duly paid by the continuance of his government salary when all payments were suspended except for the war effort, nevertheless Dryden wrote with deep feeling about heroic self-control and tender concern for the sufferings of others in the face of overwhelming pain and sorrow. But before he published, he decided to print the work as prose. (In the dedication he denigrated what he had written, but that kind of self-criticism was normal for him and can be discounted.) He made no change in the second edition, but Congreve, his literary executor, restored some of the verse in his edition, beginning with the last scene of Act IV. Having a strong sense that Dryden made a disastrous mistake in printing the play as prose, and with the possibility that he repented of it and that Congreve became aware of that repentance while his edition was in press, we asked ourselves whether we should restore all or part of the verse, so that the play's true nature would no longer be so much

viii

Preface

hidden by its dress. Put another way, would such a procedure run counter to the rules of conservative textual editing we have followed everywhere else in our edition, or would it reflect a truer conservatism? For aid in arriving at an answer we consulted Professors Richard Bevis, W. B. Carnochan, Robert Hume, Frederick Link, John Loftis, J. R. Mason, Eric Rothstein, Michael Shugrue, Susan Staves, Thomas Tanselle, and Rose Zimbardo. Their responses, several times with detailed analyses, helped us to conclude that the text should be in prose throughout, as in the first edition. Professor Hume not only contributed to the discussion but read all the texts and commentary in the volume; we are therefore doubly grateful for his insights. Besides the National Endowment for the Humanities and the UCLA Foundation, whose grants-in-aid we have acknowledged elsewhere, we wish to thank Chancellor Charles E. Young and the Research Committee of the University of California, Los Angeles, for sabbatical leave and additional grants-in-aid. We are also grateful to former Vice-Chancellor William D. Schaefer for encouragement and support. Those who have given time and effort to producing the California Dryden owe a great debt to the staffs of the libraries and other institutions they have visited or who have responded to requests of various kinds. First among these is necessarily the staff of the William Andrews Clark Library, on whose collections the edition principally rests. We trust that the staffs of the other institutions and the public whose gifts and taxes support them will feel our gratitude for benefits bestowed even if we do not undertake to be more specific. The following persons have helped in one way or another with the preparation of this volume, some by their typing skills, some by their research skills, some by their editorial and proofreading skills. Wendy Rose Bryden, Cathy Bloom Cherbosque, Dorothy Clark, Dr. William Creasy, Professor Walter Ellis, Frances Farrell, Professor Lester Field, Christine Ferris, Barbara Fox, Jeanette Dearborn Gilkison, Nina Anne M. Greeley, Victoria Hayne, Robert Hunt, Shirley Kahlert, Jill Macklem Kuhn, Ronald Lear, Dr. Janette Lewis, Dr. Rachel Miller, David Mount, Dr. Geral-

ix

Preface

dine Moyle, Dr. Susan Jane Owen, Dr. Melanie Richter-Bernberg, Dr. Eric Schroeder, and Hugh Stocks. Kathleen BrownNoblet helped us with matters concerning Montaigne. We are especially grateful to Mrs. Geneva Phillips, our Managing Editor, and to Mrs. Grace Stimson, the latter for editing the manuscript and preparing it so carefully for the printer, and the former for participating in research herself as well as coordinating the researches of others and acting as our liaison with the press.

V. A. D.

Contents Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man Aureng-Zebe Commentary Textual Notes Appendix: Nathaniel Lee's Commendatory Poem on The State of Innocence Index to the Commentary

l 79 147 25 1 443 535 539

Illustrations Mary Beatrice of Modena T I T L E P A G E OF Amboyna FRONTISPIECE T O Amboyna (1735) T I T L E P A G E OF The State of Innocence FRONTISPIECE T O The State of Innocence (1735) T I T L E P A G E OF Aureng-Zebe FRONTISPIECE T O Aureng-Zebe (1735)

Frontispiece 2 Facing page 54 80 Facing page 136 148 Facing page 214

AMBOYNA OR

THE C R U E L T I E S OF THE D U T C H TO THE E N G L I S H M E R C H A N T S

AMBOYNA: A

TRAGEDY. As it is

A C T E D

At the THE ATRE-R

0YJL,

Written by fOHN

Servant

DRY

DEN

to His Majefty.

Manet alta mente repofiutn.

LONDON: Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman, and arc to be fold at the Anchor in the Lower Walk of the Netv Exchange.

1673.

T I T L E P A G E OF T H E FIRST EDITION (MACDONALD 7 9 A )

Amboyna

3

T O THE RIGHT HONORABLE T H E Lord Clifford of CHUDLEIGH. My Lord; ter so many Favors, and those so great, Conferr'd on me by Your Lordship these many yeares; which, I may call more properly one Continued Act of Your Generosity and Goodness; I know not whether I should appear either more Ungrateful in my Silence, or more Extravagantly Vaine in my endeavours to acknowledge them. For, since all Acknowledgments bear a Face of Payment, it may be thought, T h a t I have flatter'd my self into an Opinion of being able to return some part of my Oblige10 ments to You; the just despair of which Attempt, and the due Veneration I have for his Person, to whom I must Address, have almost driven me, to Receive only with a profound Submission the effects of that Vertue, which is never to be Comprehended but by Admiration: And the greatest note of Admiration is Silence. 'Tis that noble Passion, to which Poets raise their Audience in highest Subjects, and they have then gain'd over them the greatest Victory, when they are Ravish'd into a Pleasure, which is not to be express'd by Words. T o this Pitch, My Lord, the sence of my Gratitude had almost rais'd me: to receive your 20 Favors as the Jewes of old receiv'd their Law, with a mute Wonder, to think, that the Loudness of Acclamation, was onely the Praise of Men to Men, and that the secret homage of the Soul was a greater Mark of Reverence, than an outward ceremonious joy, which might be counterfeit, and must be irreverent in its Tumult. Neither, My Lord, have I a particular right to pay you my Acknowledgments: You have been a Good so Universal, that almost every Man in three Nations may think me Injurious to his Propriety, that I invade your Praises, in undertaking to celebrate them alone; and, that I have assum'd to my self a Patron, 29 29

alone; and] F; And Qi-2; I have] F, D; have Q1-2.

And D.

4

Amboyna

who was no more to be circumscrib'd than the Sun and Elements, which are of Publick benefit to humane kind. As it was much in your power to oblige all who could pretend to Merit from the Publick, so it was more in your Nature and Inclination. If any went ill-satisfy'd from the Treasury, while it was in your Lordships Management, it proclaim'd the want of Desert, and not of Friends: You Distributed your Masters Favour with so equal hands, that Justice her self could not have held the Scales more even: but, with that Natural Propensity to do good, that had that Treasure been your own, your Inclination to Bounty must have ruin'd you: No Man attended to be deny'd: no Man brib'd for Expedition: want, and desert were pleas sufficient. By your own Integrity and your Prudent Choice of those whom you employ'd, the King gave all that He intended, and Gratuities to His Officers made not vain His Bounty. This, My Lord, you were in your Publick capacity of HighTreasurer, to which you ascended by such degrees, that your Royal Master saw your Vertues still growing to His Favours faster than they could rise to you. Both at home, and abroad, with your Sword and with your Counsel, you have serv'd Him with unbyass'd Honor, and with unshaken resolution: making His Greatness, and the true Interest of your Country, the standard and measure of your actions. Fortune may desert the wise and brave; but, true Vertue never will forsake it self. 'Tis the Interest of the World that Vertuous Men should attain to Greatness, because it gives them the power of doing good. But, when by the Iniquity of the Times they are brought to that extremity, that they must either quit their Vertue or their Fortune, they owe themselves so much, as to retire to the private exercise of their Honour; to be great within, and by the constancy of their Resolutions, to teach the inferior World, how they ought to judge of such Principles, which are asserted with so generous and so unconstrain'd a Tryal. But, this voluntary neglect of Honours, has been of rare Example in the World: few Men have frown'd first upon Fortune, and precipitated themselves from the top of her Wheele, before 3 much in] F, D; in much Q 1 - 2 . 23 actions.] Q í , F, D; ~ A Q i .

5

while] F, D;

Q1-2.

Amboyna

5

they felt at least the Declination of it. We read not of many Emperors like Dioclesian, and Charles the Fifth, who have preferr'd a Garden, and a Cloyster, before a Crowd of Followers, and the troublesome Glory of an Active Life, which robs the Possessor of his rest and quiet, to secure the safety and happiness of others. Seneca, with the help of his Philosophy, could never attain to that pitch of Vertue. He onely endeavour'd to prevent his fall by descending first; and, offer'd to resign that Wealth which he knew he could no longer hold. He would onely have made a Present to his Master of what he foresaw would become his Prey: He strove to avoid the Jealousie of a Tyrant; You dismiss'd your self from the Attendance and Privacy of a Gracious King. Our Age has afforded us many Examples of a contrary nature: but your Lordship is the onely one of this. 'Tis easie to discover in all Governments those who waite so close on Fortune, that they are never to be shaken off at any turne: Such who seem to have taken up a resolution of being Great, to continue their Stations on the Theater of Business: to change with the Scene, and shift the Vizard for another part. These Men condemn in their Discourses that Vertue which they dare not practice. But the sober part of this present Age, and impartial Posterity will do right, both to your Lordship and to them: And when they read on what Accounts, and with how much Magnanimity you quitted those Honours, to which the highest Ambition of an English Subject could aspire, will apply to you with much more reason, what the Historian said of a Roman Emperour; Multi diutius Imperium tenuerunt; Nemo fortius reliquit. T o this Retirement of your Lordship, I wish I could bring a better Entertainment, than this Play; which, though it succeeded on the Stage, will scarcely bear a serious perusal, it being contriv'd and written in a Moneth, the Subject barren, the Persons low, and the Writing not heightned with many laboured Scenes. The consideration of these defects ought to have prescrib'd more modesty to the Author, than to have presented it to that person in the World, for whom he has the greatest Honor, and of whose Patronage, the best of his Endeavours had been unworthy. But, 22

them:]

QI-2, F, D.

6

Amboyna

I had not satisfied my self in staying longer, and could never have paid the Debt with a much better Play. As it is, the meanness of it will shew at least, that I pretend not by it to make any manner of return for your Favours; and, that I only give you a new Occasion of Exercising your Goodness to me, in pardoning the Failings and Imperfections of, My Lord, Your Lordships,

Most Humble, Most Oblig'd, Most Obedient Servant,

10

J. Dryden. 2-3

meanness] Q2, F, D; meaness Q i .

Amboyna

PROLOGUE T O AMBOYNA.

AS needy Gallants in the Scriv'ners hands, f\ Court the rich Knave that gripes their Mortgag'd Lands, JL JL The first fat Buck of all the Season's sent And Keeper takes no Fee in Complement: The dotage of some Englishmen is such To fawn on those who ruine them; the Dutch. They shall have all rather then make a War With those who of the same Religion are. The Streights, the Guiney Trade, the Herrings too, Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle you: Some are resolv'd not to find out the Cheat, But Cuckold like, love him who does the Feat: What injuries soe'r upon us fall, Yet still the same Religion answers all: Religion wheedled you to Civil War, Drew English Blood, and Dutchmens now wou'd spare: Be gull'd no longer, for you'l find it true, They have no more Religion, faith then you; Interest's the God they worship in their State, And you, I take it, have not much of that. Well Monarchys may own Religions name, But States are Atheists in their very frame. They share a sin, and such proportions fall That like a stink, 'tis nothing to 'em all. How they love England, you shall see this day: No Map shews Holland truer then our Play: Their Pictures and Inscriptions well we know; We may be bold one Medal sure to show. View then their Falshoods, Rapine, Cruelty; And think what once they were, they still would be: 5 dotage] Q2, F, D, M 1 - 2 ; doteage Q i . i a love] D, M1-2; loves Q1-2, F.

18

Religion,]

Qa, F, D;

Q i , M1-2.

8

Amboyna

But hope not either Language, Plot, or Art, 'Twas writ in haste, but with an English Heart: And lest Hope, Wit; in Dutchmen that would be As much improper as would Honesty. 33

Wit;] D, Mr,

Qi-a; ~ A F, Mi.

Amboyna

Persons

9

Represented. By Mr. Hart. Mr. Mohun. Mr. Lydal.

Captain Gabriel Towerson. Mr. Beamont "i English Merchants Mr. Collins ) his Friends. Captain Middleton, A n English "i Sea Captain. j Perez, A Spanish Captain. Harman Senior, Governor o£ Amboyna. T h e Fiscal. Harman Junior, Son to the Governor. Van Herring, A Dutch Merchant.

Mr. Watson. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr.

Burt. Cartwright. Wintershal. Kynaston. Beeston. By

Ysabinda, Betroth'd to Towerson,

Mrs. Marshal.

A n Indian Lady. Julia, Wife to Perez. A n English Woman.

Mrs. James. Mrs. Cory.

Page to Towerson. A Skipper. T w o Dutch Merchants.

SCENE

Amboyna.

Merchants his Friends] Q2, F, D ; Merchants his Friends English Sea] Q2, F, D ; English ~ Q i . Perez, A Spanish] Q2, F, D ; ~ Spanish Q i . A Dutch] Q2, F, D ; ~ D u t c h Q i . Ysabinda,. .. Towerson,] Q2, F, D ; ~ Julia,] Qs, F, D ; ~ A Q i . English W o m a n ] Q2, F, D ; English ~ A Skipper] Q2, F, D ; A ~ T w o Dutch]

Qi.

Q2, F, D ; ~ D u t c h Q i .

A

... ~ Qi.

A

Qi.

Qi.

AMBOYNA, OR

THE C R U E L T I E S OF THE DUTCH T O THE E N G L I S H M E R C H A N T S .

A C T I. SCENE I. A Castle on the Sea. Enter Harman Senior, the Governor, the Fiscal, and Van Herring: Guards. Fisc. A Happy day to our Noble Governor. Har. Morrow Fiscal. Van Her. Did the last Ships which came from Holland to these parts, bring us no news of Moment? Fisc. Yes, the best that ever came into Amboyna, since we set footing here, I mean as to our interest. Harm. I wonder much my Letters then, gave me so short accounts; they only said, T h e Orange Party was grown strong again, since Barnevelt had suffer'd. 10

Van Her. Mine inform me farther, the price of Pepper and of other Spices was rais'd of late in Europe. Harm. I wish that news may hold; but much suspect it, while the English maintain their Factories among us in Amboyna, or in the neighboring Plantations of Seran. Fisc. Still I have news that tickles me within, ha, ha, ha. Ifaith it does, and will do you and all our Countreymen. SCENE] Q2, F, D; Qi. s.d. Senior... Guards] Q2, F, D; S e n i o r . . . Guards Q i . x Happy] Q2, F, D; Qi.

Amboyna Harm. Prithee do not torture us, but tell it. Van Her. Whence comes this news? Fisc. From England. Harm. Is their East-India Fleet, bound outward for these parts, or cast away, or met at Sea by Pyrats? Fisc. Better, much better yet, ha, ha, ha. Harm. Now am I famish'd for my part of the laughter. Fisc. T h e n my brave Governor, if you're a true Dutchman, I'le make your fat sides heave with the conceit o n ' t , till you're blown like a pair of large Smith Bellows, here look upon this Paper. Harman reading. You may remember we did endamage the English East-India Company, the value of Five hundred thousand pounds, all in one year; a Treaty is now Sign'd, in which the business is tane up for fourscore thousand. This is news indeed; wou'd I were upon the Castle Wall, that I might throw my Cap into the Sea, and my Gold Chain after it, this is golden news, boys. Van Her. This is news wou'd kindle a thousand Bonfires, and make us piss 'em out again in Rhenish Wine. Harm. Send presently to all our Factories, acquaint them with these blessed tidings: if we can scape so cheap, 'twill be no matter what villanies henceforth we put in practice. Fisc. Hum, why this now gives encouragement to a certain Plot, which I have long been brewing, against these Skellum English. I almost have it here in Pericranio, and 'tis a sound one faith, no less, then to cut all their Throats, and seize all their Effects within this Island. I warrant you we may compound again. Van Her. Seizing their Factories, I like well enough, it has some Savour in 't, but for this whorson cutting of Throats, it goes a little against the grain, because 'tis so Notoriously known 80 24 88 32 36 42 48

Fleet,] Q1-2, F, D. Dutchman] Qa, F, D; Dutchman Q i . Harman] D; Harman QI-2, F. Castle Wall] Q2, F, D; Castle Wall Q i . Rhenish] Rhenish Q1-2, F, D. in Pericranio] Q2, F; in Pericranio Qi, D. 'tis] Q2, F, D; tis Q i .

12

Amboyna

in Christendom, that they have preserv'd ours from being cut by the Spaniards. Harm. Hang 'em base English sterts, let 'em e'en take their part of their own old Proverb, Save a Thief from the Gallows; they wou'd needs protect us Rebels, and see what comes to themselves. Fisc. You're i' th' right o n ' t Noble Harman, their assistance, which was a Mercy, and a Providence to us, shall be a Judgment upon them. Van Her. A little favor wou'd do well, though; not that I wou'd stop the Current of your Wit, or any other Plot to do them mischief, but they were first discoverers of this Isle, first Traded hither, and show'd us the way. Fisc. I grant you that, nay more, that by composition made after many long and tedious quarrels, they were to have a third part of the Traffick, we to build Forts, and they to contribute to the charge. Harm. Which we have so increas'd each year upon 'em, we being in power, and therefore Judges of the Cost, that we exact what e're we please, still more then half the charge, and on pretence of their Non-payment, or the least delay, do often stop their Ships, detain their Goods, and drag 'em into Prisons, while our Commodities go on before, and still forestall their Markets. Fisc. These I confess are pretty tricks, but will not do our business, we must our selves be ruin'd at long run, if they have any Trade here; I know our charge at length will eat us out; I wou'd not let these English from this Isle, have Cloves enough to stick an Orange with, not one to throw into their bottle-Ale. Harm. But to bring this about now, there's the cunning. Fisc. Let me alone a while, I have it as I told you here; mean time we must put on a seeming kindness, call 'em our Benefactors, and dear Brethren, pipe 'em within the danger of our Net, and then we'l draw it o're 'em: when they're in, no mercy, that's my maxime. Van Her. Nay, Brother, I am not too obstinate for saving ¡¡g Save a Thief from the Gallows] Q2, F; romans 55 i" th'] Qa, F, D; ith' Qi. 58 well, though;] Q1-2; F;

in Qi, D (save Qi). D.

Amboyna

13

English-men; 'twas but a qualme of conscience which profit will dispel: I have as true a Dutch Antipathy to England, as the proudest He in A msterdam, that's a bold word now. Harm. We are secure o£ our Superiors there; well, they may give the King of Great Brittain a Verbal satisfaction, and with submissive fawning promises, make show to punish us, but inter90 est is their God as well as ours: to that Almighty, they will sacrifice a thousand English Lives, and break a hundred thousand Oaths, e're they will punish those that make 'em rich, and pull their Rivals down. [Guns go off within. Van Her. Heard you those Guns? Harm. Most plainly. Fisc. T h e sound comes from the Port, some Ship arriv'd salutes the Castle, and I hope, brings more good news from Holland. [Guns again. Harm. Now they answer 'em from the Fortress. Enter Beamont and Collins. 100

Van Her. Beamont and Collins, English Merchants both, perhaps they'l certify us. Beam. Captain Harman Van Spelt, good-day to you. Harm. Dear, kind Mr. Beamont, a thousand and a thousand good-days to you, and all our friends the English. Fisc. Came you from the Port, Gentlemen? Coll. We did; and saw arrive, our honest, and our gallant Countreyman, brave Captain Gabriel Towerson. Beam. Sent to these parts from our Employers of the EastIndia Company in England, as General of the Voyage. 110 Fisc. Is the brave Towerson return'd? Coll. The same, Sir. Harm. He shall be nobly welcome. He has already spent twelve years upon, or near these rich Molucca Isles, and home return'd with honor and great wealth. Fisc. The Devil give him joy of both, or I will for him. [Aside. 105 Port] Q2, F, D; Port Qi.

Amboyna

14

Beam. Ternate, Van

He's m y particular Friend, I liv'd with him, both

Her.

D i d h e not leave a Mistress in these parts, a Native

of this I l a n d of 120

Col.

at

Tydore, and at Seran. Amboyna?

H e did, I think they call her

Ysabinda,

who receiv'd Bap-

tism for his sake, b e f o r e h e h e n c e departed.

Harm.

' T i s m u c h against the will of all h e r friends, she loves

y o u r C o u n t r y m a n , b u t they are n o t disposers o f h e r person; she's beauteous, rich, and young, and

Beam.

I think, without

flattery

Towerson

well deserves her.

to m y friend, h e does.

Were

I to chuse of all m a n k i n d , a M a n , o n w h o m I w o u l d relie for Faith and Counsel, or more, whose personal aid I wou'd invite,

Gabriel

in any worthy cause to second m e , it shou'd b e only

Towerson;

d a r i n g h e is, a n d t h e r e t o f o r t u n a t e : y e t s o f t a n d a p t

130 t o p i t t y t h e d i s t r e s s ' d ; a n d l i b e r a l t o r e l i e v e ' e m :

I have

seen

h i m n o t a l o n e to p a r d o n Foes, b u t b y his b o u n t y w i n ' e m to his l o v e : if h e has a n y f a u l t , 'tis o n l y t h a t , t o w h i c h g r e a t m i n d s c a n o n l y s u b j e c t b e , h e t h i n k s a l l h o n e s t , ' c a u s e h i m s e l f is s o , a n d therefore n o n e suspects.

Fisc. I Beamont

l i k e h i m w e l l f o r t h a t ; this f a u l t o f h i s g r e a t m i n d , as calls it, m a y give h i m c a u s e to wish h e was m o r e wary,

[Aside.

w h e n it shall b e too late.

Harm.

I was i n s o m e s m a l l h o p e , this S h i p h a d b e e n o f o u r

o w n C o u n t r e y , a n d b r o u g h t b a c k m y son. F o r m u c h a b o u t this 140 s e a s o n I e x p e c t h i m . G o o d m o r r o w G e n t l e m e n , I g o t o f i l l a B r e n d i c e to m y N o b l e C a p t a i n s health, pray tell h i m so; youth of Col.

our Amboyna,

the

I'll send before to welcome h i m .

W e ' l l stay, a n d m e e t h i m h e r e .

Beam.

[Exeunt I do not like these

and Dutchmen,

H a r m a n , Fiscal, fleering

Van

Herring.

they over act

their kindness. Col.

I k n o w n o t w h a t to t h i n k of 'em, that old fat

Harman van Spelt,

Governor

I h a v e k n o w n l o n g ; t h e y say h e was a C o o p e r

in his C o u n t r e y , a n d took the m e a s u r e of his H o o p s for by his own Belly: 129 140 144

Tuns,

I love h i m not, he makes a jest of m e n

thereto] Q2, F, D; there to Qi. him. Good] F, D; good Qi; good Qa. Dutchmen] Qa, F, D; Dutchmen Qi.

in

Amboyna i6o misery; the first fat merry fool I ever knew that was ill natur'd. Beam. He's absolutely govern'd by this Fiscal, who was as I have heard, an ignorant Advocate in Rotterdam, such as in England we call a Petty-fogging Rogue; one that knows nothing, but the worst part of the Law, its tricks and snares: I fear he hates us English mortally. Pray Heaven we feel not the effects o n ' t . Col. Neither he, nor Harman, will dare to shew their malice to us, now Towerson is come. For though 'tis true, we have no Castle here, he has an aw upon 'em in his worth, which they both fear and reverence. i6o Beam. I wish it so may prove, my mind is a bad Prophet to me, and what it does forebode of ill, it seldom fails to pay me. Here a comes. Col. And in his company, young Harman, Son to our Dutch Governor, I wonder how they met. 'Enter Towerson, Harman Junior, and a Skipper. Towers, entering to the Skipper. These Letters see convey'd with speed to our Plantations. This to Cambello, and to Hitto this, this other to Loho. Tell 'em their Friends in England greet 'em well; and when I left 'em, were in perfect health. Skip. Sir, you shall be obey'd. [Exit Skipper. 170 Beam. I heartily rejoyce that our employers have chose you for this place, a better choice they never cou'd have made, or for themselves, or me. Col. This I am sure of, that our English Factories, in all these parts have wisht you long the man, and none cou'd be so welcome to their hearts. Harm. Ju. And let me speak for my Countreymen the Dutch, I have heard my Father say, he's your sworn Brother: And this late accident at Sea, when you reliev'd me from the Pirats, and brought my Ship in safety off, I hope will well secure you of our i8o gratitude. Towers. You over-rate a little courtesie: In your deliverance 155 169 173

English] Q2, F, D; English Qi. [Exit Skipper] D; Skipper Qi; English] Qz, F, D; English Qi.

163 Dutch] Q2, F, D; Dutch Qi. Skipper Q2, F. 176 Dutch] Qa, F, D; Dutch Qi.

16

Amboyna

I, i

I did no more, then what I had my self from you expected: T h e common ties of our Religion, and those yet more particular of Peace, and strict Commerce, betwixt us and your Nation, exacted all I did, or could have done. To Beamont. For you my Friend, let me ne'er breathe our English air again; but I more joy to see you, then myself, to have escap'd the storm, that toss'd me long, doubling the Cape, and all the sultry heats, in passing twice the Line: For now I i9o have you here, methinks this happiness shou'd not be bought at a less price. Har. I'll leave you with your friends, my duty binds me to hasten to receive a Fathers blessing. [Exit Harman Junior. Beam. Y' are so much a friend, that I must tax you for being a slack lover. You have not yet enquir'd of Ysabinda. Towers. No, I durst not, Friend, I durst not, I love too well, and fear to know my doom; there's hope, in doubt, but yet I fixt my eyes on yours, I look'd with earnestness, and ask'd with them: If ought of ill had hapned, sure I had met it there; and 200 since, methinks, I did not, I have now recover'd courage, and resolve to urge it from you. Beam. Your Ysabinda then Towers. You have said all in that, my Ysabinda, if she still be so. Beam. Enjoys as much of health, as fear for you, and sorrow for your absence wou'd permit. [Musick within. Col. Heark, Musick I think approaching. Beam. 'Tis from our Factory; some sudden entertainment I believe design'd for your return. Enter Amboyners, Men and Women with before them. A Dance.

Timbrels

After the Dance, Enter Harman Senior, Harman Junior, Fiscal, and Van Herring. 187 English] Q2, F, D; English Q i . 188 Cape] Cape Q1-2, F, D. 209+ s.d. Amboyners] Q2, F, D; Amboyner'j Q i . 209+ s.d. After the Dance,] F; After the Dance, QI-2, D.

Amboyna

17

Harm. Sen. embracing Towerson. Oh my sworn Brother, my dear Captain Towerson; the man whom I love better then a stiff gale, when I am becalm'd at Sea; to whom, I have receiv'd the Sacrament, never to be false-hearted. Towers. You ne'er shall have occasion on my part: the like I promise for our Factories, while I continue here: This lie yields Spice enough for both; and Europe, Ports, and Chapmen, where to vend them. Har. Sen. It does, it does, we have enough, if we can be contented. 220 Towers. And Sir, why shou'd we not, what mean these endless jars of Trading Nations? 'tis true, the World was never large enough for Avarice or Ambition; but those who can be pleas'd with moderate gain, may have the ends of Nature, not to want: nay, even its Luxuries may be supply'd from her o'erflowing bounties in these parts: from whence she yearly sends Spices, and Gums, the Food of Heaven in Sacrifice: And besides these, her Gems of richest value, for Ornament, more then necessity. Har. Sen. You are i' th' right, we must be very friends, Ifaith we must, I have an old Dutch heart, as true and trusty as your 230 English Oke. Fisc. We never can forget the Patronage of your Elizabeth, of famous memory; when from the Yoke of Spain, and Alva's Pride, her potent Succors, and her well tim'd Bounty, freed us, and gave us credit in the World. Towers. For this we only ask a fair Commerce and Friendliness of Conversation here: and what our several Treaties bind us to, you shall, while Towerson lives, see so perform'd, as fits a Subject to an English King. Harm. Sen. Now by my faith you ask too little friend, we must 240 have more then bare Commerce betwixt us: receive me to your bosom, by this Beard I will never deceive you. Beam. I do not like his Oath, there's treachery in that Judas colour'd Beard. [Aside. 2x0

210 216 226 229 238

embracing] Qa, F, D; embracing Qi. where] F, D; were Q1-2. Sacrifice:] — Q1-2, F, D. Dutch] Q2, F, D; Dutch Qi. English] Q2, F, D; English Qi.

228 230 243

i' th"] Q2, F, D; ith' Qi. English] Q2, F, D; English Qi. Aside] Q2, F, D; aside Qi.

18

Amboyna

I, i

Fisc. Pray use me as your Servant. Van Her. And me too Captain. Tower. I receive you both as Jewels, which I'le wear in either Ear, and never part with you. Harm. Sen. I cannot do enough for him to whom I owe my Son. 250 Harm. Ju. Nor I, till fortune send me such another brave occasion of fighting so for you. Harm. Sen. Captain, very shortly, we must use your Head in a certain business, ha, ha, ha, my dear Captain. Fisc. We must use your Head indeed Sir. Tower. Sir, Command me, and take it as a debt I owe your Love. Harm. Sen. Talk not of Debt, for I must have your Heart. Van Her. Your Heart indeed, good Captain. Harm. Sen. You are weary now I know, Sea beat, and weary, 260 'tis time we respite further Ceremony; besides, I see one coming, whom I know you long to embrace, and I shou'd be unkind to keep you from her Arms. Enter Ysabinda and Julia. Ysabin. Do I hold my Love, do I embrace him, after a tedious absence of three years? are ye indeed return'd, are ye the same? do you still love your Ysabinda? speak before I ask you twenty questions more: for I have so much Love, and so much Joy: that if you do not love as well as I, I shall appear distracted. Towers. We meet then both out of our selves, for I am nothing else, but Love and Joy; and to take care of my discretion now, 270 wou'd make me much unworthy of that passion, to which you set no bounds. Ysab. How cou'd you be so long away? Towers. How can you think I was? I still was here, still with you, never absent in my mind. Harm. Jun. She's a most charming Creature, I wish I had not seen her. [Aside. Ysab. Now I shall love your God, because I see that he takes 873 was?] Q2, F, D;

Qi.

276 Aside] Q2, F, D; aside Q i .

Amboyna

19

care of Lovers: but my dear Englishman, I prithee let it be our last of absence, I cannot bear another parting from thee, nor 280 promise thee to live three other years, if thou again goest hence. Towers. I never will without you. Harm. Sen. I said before, we shou'd but trouble ye. Towers. You make me blush, but if you ever were a Lover, Sir, you will forgive a folly, which is sweet, though I confess, 'tis much extravagant. Harm. Jun. A has but too much cause for this excess of Joy, oh happy, happy Englishman, but I unfortunate. [Aside. Towers. Now when you please, lead on. Harm. Sen. This day you shall be feasted at the Castle, where 290 our Great Guns shall loudly speak your welcome. All signs of joy shall through the He be shown, Whilst in full Romers we our friendship crown. [Exeunt omnes.

ACT II. SCENE I. Enter Ysabinda, Harman Jun. Ysab. This to me, from you, against your friend? Harm. Have I not Eies, are you not fair? why does it seem so strange? Ysab. Come, 'tis a plot betwixt you: my Englishman is jealous, and has sent you to try my faith, he might have spar'd the experiment after a three years absence; that was a proof sufficient of my constancy. Harm. I heard him say he never had return'd, but that his Masters of the East-India Company, proffer'd him large condi10 tions. Ysab. You do belye him basely. 287 Aside] Q2, F, D; aside Qi. 291 lie] I'le Q i ; Isle Q2, F, D. 2 9 2 + s.d. [Exeunt] Q2, F, D; SCENE] Q2, F, D; Qi. s.d. Jun.] Qs, D; Jun. Q i , F .

289 A

Castle] Q2, F, D; Castle Qi.

~ Qi. 1

friend?] D;

Qi-2;

F.

Amboyna

so

Harm. As much as I do you, in saying you are fair; or as I do my self, when I declare I dye for you. Ysab. If this be earnest, you've done a most unmanly and ungrateful part, to court the intended Wife of him, to whom you are most oblig'd. Harm. Leave me to answer that: assure your self I love you violently, and if you are wise, you'l make some difference 'twixt Towerson and me. Ysab. Yes, I shall make a difference, but not to your advantage. Harm. You must, or falsify your knowledge; an Englishman, part Captain, and part Merchant; his Nation of declining interest here: consider this, and weigh against that fellow, not me, but any, the least and meanest Dutchman in this Isle. Ysab. I do not weigh by bulk: I know your Countreymen have the advantage there. Harm. Hold back your hand, from firming of your faith; you'l thank me in a little time, for staying you so kindly from embarking in his ruine. Ysab. His fortune is not so contemptible as you'd make it seem. Harm. Wait but one month for the event. Ysab. I will not wait one day, though I were sure to sink with him the next: so well I love my Towerson, I will not lose another Sun, for fear a shou'd not rise to morrow. For your self, pray rest assur'd, of all Mankind, you shou'd not be my choice, after an act of such ingratitude. Harm. You may repent your scorn at leisure. Ysab. Never, unless I married you. Enter Towerson. Towers. Now my dear Ysabinda, I dare pronounce my self most happy: since I have gain'd your Kindred, all difficulties cease. Ysab. I wish we find it so. Towers. Why, is ought happen'd since I saw you last? methinks a sadness dwells upon your Brow, like that I saw before my last 24

Isle] Qa, F, D; Isle Qi.

Amboyna

21

long absence. You do not speak: my friend dumb too? Nay then I fear some more then ordinary cause produces this. Harm. You have no reason Towerson to be sad, you are the happy man. Towers. If I have any, you must needs have some. Har. No, you are lov'd, and I am bid despair. Towers. Time, and your Services, will perhaps, make you as happy as I am in my Ysabinda's love. Harm. I thought I spoke so plain, I might be understood; but since I did not, I must tell you Towerson, I wear the Title of your friend no longer, because I am your Rival. Towers. Is this true Ysabinda? Ysab. I shou'd not, I confess, have told you first, because I wou'd not give you that disquiet; but since he has, it is too sad a truth. Towers. Leave us my Dear a little to our selves. Ysab. I fear you'l quarrel, for he seem'd incens'd, and threatened you with ruine. [To him aside. Towers. 'Tis to prevent an ill, which may be fatal to us both, that I wou'd speak with him. Ysab. Swear to me by your Love you will not fight. Towers. Fear not my Ysabinda; things are not grown to that extremity. Ysab. I leave you, but I doubt the consequence. [Exit Ysab. Towers. I want a name to call you by; Friend, you declare you are not, and to Rival, I am not yet enough accustom'd. Harm. Now I consider o n ' t , it shall be yet in your free choice, to call me, one or other; for, Towerson, I do not decline your Friendship, but then yield Ysabinda to me. Towers. Yield Ysabinda to you? Harm. Yes, and preserve the Blessing of my Friendship; I'le make my Father yours, your Factories shall be no more opprest, but thrive in all advantages with ours; your gain shall be beyond what you cou'd hope for from the Treaty: in all the Traffick of these Eastern parts, ye shall Towers. Hold, you mistake me Harman, I never gave you just 69

[Exit] Qa, F, D;

A

~ Qi.

70

by;] Q2, F, D;

Qi.

22

Amboyna

occasion to think I wou'd make Merchandise of Love; Ysabinda you know is mine, contracted to me e're I went for England, and must be so till death. Har. She must not Towerson; you know you are not strongest in these parts, and 'twill be ill contesting with your Masters. Towers. Our Masters? Harman you durst not once have nam'd that Word in any part of Europe. Har. Here I both dare and Will, you ha' no Castles in Amboyna. Towers. Though we have not, we yet have English Hearts and Courages, not to endure Affronts. Har. They may be try'd. Towers. Your Father sure will not maintain you in this Insolence, I know he is too honest. Har. Assure your self, he will Espouse my Quarrel. Towers. We wou'd complain to England. Har. Your Countrey Men have try'd that course so often, methinks they should grow wiser, and desist: but now there is no need of troubling any others but our selves; the sum of all is this, you either must Resign me Ysabinda, or instantly resolve, to clear your Title to her by your Sword. Towers. I will do neither now. Har. Then I'le believe you dare not fight me fairly. Towers. You know I durst have fought, though I am not vain enough to boast it, nor wou'd upbraid you with remembrance of it. Har. You destroy your benefit with Rehearsal of it, but that was in a Ship, back'd by your Men, single Duel is a fairer Tryal of your courage. Towers. I'm not to be provok'd out of my temper: here I am a Publick Person, intrusted by my King and my Employers, and shou'd I kill you Harman, Har. Oh never think you can, Sir. Towers. I shou'd betray my Countreymen to suffer not only worse Indignities, then those they have already born, but for ought I know, might give 'em up to general Imprisonment, perhaps betray them to a Massacre. Har. These are but pitiful and weak excuses, I'le force you

Amboyna

23

120 to confess you dare not fight, you shall ha' provocations. Towers. I will not stay to take 'em: Only this before I go, if you are truly Gallant, insult not where you have power, but keep your Quarrel secret, we may have time and place out of this Island: mean while, I go to Marry Ysabinda, that you shall see I dare: No more, follow me not an Inch beyond this place, no not an Inch, adieu. [Exit Towerson. Har. Thou goest to thy Grave, or I to mine. [Is going after him. Enter Fiscall. Fisc. Whither so fast Min Heer? Har. After that English Dog, whom I believe you saw. 130 Fisc. Whom, Towerson? Har. Yes, let me go, I'le have his blood. Fisc. Let me advise you first, you young Men are so violently hot. Har. I say I'le have his Blood. Fisc. T o have his Blood is not amiss, so far I go with you, but take me with you further for the means: first what's the injury? Har. Not to detain you with a tedious Story, I love his Mistriss, Courted her, was sleighted; into the heat of this he came, I offer'd him the best Advantages, he cou'd or to himself propose, or to 140 his Nation, would he quit her Love. Fisc. So far you are prudent, for she's exceeding rich. Har. He refus'd all, then I threaten'd him with my Fathers power. Fisc. That was unwisely done; your Father, underhand, may do a mischief, but 'tis too gross above board. Har. At last, nought else prevailing, I defy'd him to single Duel, this he refus'd, and I believe 'twas fear. Fisc. No, no, mistake him not, 'tis a stout Whorson, you did ill to press him, 'twill not sound well in Europe, He being here 150 a publick Minister; having no means of scaping shou'd he kill you, besides exposing all his Countrymen to a Revenge. 124 125

Ysabinda] Q2, F, D; Isabinda Qi. place,] Qa, D; ~ A Q i ; ~ „ F.

147

'twas] Q2, F, D; twas Qi.

24

Amboyna

Har. That's all one, I'm resolv'd I will pursue my course and Fight him. Fisc. Pursue your end, that's to enjoy the Woman, and her Wealth; I wou'd, like you, have Towerson dispatch'd; for as I am a true Dutchman, I do hate him, but I wou'd convey him smoothly out of the World, and without noise; they'le say we are Ingrateful else, in England, and barbarously cruel; now I could swallow down the thing Ingratitude, and the thing Murleo der, but the Names are odious. Har. What wou'd you have me do then? Fisc. Let him enjoy his Love a little while, 'twill break no squares, in the long run of a mans life; you shall have enough of her, and in convenient time. Har. I cannot bear he shou'd enjoy her first; no, 'tis determin'd; I will kill him bravely. Fisc. I, a right young Man's bravery, that's Folly: Let me alone, something I'le put in practice, to rid you of this Rival e're he Marries, without your once appearing in it. 170 Har. If I durst trust you now? Fisc. If you believe that I have Wit, or Love you. Har. Well Sir, you have prevail'd; be speedy; for once I will rely on you; farewell. [Exit Harman. Fisc. This hopeful business will be quickly spoil'd, if I not take exceeding care of it. Stay, Towerson to be kill'd and privately, that must be laid down as the groundwork, for stronger reasons then a young Man's Passion, but who shall do't? no English Man will, and much I fear, no Dutchman dares attempt it. Enter Perez. Well said, Ifaith old Devil let thee alone, when once a Man 180 is plotting Villany, to find him a fit Instrument. This Spanish 162 173 175 177 178 179 180 180

'twill] Q2, F, D; twill Qi. 165 'tis] farewell. . . . Harman] Qa, F, D; — . . . Harman Stay] begins a new paragraph in Qi-2, F; do't?] Q2, F, D; Qi. Dutchman] Q2, F, D; Dutchman Qi. Ifaith] X faith Qi; i'faith Q2, F, D. This] begins a new paragraph in Qi-2, F; Spanish] Q2, F, D; Spanish Qi.

Q2, F, D; tis Qi. Qi. ~ D.

~ D.

Amboyna

25

Captain, who commands our Slaves, is bold enough, and is beside in want, and proud enough to think he merits Wealth. Perez. This Fiscal loves my Wife, I'm jealous of him, and yet must speak him fair to get my Pay; Oh, there's the Devil for a Castilian, to stoop to one of his own Masters Rebels who has, or [Aside. who designs to Cuckold him. To Fiscal. I come to kiss your hand again Sir, six Months I am in arrear, I must not starve, and Spaniards cannot beg. Fisc. I've been a better Friend to you, then perhaps you think 190 Captain. Perez. I fear you have indeed. [Aside. Fisc. And faithfully sollicited your business; send but your Wife to morrow Morning early, the Money shall be ready. Perez. What if I come my self? Fisc. Why ye may have it if you come your self Captain, but in case your occasions shou'd call you any other way, you dare trust her to receive it. Perez. She has no skill in Money. Fisc. It shall be told into her hand, or given her upon honour, 200 in a lump; but Captain, you were saying you did want, now I shou'd think three hundred Dobloons wou'd do you no great harm; they'le serve to make you Merry on the Watch. Perez. Must they be told into my Wife's hand too? Fisc. No, those you may receive your self, if you dare Merit 'em. Perez. I am a Spaniard Sir, that implies Honour: I dare all that is possible. Fisc. Then you dare Kill a Man. Perez. So it be fairly. Fisc. But what if he will not be so civil to be kill'd that way? 210 He's a sturdy Fellow, I know you stout, and do not question your Valor; but I wou'd make sure work, and not endanger you who are my Friend. Perez. I fear the Governor will Execute me. 185 186 187 188 191 194

Castilian] Q2, F, D; Castilian Qi. Aside] Q2, F, D; aside Qi. Fiscal.] Qz, F, D; Qi. Spaniards] Q2, F, D; Spaniards Qi. Aside] Q2, F, D; aside Qi. self?] Q2, F, D; Qi.

204

your self] Q2, F, D; you self Qi.

26

Amboyna

Fisc. The Governor will thank you: 'tis he shall be your PayMaster; you shall have your Pardon drawn up before hand, and remember, no transitory Sum, three hundred Quadruples in your own Countrey Gold. Perez. Well, name your Man. Enter Julia. Fisc. Your Wife comes, take it in whisper. [They whisper. Jul. Yonder's my Master, and my Dutch Servant, how lovingly they talk in private; if I did not know my Don's temper to be monstrously jealous, I shou'd think, they were driving a secret Bargain for my Body; but Cuerno is not to be digested by my Castilian. Mi Mujer, my Wife and my Mistriss, a laies the Emphasis on me, as if to Cuckold him were a worse sin, then breaking the Commandment. If my English Lover Beamont, my Dutch Love the Fiscall, and my Spanish Husband, were Painted in a piece with me amongst 'em, they wou'd make a Pretty Emblem of the two Nations, that Cuckold his Catholick Majesty in his 2so Indies. Fisc. You'l undertake it then? Perez. I have served under Towerson as his Lieutenant, serv'd him well, and though I say't, bravely, yet ne're have been rewarded, though he promis'd largely; 'tis resolv'd, I'le do't. Fisc. And swear secresie. Perez. By this Beard. Fisc. Go wait upon the Governor from me, confer with him about it in my name, this Seal will give you credit. [Gives him his Seal. Perez. I go. [Goes a step or two, while the other approaches his Wife. 240 What shall I be, before I come again? [Going. Fisc. Now my fair Mistriss we shall have the opportunity which I have long desir'd. [To Julia. 220

220 824 226 231 240

Dutch] Q2, F, D; Dutch QI. Mujer] Moher Q i - 2 , D; Mother F. Dutch] Q2, F, D; Dutch QI. 250 Indies] Qg, F, D; Indi's Q i . fisc.] period failed to print in some copies of Qi. Going.] Exit. Q 1 - 2 , F, D.

Amboyna

27

Perez. The Governor is now a sleeping, this is his hour of afternoons repose, I'le go when he's awake. [Returning. Fisc. He slept early this afternoon, I left him newly wak'd. Perez. Well, I go then, but with an aking heart. [Exit. Fisc. So, at length he's gone. Jul. But you may find a was jealous by his delay. Fisc. If I were as you, I wou'd give evident proofs, shou'd cure 250 him of that disease for ever after. Enter Perez again. Perez. I have consider'd on't, and if you wou'd go along with me to the Governor, it wou'd do much better. Fisc. No, no, that wou'd make the matter more suspicious. The Devil take thee for an impertinent Cuckold. [Aside. Perez. Well I must go then. [Exit Perez. Jul. Nay there was never the like of him, but it sha'n't serve his turn, we'l Cuckold him most furiously. Enter Perez again. Per. I had forgot one thing, dear sweet heart go home quickly, and oversee our business, it wo'n't go forward without one of us. 280 Fisc. I warrant you, take no care of your business, leave it to me, I'le put it forward in your absence, go, go, you'l lose your opportunity; I'le be at home before you, and sup with you to night. Per. You shall be welcome, but Fisc. Three hundred Quadruples. Perez. That's true but Fisc. But three hundred Quadruples. Perez. The Devil take the Quadruples. Enter Beamont. Beam. There's my Cuckold that must be, and my fellow swager 254 Aside] Q2, F, D; aside Qi. 261 go, go,] D; Qi; Q2, F. 262 opportunity] Q2, F, D; oppportunity Qi. 269 There's] Q2, F, D; Ther's Qi.

28

Amboyna

270 the Dutchman, with my Mistriss, my Nose is wip'd to day, I must retire for the Spaniard is jealous of me. Perez. Oh Mr. Beamont, I'm to ask a favor of you. Beam. This is unusual, pray command it Sennor. Perez. I am going upon urgent business, pray sup with me to night, and in the mean time, bear my worthy friend here company. Beam. With all my heart. Perez. So, now I am secure; though I dare not trust her with one of 'em, I may with both; they'l hinder one another, and pre280 serve my honour into the bargain. Now for my Dobloons. [Exit. Beam. Now Mr. Fiscall, you are the happy Man with the Ladies, and have got the precedence of Traffick here too; you've the Indies in your Arms, yet I hope a poor English Man may come in for a third part of the Merchandise. Fisc. Oh Sir, in these Commodities, here's enough for both, here's Mace for you, and Nutmegg for me in the same Fruit; and yet the owner has to spare for other friends too. Jul. My Husbands Plantation's like to thrive well betwixt you. Beam. Horn him, he deserves not so much happiness as he 29o enjoyes in you; he's jealous. Jul. 'Tis no wonder if a Spaniard looks yellow. Beam. Betwixt you and me; 'tis a little kind of venture, that we make in doing this Dons drudgery for him; for the whole Nation of 'em is generally so Pocky, that 'tis no longer a Disease, but a second nature in 'em. [Aside to Fisc. Fisc. I have heard indeed, that 'tis incorporated among 'em, as deeply as the Moors and Jews are; there's scarce a Family, but 'tis crept into their blood like the new Christians. [To Beam. Jul. Come I'le have no whispering betwixt you, I know you soo were talking of my Husband, because my Nose itches. 270 Dutchman] Q2, F, D; Dutchman Q i . 283 Indies] Q2, F, D; Indie's Q i . 283 English Man] English Man Q i ; Englishman Q2, F, D. 291 Spaniard] Q2, F, D; Spaniard Q i . 295 Aside to Fisc.] omitted from Qi-2, F, D. 297 Moors and Jews] Q2, F; Moors and Jews Q i , D. 297 are;] Qi-2, F, D. 298 To Beam.] omitted from Q1-2, F, D.

Amboyna

29

Beam. Faith Madam, I was speaking in favor of your Nation: what pleasant lives I have known Spaniards to live in England. Jul. If you love me, let me hear a little. Beam. W e observ'd 'em to have much of the nature of our Flies, they buz'd abroad a Month or two i' th' Summer, wou d venture about Dog dayes to take the Air in the Park, but all the Winter slept like Dormice, and if ever they appear'd in publick after Michaelmass, their Faces shew'd the difference betwixt their Countrey and ours, for they look in Spain as if they were Roasted, 8io and in England as if they were Sodden. Julia. I'le not believe your description. Fisc. Yet our observations of 'em in Holland, are not much unlike it; I've known a great Don at the Hague, with the Gentleman of his Horse, his Major Domo, and two Secretaryes, all Dine at four several Tables, on the Quarters of a single Pullet: the Victuals of the under Servants were weigh'd out in ounces, by the Don himself; with so much Garlike in the other Scale: a thin slice of Bacon, went through the Family a week together: for it was daily put into the Pot for Pottage; was serv'd in the midst 82o of the Dish at Dinners, and taken out and weigh'd by the Steward, at the end of every Meal to see how much it lost; till at length, looking at it against the Sun, it appear'd transparent, and then he wou'd have whip'd it up, as his own Fees, at a Morsel; but that his Lord barr'd the Dice, and reckon'd it to him for a part of his Board Wages. Beam. In few words Madam, the general Notion we had of 'em, was, that they were very frugal of their Spanish Coyn, and very liberal of their Neapolitane. Julia. I see Gentlemen, you are in the way of Rallying; there33o fore let me be no hind'rance to your sport; do as much for one another, as you have done for our Nation. Pray Min Heer Fiscal, what think you of the Englishf Fisc. Oh, I have an Honour for the Countrey. 324 328 332 332

barr'd] Q2, F; bar'd Q i , D. 327 Neapolitane] Q2, F, D; Neapolitane Q i . Min Heer] Min Heer Q1-2, F, D . English?] Q2, F, D; Qi.

Spanish] Qz, F, D; Spanish Q i .

Amboyna Beam. I beseech you leave your ceremony, we can hear of our faults without choller, therefore speak of us with a true A msterdam spirit, and do not spare us. Fisc. Since you command me, Sir, 'tis said of you, I know not how truly, that for your Fishery at home, you're like Dogs in the Manger, you will neither manage it your selves, nor permit your 340 neighbors; so that for your Soveraignty of the Narrow Seas, if the Inhabitants of 'em, the Herrings, were capable of being Judges, they wou'd certainly award it to the English, because they were then sure to live undisturb'd, and quiet under you. Beam. Very good, proceed, Sir. Fisc. 'Tis true, you gave us aid in our time of need, but you paid your selves with our Cautionary Towns: and that you have since deliver'd them up, we can never give sufficient commendation, either to your Honesty, or to your Wit; For both which qualities, you have purchas'd such an immortal Fame, that all 360 Nations are instructed, how to deal with you another time. Beam. A most grateful acknowledgment, sweet Sir, go on. Fisc. For your Trade abroad, if you shou'd obtain it, you are so horribly expensive, that you wou'd undo your selves and all Christendome: for you wou'd sink under your very profit, and the gains of the Universal World wou'd beggar you: you devour a Voyage to the Indies, by the Multitude of Mouths with which you Man your Vessels: providence has contriv'd it well, that the Indies are Manag'd by us, an Industrious and frugal people, who distribute its Merchandise to the rest of Europe, and suffer it 36o not to be consum'd in England, that the other members might be starv'd, while you of Great Brittaine, as you call it, like a Rickety head, wou'd only swell and grow bigger by it. Jul. I have heard enough of England; have you nothing to return upon the Neatherlands? Beam. Faith very little, to any purpose; he has been before hand with us, as his Countrey-men are in their Trade, and taken up so many vices for the use of England, that a has left almost none for the Low Countreys. 338 356

you're] Q2, F, D; you'r Qi. Indies] Qs, F, D; Indi's Qi.

358

Indies] Q2, F, D; Indi's Qi.

Amboyna

Si

Jul. Come a word however. Beam. In the first place you shew'd your ambition, when you began to be a State: for not being Gentlemen, you have stollen the Arms of the best Families of Europe; and wanting a name, you made bold with the first of the divine Attributes; and call'd your selves the HIGH and MIGHTY: though, let me tell you, that, besides the Blasphemy, the Title is ridiculous; for HIGH is no more proper for the Neatherlands, then MIGHTY is for seven little rascally Provinces, no bigger in all than a Shire in England. For my main Theam, your Ingratitude, you have in part acknowledg'd it, by your laughing at our easy delivery of 380 your Cautionary Towns: the best is, we are us'd by you, as well as your own Princes of the House of Orange, We and They have set you up, and you undermine their Power, and circumvent our Trade. Fisc. And good reason, if our interest requires it. Beam. That leads me to your Religion, which is only made up of Interest: at home, ye tolerate all Worships, in them who can pay for it; and abroad, you were lately so civil to the Emperor of Pegu, as to do open sacrifice to his Idols. Fisc. Yes, and by the same token you English were such precise 390 fools as to refuse it. Beam. For frugality in Trading, we confess we cannot compare with you; for our Merchants live like Noblemen: your Gentlemen, if you have any, live like Bores; you traffick for all the rarities of the World, and dare use none of 'em your selves; so that in effect, you are the Mill-Horses of Mankind, that labor only for the wretched Provender you eat: a pot of Butter and a pickl'd Herring is all your Riches; and in short, you have a good Title to cheat all Europe, because in the first place, you cosen your own Backs and Bellies. 400 Fisc. We may enjoy more when e're we please. Beam. Your liberty is a grosser cheat then any of the rest; for you are ten times more Tax'd, then any People in Christendom: you never keep any League with Forreign Princes: you flatter our Kings, and ruine their Subjects: you never deny'd us satisfaction at home for injuries, nor ever gave it us abroad. 370

32

Amboyna

Fisc. You must make your selves more fear'd when you expect it. Beam. And I prophesie that time will come, when some generous Monarch of our Island, will undertake our quarrel, re410 assume the Fishery of our Seas, and make them as considerable to the English, as the Indies are to you. Fisc. Before that comes to pass, you may repent your over lavish tongue. Beam. I was no more in earnest then you were. Jul. Pray let this go no further, my Husband has invited both to supper. Beam. If you please, I'le fall to before he comes, or at least while he is conferring in private with the Fiscal. [Aside to her. Jul. Their private businesses let them agree, 420 T h e Dutch for him, the Englishman for me. [Exeunt. A C T III. SCENE I. Enter Perez. Perez. True, the Reward propos'd is great enough, I want it too, besides this Englishman has never paid me, since, as his Lieutenant, I serv'd him once against the Turk at Sea, yet he confess'd I did my duty well, when twice I clear'd our Decks; he has long promis'd me, but what are promises to starving Men? this is his House, he may walk out this morning. Enter a Page and another Servant, walking seeing him.

by, not

These belong to him, I'le hide till they are past. Ser. He sleeps soundly for a Man who is to be marry'd when he wakes. 407 it.] period failed to print in some copies of Qi. 418 Aside] Q2, F, D; aside Qi. 420 Dutch ... [Exeunt] Q2, F, D; Dutch . . . Qi. 5 Men?] Q2, F, D; Qi.

Ill, ii

Amboyna

35

10

Page. He do's well to take his time, for he do's not know when he's Marry'd, whether ever he shall have a sound sleep again. Ser. He bid we shou'd not wake him, but some of us in good manners shou'd have stayd, and not have left him quite alone. Page. In good manners, I shou'd indeed, but I'le venture a Masters anger at any time for a Mistriss, and that's my case at present. Serv. I'le tempt as great a danger as that comes to, for good old English fellowship; I am invited to a mornings draught. Page. Good morrow Brother, good morrow; by that time you 20 have fill'd your Belly, and I have emptied mine, it will be time to meet at home again. [Exeunt severally. Perez. So, this makes well for my design, He's left alone, unguarded and asleep: Satan, thou art a bounteous friend, and liberal of occasions to do mischief, my pardon I have ready if I am taken, my Money half before hand; up Perez, rouze thy Spanish courage up, if he shou'd wake, I think I dare attempt him, then my revenge is nobler, and revenge, to injur'd Men is full as sweet as profit. [Exit.

SCENE II. The Scene drawn, discovers Towerson asleep on a Couch in his Night-Gown. A Table by him, Pen, Ink, and Paper on it. Re-enter Perez with a Dagger. Perez. Asleep as I imagin'd, and as fast, as all the Plummets of eternal night were hung upon his Temples: oh that some courteous Dcemon in the other world, wou'd let him know, 'twas Perez sent him thither: a Paper by him too, he little thinks it is his Testament, the last he e're shall make: I'le read it first. [Takes it up. 14 manners] Q2, F, D; maners Qi. 28 [Exit.] Qz, D; A — Q i ; F omits, s.d. Scene] Scene Q i - a , F, D. 5 + s.d. Takes] Q2, F, D; takes Q i .

21 [Exeunt] Q2, F, D; Qi. S C E N E II.] omitted from Qi-2, F, D.

54

Amboyna

I I I , ii

Oh by the Inscription, 'tis a memorial of what he means to do this day: what's here? my name in the first line? I'le read it. [Reads. Memorandum, That my first action this morning shall be to find out my true and valiant Lieutenant, Captain Perez, and as a testimony of my gratitude for his honourable Service to bestow on him five hundred English pounds, making my just excuse, I had it not before within my power to reward him. [Lays down the paper. And was it then for this I sought his life? oh base degenerate Spaniard, hadst thou done it, thou hadst been worse then damn'd; Heav'n took more care of me, then I of him, to expose this paper to my timely view. Sleep on thou Honourable Englishman, I'le sooner now, pierce my own breast then thine; see, he smiles too in his slumber, as if his Guardian Angel in a dream, told him, he was secure; I'le give him warning, though, to prevent danger from another hand. [Writes on Towerson'5 Paper, then sticks his Dagger in it. Stick there, that when he wakens he may know, T o his own Vertue he his Life do's owe. [Exit Perez. [Towerson awakens. Towers. I have o'reslept my hour this morning, if to enjoy a pleasing dream, can be to sleep too long: me thought my dear Ysabinda and my self, were lying in an Arbor, wreath'd about with Myrtle and with Cypress; my Rival Harman reconcil'd again to his friendship, strew'd us with Flowers, and put on each a Crimson colour'd Garment, in which we straight way mounted to the Skies, and with us, many of my English friends, all clad in the same Robes: if dreams have any meaning, sure this portends some good What's that I see, a Dagger stuck into the paper of my Memorials? and writ below, Thy Vertue sav'd thy life; it seems some one has been within my chamber whilst I slept; something of conseqence hangs upon this accident: what 7+ 12+ 13 13 21

s.d. Reads] Q2, F, D; reads Qi. 12 before] F, D; Q1-2. s.d. Lays down the paper] tomans in (¿1-2, F, D (lays Qi). And] as in (¿2, F; not indented in Qi, D. life?] Q2, F, D; Qi. 19 though,] F, D; Q1-2. may] Qi (corrected state), Q2, F, D; may may Qi (uncorrected state).

Ill, ii ho, who waits without? what hoi

Amboyna

35

None answer me: are ye all dead?

Enter Beamont. Beam. How is it friend? I thought entring your House, I heard you call. Towers. I did, but as it seems without effect, none of my Servants are within reach of my voice. Beam. You seem amaz'd at somewhat! Towers. A little discompos'd: read that, and see if I have no occasion, that Dagger was stuck there, by him who writ it. Beam. I must confess you have too just a cause: I am my self surpriz'd at an event so strange. Towers. I know not who can be my Enemy within this Island, except my Rival Harman, and for him, I truly did relate, what pass'd betwixt us yesterday. Beam. You bore your self in that as it became you, as one who was a witness to himself of his own courage, and while by necessary care of others, you were forc'd to decline fighting, shew'd how much you did despise the Man who sought the quarrel: 'twas base in him, so back'd as he is here, to offer it, much more to press you to it. Towers. I may find a foot of ground in Europe, to tell the insulting Youth, he better had provok'd some other Man, but sure I cannot think 'twas he, who left that Dagger there. Beam. No, for it seems too great a Nobleness of Spirit, for one like him to practice: 'twas certainly an Enemy, who came to take your sleeping life; but thus to leave unfinish'd the designe, proclaims the act no Dutchman's. Towers. That, time will best discover, l i e think no further of it. Beam. I confess you have more pleasing thoughts to employ 35 37 6i

without? ] ~A Qi—2, F, D. friend?] Qa, F, D; Qi. act no Dutchman's] D; act. No Dutchman QI-2, F.

36

Amboyna

III, ii

your mind at present; I left your Bride just ready for the Temple, and came to call you to her. Towers. I'le straight attend you thither. Enter Harman senior, Fiscal, and Van Herring. Fisc. Remember, Sir, what I advis'd you; you must seemingly make up the business. [To Harman. Harm. I warrant you. What my brave bonny Bridegroom, not yet drest? you are a lazy Lover, I must chide you. [To Towerson. Towerson. I was just preparing. Harm. I must prevent part of the Ceremony: you thought to go to her, she is by this time at the Castle, where she is invited with our common friends; for you shall give me leave, if you so please, to entertain you both. Towers. I have some reasons, why I must refuse the Honor you intend me. Harm. You must have none; what my old friend steal a Wedding from me? In troth you wrong our friendship. Beam, to him aside. Sir, go not to the Castle, you cannot in Honour accept an invitation from the Father, after an affront from the Son. Towers. Once more I beg your pardon, Sir. Harm. Come, come, I know your reason of refusal, but it must not prevail; My Son has been to blame, I'le not maintain him in the least neglect, which he shou'd show to any Englishman, much less to you, the best, and most esteem'd of all my friends. Towers. I shou'd be willing, Sir, to think it was a young Mans rashness, or perhaps the Rage of a successless Rival, yet he might have spar'd some words. Harm. Friend, he shall ask your pardon, or I'le no longer own him; what, ungrateful to a Man, whose Valour has preserv'd him? he shall d o ' t , he shall indeed, I'le make you friends upon 67+ s.d. senior] Qa, D; senior Q i , F. 70 you ] ~ . A Q1-2, F, D. 71 drest?] F; Qi; Qa; D.

74,81

Castle] Q2, F; Castle Q i , D.

I l l , ii

Amboyna

37

your own conditions, he's at the door, pray let him be admitted: this is a day of general Jubilee. Towers. You Command here, you know Sir. Fisc. I'le call him in, I am sure he will be proud at any rate to redeem your kind opinion of him. [Exit Fiscal, and re-enters with Harman junior. 100 Harm. Jun. Sir, my Father, I hope, has in part satisfy'd you, that what I spoke, was only an effect of sudden passion, of which I am now asham'd, and desire it may be no longer lodg'd in your remembrance, then it is now in my intention to do you any injury. Towers. Your Father may Command me to more difficult employments, then to receive the friendship of a Man, of whom I did not willingly embrace an ill opinion. Harm. Jun. Nothing hence-forward, shall have power to take from me that happiness, in which you are so generously pleas'd no to reinstate me. Harm. Sen. Why this is as it shou'd be, trust me I weep for joy. Beam. Towerson is easy, and too credulous. I fear 'tis all dissembl'd on their parts. [Aside. Harm. Sen. Now set we forward to the Castle, the Bride is there before us. Towers. Sir, I wait you. [Exeunt Harman Sen. Towerson, Beamont and Van Herring. Enter Captain Perez. Fisc. Now Captain, when perform you what you promis'd concerning Towerson's death? Perez. Never There Iudas, take your hire of blood again. [Throws him a Purse. 120 Harm. Jun. Your reason for this suddain change. 96 Jubilee] Jubilee Q 1 - 2 , F, D. 9 9 + s.d. junior] Q2, D; junior Qi, F. 1 1 0 me.] Q2, F, D; me. [Exeunt. Qi. 1 1 4 Castle] Q2, F; Castle Q i . D . 1 1 6 + s.d. Exeunt] Q2, F, D; Exeunt Qi. 1 1 6 + s.d. Sen.] Q2, D; Sen. Qi, F.

99+ 113

s.d.

[Exit] Q2, F, D;

Aside] Q2, F, D; aside Q i .

Qi.

3»

Amboyna

III, ii

Perez. I cannot own the name of Man and d o ' t . Harm. Jun. Your Head shall answer the neglect of what you were Commanded. Perez. If it must, I cannot shun my destiny. Fisc. Harman, you are too rash, pray hear his reasons first. Perez. I have 'em to my self, I'le give you none. Fis. None? that's hard; well, you can be secret Captain, for your own sake I hope. Perez. That I have sworn already, my oath binds me. 130 Fisc. That's enough: we have now chang'd our minds, and do not wish his death, at least as you shall know. [Aside. Perez. I am glad o n ' t , for he's a brave and worthy Gentleman, I wou'd not for the wealth of both the Indies, have had his Blood upon my Soul to answer. Fisc. aside to Harman. I shall find a time to take back our secret from him, at the price of his life, when he least dreams of it; mean time 'tis fit we speak him fair. [To Perez. Captain, a reward attend you greater then you cou'd hope, we only meant to try your honesty. I am more then satisfy'd of your 140 reasons. Perez. I still shall labour to deserve your kindness in any honourable way. [Exit Perez. Harm. I told you that this Spaniard had not courage enough for such an enterprize. Fisc. He rather had too much of honesty. Harm. Oh you have ruin'd me, you promis'd me this day, the death of Towerson, and now instead of that, I see him happy; I'le go and fight him yet, I swear he never shall enjoy her. Fisc. He sha' not, that I swear with you, but you are too rash; I» the business never can be done your way. Harm. I'le trust no other Arm but my own in it. Fisc. Yes, mine you shall, I'le help you, this evening as he goes from the Castle, we'l find some way to meet him in the dark, 121 131 131 142 149 153

do't.] Qa, F, D; ~ ~ A Qi. 187 None?] D; Q i - 2 , F. death, ] ~ , A Qi, D; ~ ; A Q2, F. Aside] Qz, F, D; aside Qi. 135 Harman] D; Harman Q1-2, F. [£xt' 3 9 Jun.] F, D ; Jun. Q I - 2 . 44 Mistriss.] Q I - 2 , F, D. 45 Jun.] F, D; Jun. Q I - 2 . 50 Dutchman] Q2, F , D; Dutchman Q i .

I V , iv

Amboyna

53

us in Asia; Heathens have no Hell. Tell me, How was't? Prithee the History. Harm. I forc'd her What resistance She cou'd make she did, but 'twas in vain; I bound her as I told you to a tree. Fisc. And she exclaim'd I warrant Harm. Yes, and call'd Heaven and Earth to witness. Fisc. Not after it was done. Harm. More then before Desir'd me to have kill'd her. Even when I had not left her power to speak, she curst me with her eyes. Fisc. Nay, then, you did not please her; if you had, she ne're had curs'd you heartily; but, we lose time: since you have done this action, 'tis necessary you proceed; we must have no tales told. Harm. What do you mean? Fisc. T o dispatch her immediately; Cou'd you be so senceless to ravish her, and let her live? What if her Husband shou'd have found her? What if any other English? Come there's no dallying; It must be done: My other plot is ripe, which shall destroy 'em all to morrow. Harm. I love her still to Madness, and never can consent to have her kill'd, wee'l thence remove her if you please, and keep her safe till your intended Plot shall take effect; And, when her Husband's gone, I'le win her Love by every circumstance of kindness. Fisc. You may do so; but, t'other is the safer way: but I'le not stand with you for one life. I cou'd have wish'd that Towerson had been kill'd before I had proceeded to my plot; but, since it cannot be, we must go on; Conduct me where you left her. Harm. Oh that I cou'd forget both Act and Place. [Exeunt. 60 tree.] Qz, F, D;

Qi.

54

Amboyna

S C E N E V. Scene Drawn discovers Ysabinda Enter

bound.

Towerson.

Towers. Sure I mistook the place, I'le waite no longer, something within me does forebode me ill; I stumbled when I enter'd first this Wood: My Nostrills bled three drops: then stop'd the Blood, and not one more wou'd follow. [Sees Ysabinda. What's that which seems to bear a Mortal shape, yet neither stirs nor speaks? or, Is it some Illusion of the Night? some Spectre, such as in these Asian parts more frequently appear? What e're it be I'le venture to approach it; My Ysabinda Bound and Gagg'd! [Goes near. Ye Powers I tremble while I free her, and scarce dare restore her liberty of Speech for fear of knowing more. [Unbinds her, and ungaggs her. Ysab. No longer Bridegroom thou, nor I a Bride; those names are vanish'd; Love is now no more; Look on me as thou wou'dst on some foul Leaper; and do not touch me: I am all polluted, all shame, all o're dishonour; fly my sight, and, for my sake, fly this detested Isle, where horrid Ills so black and fatal dwell, as Indians cou'd not guess, till Europe taught. Towers. Speak plainer, I am recollected now: I know I am a Man, the sport of fate; Yet, Oh my better half, had Heaven so pleas'd, I had been more content, to suffer in my self then thee. Ysab. What shall I say? T h a t Monster of a Man, Harman; now I have nam'd him, think the rest. Alone, and singl'd like a tim'rous Hind from the full Herd, by flattery drew me first, then forc'd me to an Act, so base and Brutall, Heaven knows my InSCENE V.] omitted from Q1-2, F, D. s.d. bound.] Q2, F, D; QI. 6 speaks?] 7 appear?] Qi-2, F, D. 1 1 + s.d. ungaggs] QG, F, D; Ungagg's QI. i i say?] Q1-2, F, D.

Q1-2, F, D.

T O W E R S O N LOOSES YSABINDA ( A C T V , SCENE V)

FROM The Dramatic

Works of John Dryden, Esq. (1735)

Amboyna

IV, v

55

nocence: but, Why do I call that to Witness? Heaven saw, stood silent: Not one flash of Lightning shot from the Conscious Firmament to shew its Justice: Oh had it struck us both, it had sav'd mel Towers. Heaven suffer'd more in that then you, or I: Wherefore have I been faithful to my trust, true to my Love, and tender to th' opprest? A m I condemn'd to be the second man, who e'r complain'd, he vertue serv'd in vain? But dry your tears, these sufferings all are mine. Your breast is white, and cold as falling Snow: You still as fragrant as your Eastern Groves; and your whole frame as innocent, and holy, as if your being were all soul and spirit, without the gross allay of flesh and bloud. Come to my arms again. Ysab. Oh never, never, I am not worthy now; My soul indeed is free from sin, but the foul speckled stains are from my body ne'r to be wash'd out, but in my death. Kill me, my Love, or I must kill my self; else you may think I was a black Adulteress in my mind, and some of me consented. Towers. Your wish to die, shews you deserve to live. I have proclam'd you guiltless to my self. Self-homicide, which was in Heathens honour, in us is onely sin. Ysab. I thought th' Eternal Mind had made us Masters of these mortal frames; you told me he had given us wills to choose, and reason to direct us in our choice; if so, why should he tie us up from dying, when death's the greater good? Towers. Can death, which is our greatest enemy, be good? Death is the dissolution of our nature; and nature therefore does abhor it most, whose greatest Law is to preserve our beings. Ysab. I grant, it is its great and general Law: But as Kings, who are, or should be above Laws, dispence with 'em when levell'd at themselves; Even so may man, without offence to Heaven, dispence with what concerns himself alone: Nor is death in it self an ill; then holy Martyrs sin'd, who ran uncall'd to snatch their Martyrdom: And blessed Virgins, whom you celebrate for voluntary death, to free themselves from that which I have suffer'd. 85

Witness?]

Q1-2, F, D.

34

Snow:] — Q1-2, F, D.

Amboyna

56

Towers. They did it to prevent what might ensue; your shame's already past. Ysab. It may return, if I am yet so mean to live a little longer. Towers. You know not, Heaven may give you succour yet; you see it sends me to you. Ysab. 'Tis too late, you shou'd have come before. Towers. Yet you may live to see your self reveng'd. Come, you shall stay for that, then I'le die with you. You have convinc'd my reason, nor am I asham'd to learn from you. T o Heavens Tribunal my appeal I make; if as a Governor he sets me here, to guard this weak built Cittadel of Life, when 'tis no longer to be held, I may with honour quit the Fort. But first I'll both revenge my self and you. Ysab. Alas, you cannot take revenge, your Countreymen are few, and those unarm'd. Towers. Though not on all the Nation, as I wou'd; yet I at least can take it on the man. Ysab. Leave me to Heaven's revenge, for thither I will go, and plead my self my own just cause. There's not an injur'd Saint of all my Sex, but kindly will conduct me to my Judge, and help me tell my story. Towers. I'l send th' offender first, though, to that place he never can arrive: ten thousand Devils damn'd for less crimes then he, and Tarquin in their head, way-lay his Soul, to pull him down in triumph, and to shew him in pomp among his Countrey-men; for sure Hell has its Nether-lands, and its lowest Countrey must be their lot. Enter Harman Junior, and Fiscal. Harm. 'Twas hereabout I left her ty'd. T h e rage of Love renews again within me. Fisc. She'l like th' effects o n ' t better now. By this time it has sunk into her imagination, and given her a more pleasing Idea of the man, who offer'd her so sweet a violence. Ysab. Save me, sweet Heaven, the Monster comes again. 67 Come,] Qz, F;

Qi, D.

82 though,] ~ A Qi-a, F, D.

IV, v

Amboyna

57

Harm. Oh here she is: My own fair Bride, for so you are, not Towerson's: Let me unbind you; I expect that you should bind your self about me now, and tie me in your arms. Towers, [drawing.] No, Villain, no; hot Satyr of the Woods! Expect another entertainment now. Behold revenge for injur'd chastity, this Sword Heaven draws against thee, and here has 100 plac'd me like a fiery Cherub, to guard this Paradice from any second Violation. Fisc. We must dispatch him, Sir, we have the odds; and when he is kill'd, leave me to invent the excuse. Harm. Hold a little: As you shun'd fighting formerly with me, so wou'd I now with you. The mischiefs I have done are past recall. Yield then your useless right in her I love, since the possession is no longer yours; so is your Honour safe, and so is hers, the Husband onely alter'd. Towers. Ye trifle, there's no room for treaty here: The shame's no too open, and the wrong too great. Now all the Saints in Heaven look down to see the Justice I shall do, for 'tis their cause; and all the Fiends below prepare thy Tortures. Ysab. If Towerson wou'd, think'st thou my soul so poor to own thy sin, and make the base act mine, by choosing him who did it? Know, bad man, I'l die with him, but never live with thee. Towers. Prepare, I shall suspect you stay for further help, and think not this enough. Fisc. We are ready for you. Harm. Stand back, I'l fight with him alone. 120 Fisc. Thank you for that; so if he kills you, I shall have him single upon me. [A 11 three fight. Ysab. Heaven assist my Love. Harm. There, Englishman, 'twas meant well to thy heart. [Towerson wounded. Fisc. Oh you can bleed, I see, for all your cause. Towers. Wounds but awaken English courages. Harm. Yet yield me Ysabinda, and be safe. Towers. I'l fight my self all scarlet o'r first; were there no love, or no revenge, I cou'd not now desist in point of honour. 97

drawing,] Qa, F, D {

Qit

log

Towers.] Qa, F, D; ~ A Qi.

58

Amboyna

Harm. Resolve me first one question, Did you not draw your sword this night before, to rescue one opprest with odds? Towers. Yes, in this very Wood: I bear a Ring, the badge o£ gratitude from him I sav'd. Harm. T h a t Ring was mine; I shou'd be loth to kill the frank redeemer of my life. Towers. I quit that obligation. But we lose time. Come, Ravisher. [They fight again, Towerson closes with Harman and gets him down; as he is going to kill him, the Fiscal gets over him. Fisc. Hold, and let him rise; for if you kill him, at the same instant you die too. Towers. Dog, do thy worst, for I would so be kill'd; I'l carry his soul captive with me into the other world. [Stabs Harman. Harm. Oh mercy, mercy, Heaven. [Dies. Fisc. T a k e this then in return. [As he's going to stab him, Ysabinda takes hold of his hand. Ysab. Hold, hold, the weak may give some help. Towers, (rising.) Now, Sir, I am for you. Fisc. (retiring.) Hold, Sir, there is no more resistance made, I beg you by the honour of your Nation, do not pursue my life, I tender you my sword. [Holds his sword by the point to him. Towers. Base beyond example of any Countrey, but thy own. Ysab. Kill him, sweet Love, or we shall both repent it. Fisc. (kneeling to her.) Divinest Beautyl abstract of all that's excellent in Woman, can you be friend to murder? Ysab. 'Tis none to kill a Villain, and a Dutchman. Fisc. (kneeling to Towers.) Noble Englishman, give me my life, unworthy of your taking. By all that's good and holy here I swear, before the Governour to plead your cause; and to declare his son's detested crime, so to secure your lives. Towers. Rise, take thy life, though I can scarce believe thee; if for a coward it be possible, become an honest man.

141 144 150

Heaven. [Dies] Q2, F, D; Heaven, rising.] Q2, F, D; QI. her.] Q2, F, D; QI.

[dies Qi. 145 153

retiring.] Q2, F, D; ~ A QI. Towers.] D; Towers. Q1-2, F.

Amboyna

59

Enter Harman senior, Van Herring, Beamont, Collins, Julia, the Governors Guard. Fisc. to Harm. Oh Sir, you come in time to rescue me; the wo greatest Villain who this day draws breath stands here before your Eies; behold your Son, that Worthy, Sweet, unfortunate young Man lies there, the last cold breath yet hovering betwixt his trembling Lips. Towers. Oh Monster of Ingratitude 1 Harm. Oh my unfortunate old age, whose prop, and only staff is gone, dead e're I dye, these shou'd have been his tears, and I have been that Body to be mourn'd. Beam. I am so much amaz'd, I scarce believe my Senses. Fisc. And will you let him live, who did this Act? shall Mur170 der, and of your own Son, and such a Son go free? he lives too long by this one Minute which he stays behind him. Ysab. Oh Sir, remember, in that place you hold, you are a common Father to us all; we beg but justice of you; hearken first to my lamented story. Fisc. First hear me, Sir. Towers. Thee slave? thou liv'st but by the breath I gave thee. Didst thou but now plead on thy knees for life; and offer'dst to make known my innocence in Harman's injuries? Fisc. I offer'd to have clear'd thy innocence who basely mur180 der'd him? but words are needless; Sir, you see evidence before your eies, and I the witness, on my oath to Heaven how clear your Son, how criminal this Man. Coll. Towerson cou'd do nothing but what was noble. Beam. We know his Native worth. Fisc. His Worth? behold it on the Murderers hand, a Robber first, he took degrees in mischief, and grew to what he is: know you that Diamond, and whose it was? see if he dares deny't. Towers. Sir, 'twas your Sons, that freely I acknowledge; but how I came by it 158+ s.d. senior] Qj, D; senior Qi, F. 159 to Harm.] Qa, F, D; to Harm. Qi. 176 176 slave?] Qi; Q2, F, D. 176 177 Didst. . . life;] Q2, F; didst . . . Qi, D. 178 injuries?] Q2, F; Qi, D. 187

Towers.] Q2, F, D; ~ A Qi. thee.] Q2, F; — Q i . D . deny't.] D; ~

Q1-2, F.

6o 190

Amboyna

Harm. No, 'tis too much, I'le hear no more. Fisc. T h e Devil of Jealousie, and that of Avarice, both I believe possest him; or your Son was innocently talking with his Wife, and he perhaps had found 'em; this I guess, but saw it not, because I came too late, I onely view'd the sweet Youth, just expiring, and Towerson stooping down to take the Ring: she kneeling by to help him; when he saw me, he wou'd, you may be sure have sent me after, because I was a witness of the fact; this on my Soul is true. Towers. False as that soul, each Word, each Syllable; the Ring 200 he put upon my hand this night, when in this Wood unknown, and near this place, without my timely help he had been slain. Fisc. See this unlikely story, what enemies had he who shou'd assault him, or is it probable that very Man who actually did kill him afterwards, shou'd save his life so little time before? Ysab. Base Man thou know'st the reason of his death; he had committed on my Person Sir an impious Rape; first ty'd me to that tree, and there my Husband found me, whose revenge was such, as Heaven and Earth will justify. Harm. I know not what Heaven will, but Earth shall not. 210 Beam. Her story carries such face of Truth, ye cannot but believe it. Coll. T h e other a malicious ill-patch'd lye. Fisc. Yes, you are proper Judges of his crime, who with the rest of your Accomplices, your Countrey-men, and Towerson the chief, whom we too kindly us'd, wou'd have surpriz'd the Fort, and made us Slaves; that shall be prov'd, more soon then you imagine; I found it out this evening. Towers. Sure the Devil has lent thee all his stock of falshood, and must be forc'd hereafter to tell truth. 220 Beam. Sir, 'tis impossible you shou'd believe it. Harm. Seize 'em all. Coll. You cannot be so base. Harm. I'le be so just till I can hear your plea against this plot, which if not prov'd, and fully, you are quit, mean time, resistance is but vain. 204 before?] Qg, F, D; — Q i .

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61

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Towers. Provided that we may have equal hearing, I am content to yield, though I declare, you have no power to judge us. [Gives his sword. Beam. Barb'rous ungrateful Dutch. Harm. See 'em convey'd apart to several prisons, least they 230 combine to forge some specious Lye in their excuse, let Towerson and that Woman too be parted. Ysab. Was ever such a sad divorce made on a Bridal night? but we before were parted ne'r to meet, farewel, farewel, my last and only Love. Towers. Curse on my fond credulity, to think there cou'd be Faith or Honor in the Dutch: Farewel my Ysabinda, and farewel my much wrong'd Countrey-men; remember yet that no unmanly weakness in your sufferings disgrace the Native Honour of our Isle; 240 For you I mourn; grief for my self were vain, I have lost all, and now wou'd lose my pain. [Exeunt. A C T V. SCENE I. A Table set out. Enter Harman, Fiscal, Van Herring, and two Dutchmen: they sit. Boy, and waiters, Guards. Harm. My sorrow cannot be so soon digested for losing of a Son I lov'd so well, but I consider, great advantages must with some loss be bought: as this rich Trade which I this day have purchas'd with his death, yet let me be reveng'd, and I shall still live on, and eat, and drink down all my griefs. Now to the matter, Fiscal. Fisc. Since we may freely speak among our selves, all I have said of Towerson was most false; you were consenting, Sir, as 228 236 s.d. s.d.

Dutch] Q2, F, D; Dutch Q i . Dutch] Q2, F, D; Dutch Q i . Dutchmen] D ; Dutchmen Q 1 - 2 , F. sit.] Q2, F, D; Qi.

232 241 1

night?] ~ I Q 1 - 2 , F, D. [Exeunt] Q2, F, D ; A ~ Q i . sorrow] Q2, F, D ; sorow Q i .

62

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well as I, that Perez shou'd be hir'd to murder him, which he refusing when he was engag'd, 'tis dangerous to let him longer live. Van Her. Dispatch him, he will be a shrowd witness against us, if he return to Europe. Fisc. I have thought better, if you please, to kill him by form of Law, as accessary to the English plot, which I have long been forging. Harm. Send one to seize him straite. [Exit a Messenger. But what you said, that Towerson was guiltless of my Sons death; I easily believe; and ne're thought otherwise, though I dissembl'd. Van Her. Nor I; but 'twas well done to feign that story. 1 Dutch. T h e true one was too foul. 2 Dutch. And afterwards to draw the English off from his concernment, to their own, I think 'twas rarely manag'd that. Harm. So far, 'twas well; now to proceed, for I would gladly know whether the grounds are plausible enough of this pretended plot. Fisc. With favour of this Honourable Court, give me but leave to smooth the way before you. Some two or three nights since, (it matters not;) a Japan Soldier under Captain Perez came to a Sentinel upon the Guard, and in familiar talk did question him about this Castle, of its strength; and how he thought it might be taken; this discourse the other told me early the next morning: I thereupon did issue private order, to wrack the Japonnese, my self being present. Harm. But what's this to the English? Fisc. You shall hear, I ask'd him when his pains were strongest on him, if Towerson, or the English Factory, had never hir'd him to betray the Fort, he answer'd, (as 'twas true) they never had: nor was his meaning more in that discourse then as a Soldier to inform himself, and so to pass the time. Van Her. Did he confess no more? 14 English] Q2, F, D; English Q i . si 1] Q2, F, D; 22 2 . . . English] Q2, F, D; — . . . English Q i . 27 Honourable] Q2, F, D; Houourable Q i . 37 English] Q2, F, D; English Q i .

Qi.

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63

Fisc. You interrupt me, I told him I was certainly inform'd the English had designs upon the Castle, and if he franckly wou'd confess their Plot, he shou'd not only be Releas'd from Torment, but bounteously rewarded: present pain and future hopes, in fine so wrought upon him, he yielded to subscribe what e'r I pleas'd; and so he stands committed. Har. Well contriv'd, a fair way made upon this accusation, to put them all to Torture. 2 Dutch. By his confession, all of e'm shall dye, ev'n to their General Towerson. Har. He stands convicted of another Crime, for which he is to suffer. Fisc. This do's well, to help it though. For Towerson is here a Person publickly Employ'd from England, and if he shou'd appeal, as sure he will, you have no power to Judge him in Amboyna. Van Her. But in regard of the late League and Union, betwixt the Nations, how can this be answer'd? 1 Dutch. T o Torture Subjects to so great a King, a pain ne'er heard of in their happy Land, will sound but ill in Europe. Fisc. Their English Laws, in England have their force; and we have ours, different from theirs, at home; It is enough, they either shall confess; or we will falsify their hands to make e'm; then for th' Apologie let me alone; I have it writ already to a Tittle, of what they shall subscribe; this I will publish, and make our most unheard of Cruelties, to seem most just, and legal. Har. Then in the name of him, who put it first into thy Head to form this damn'd false Plot, proceed we to the Execution of it; and to begin; first seize we their Effects, Rifle their Chests, their Boxes, Writings, Books, and take of e'm a seeming Inventory; but all to our own use; I shall grow young with thought of this, and lose my Sons remembrance. Fisc. Will you not please to call the Prisoners in? at least inquire, what Torments have extorted. 43 English] Q2, F, D; English Qi. 54 For] begins a new line in (¿1-2, F. 60 Dutch.] Qa, F, D; Qi.

59 answer'd?] F, D; .— Q1-2. 6a English] Qa, F, D; English Qi.

64

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Har. Go thou and bring us word. [Exit Fiscal. Boy, give me some Tobacco, and a stope of Wine, Boy. Boy. I shall Sir. Har. And a Tub to leak in Boy; when was this Table without so a leaking Vessel? Van Her. That's an Omission. 1 Dutch. A great Omission. 'Tis a Member of the Table, I take it so. Har. Never any thing of Moment was done at our Counsel Table, without a leaking Tub; at least in my time; great affairs require great Consultations, great Consultations require great Drinking, and great Drinking a great leaking Vessel. Van Her. I am e'en drunk with joy already, to see our godly business in this forwardness. Enter Fiscall. 90

Har. Where are the Prisoners? Fisc. At the door. Har. Bring e'm in; I'le try if we can face e'm down by Impudence, and make e'm to confess. Enter Beamont and Collins Guarded.

You are not ignorant of our Business with you; the cryes of your Accomplices already have reach'd your Ears; and your own Consciences, above a thousand Summons, thousand Tortures, instruct you what to do. No farther Juglings, nothing but plain sincerity and truth to be delivered now; a free confession, will first attone for all your sins above; and may do much below to IOO gain your Pardons, let me exhort you therefore, be you merciful, first to your selves, and make acknowledgement of your Conspiracy. 78 Boy.] Q2, F, D; Qi. 80 Vessel?] Qa, F , D; — Q i . 81 Van] Q2, F, D; Qj. 8a Dutch.] Qa, F, D; Qi. 82-83 'Tis a Member of the Table, I take it so.] as in D; on a separate line in Q1-2, F, and indented in Qi. 91 door.] Q2, F, D; Qi. 96 Tortures,] F, D; ~ A Q i - a . 1 0 1 - 1 0 2 Conspiracy.] Q2, F, D; Qi.

v,i

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65

Beam. What Conspiracy? Fisc. Why la you, that the Devil shou'd go Mask'd with such a seeming honest face; I warrant you you know of no such thing. Har. Were not you Mr. Beamont, and you Collins both accessary to the horrid Plot, for the Surprisal of this Fort and Island? Beam. As I shall reconcile my Sins to Heaven, in my last Article of Life, I'm innocent. 110 Collins. And so am I. Har. So, you are first upon the Negative. Beam. And will be so till death. Collins. What Plot is this you speak of? Fisc. Here are Impudent Rogues, now! after confession of two Japonneses, these English Starts dare ask what Plot it is. Har. Not to enforme your knowledge, but that Law may have its course in every circumstance; Fiscal, sum up their accusation to e'm. Fisc. You stand accus'd, that New years day late past, there 120 met at Captain Towerson's House, you present, and many others of your Factory: there, against Law and Justice, and all Tyes of Friendship, and of Partnership betwixt us, you did conspire to seise upon the Fort, to Murther this our Worthy Governor; and by the help of your Plantations near, of Jacatra, and Banda, and Loho, to keep it for your selves. Beam. What proofs have you of this? Fisc. The confession of two Japonneses hir'd by you to attempt it. Beam. I hear they have been forc'd by Torture to it. 130 Harm. It matters not which way the truth come out; take heed, for their Example is before you. Beam. Ye have no right, ye dare not Torture us, we owe you no subjection. Fisc. That Sir, must be disputed at the Hague; in the mean time we are in possession here. 103 105 110, 114 115 115

Conspiracy?] Q2, F, D; Qi. you you] you Q1-2, F, D. 107 113 Collins.] Q2, F, D; Qi. Rogues, n o w l ] Q i , D; Q2, F. Japonneses] Q2, F, D; Japonneses Qi. English] F, D; English Q1-2. 129

Island?] Q2, F, D;

Qi.

Beam,.] Q2, F, D; Harm. Qi.

66

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2 Dutch. And we can make our selves to be obey'd. Van Her. In few words Gentlemen confess. There is a Beverage ready for you else, which you'l not like to swallow. Collins. How's this? 140 Har. You shall be muffl'd up like Ladies, with an Oyl'd Cloath put underneath your Chins, then Water pour'd above; which either you must drink or must not breath. i Dutch. That's one way, we have others. Har. Yes, we have two Elements at your Service, Fire, as well as Water; certain things call'd Matches to be ty'd to your Fingers ends, which are as soveraign as Nutmegs, to quicken your short Memories. Beam. You are inhumane, to make your Cruelty your Pastime; Nature made me a Man, and not a Whale, to swallow down a 150 flood. Har. You'l grow a Corpulent Gentleman like me; I shall love you the better f o r ' t , now you are but a spare rib. Fisc. These things are only offer'd to your choice; you may avoid your Tortures and confess. Collins. Kill us first, for that we know is your design at last; and 'tis more Mercy now. Beam. Be kind, and Execute us, while we bare the shapes of Men, e're Fire and Water have destroy'd our Figures; let me go whole out of the World, I care not; and find my Body when I leo rise again so, as I need not be asham'd o n ' t . Har. 'Tis well you're Merry; will you yet confess? Beam. Never. Har. Bear e'm away to Torture. Van Her. Wee'l try your Constancy. Beam. Wee'l shame your Cruelty; if we deserve our Tortures, 'tis first for freeing such an infamous Nation, that ought to have been slaves, and then for trusting them as Partners, who had cast off the Yoke of their lawful Soveraign. Har. Away, I'le hear no more, now who comes the next? [Exeunt the English with a Guard. 139 Collins.] Q2, F, D; Qi. 155 Collins.] Q2, F, D; Qi. 169+ s.d. English] D; English Q1-2, F.

143 158

Dutch.] Qg, F, D; Qi. destroy'd] Q2, F, D; destoy'd Qi.

v,i 170

67

Amboyna

Fisc. Towerson's Page, a Ship Boy, a n d a W o m a n . [Exit a Messenger. Har. Call e'm in. Van Her. W e shall have easie work with them. Fisc. Not so easie as you imagine, they have i n d u r ' d the Beverage already; all Masters of their pain, n o one confessing. Har. T h e Devill's in these English, those brave Boys wou'd prove stout Topers if they liv'd. Enter two Boyes and a Woman

led as from

Torture.

Come hither ye perverse Imps, they say, you have i n d u r ' d the Water T o r m e n t , Wee'l try what Fire will do with you: you Sirrah, confess, were not you knowing of Towerson's Plot, against X80 this Fort and Island? Page. I have told your Hangman no, twelve times within this h o u r ; when I was at the last Gaspe, and that's a time I think, when a Man shou'd not dissemble. Har. A Man, mark you that now; you English Boys have learn't a trick of late, of growing Men betimes, and doing Mens W o r k too, before you come to twenty. Van Her. Sirrah, I will try if you are a Salamander, a n d can live i' th' Fire. Page. Sure you think my Father got me of some Dutch W o m a n , wo and that I am b u t of a half straine courage; b u t you shall find that I am all o're English, as well in Fire as Water. 2 Boy. Well of all Religions, I do not like your Dutch. Fisc. No, and why young stripling? 2 Boy. Because your Pennance comes before Confession. Har. Do you mock us Sirrah? T o the Fire with him. 2 Boy. Do so, all you shall get by it, is this; before I answered no, now I'le be sullen and will talk no more. 175 Har. The] Q2, F, D; Har. [catchword only] the Qi. 175 English] Qg, F, D; English Qi. 179 Towerson's] Qa, F, D; Towersons Qi. 180 Island?] Q2, F, D; — Qi. 184 English] Qa, F, D; English Qi. 187 Van] Q2, D ; — Q i , F . 189 Dutch] Qz, F, D; Dutch Qi. 191 English] Q2, F, D; English Qi. 192 Dutch] Q2, F, D; Dutch Qi. 193 stripling?] Q2, F, D; — Qi. 195 Sirrah? To] to Qi; ~ ? to Qi, D; ~ ? T o F. 196 a] Q2, F, D ; — Q i .

68

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Har. Best cutting off these little Rogues betime, if they grow Men, they'le have the Spirit of Revenge in e'm. 200 Page. Yes, as your Children have that of Rebellion; Oh that I cou'd but live to be Governor here, to make your fat Guts pledge me in that Beverage I drunk, you Sir John Falstaff of Amsterdam.

2 Boy. I have a little Brother in England, that I intend to appear to, when you have kill'd me; and if he do's not promise me the Death of ten Dutchmen in the next War, I'le haunt him instead of you. Har. What say you Woman? have compassion of your self, and confess; you are of a softer Sex. 210 Worn. But of a Courage full as Manly; there is no Sex in Souls; wou'd you have English Wives shew less of Bravery then their Children do? to lie by an English Man's side, is enough to give a Woman Resolution. Fisc. Here's a Hen of the Game too, but we shall tame you in the fire. Worn. My Innocence shall there be try'd like Gold, till it come out the purer. When you have burnt me all into one Wound, cram Gunpowder into 't, and blow me up, I'le not confess one word to shame my Countrey. 220 Har. I think we have got here the Mother of the Maccabees; away with them all three. [Exeunt the English Guarded. I'le take the pains my self to see these Tortur'd. [Exeunt Harman, Van Herring, and the two Dutchmen with the English: manet Fiscal. Enter Julia to the Fiscal. Julia. Oh you have ruin'd me, you have undone me, in the Person of my Husbandl Fisc. If he will needs forfeit his Life to the Laws, by joyning 206 Dutchmen] Q2, F, D; Dutchmen Q i . 211, 212 English] Q2, F, D; English Qi. 221 English] Q2, F, D; English Q i . 222+ s.d. [Exeunt . . . Dutchmen . . . English] Q2, F, D; ... English Q i .

. . . Dutchmen

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69

with the English in a Plot, 'tis not in me to save him; but dearest Julia be satisfy'd, you shall not want a Husband. Julia. Do you think, l i e ever come into a Bed with him, who rob'd me of my dear sweet Man? 230 Fisc. Dry up your Tears, I'me in earnest, I will Marry you, yfaith I will; it is your destiny. Julia. Nay if it be my Destiny: but I vow l i e ne're be yours but upon one condition. Fisc. Name your desire and take it. Julia. Then save poor Beamont's Life. Fisc. This is the most unkind Request you cou'd have made, it shews you Love him better: therefore in prudence I shou'd hast his Death. Julia. Come, l i e not be deny'd, you shall give me his Life, or 240 l i e not love you, by this Kiss you shall, Child. Fisc. Pray ask some other thing. Julia. I have your word for this, and if you break it, how shall I trust you for your Marrying me? Fisc. Well, I will do't to oblige you. But to prevent her new designs with him, l i e see him shipt away for England straight. [Aside. Julia. I may build upon your promise then? Fisc. Most firmly: I hear company. Enter Harman, Van Herring, and the two Dutchmen with Towerson Prisoner. Harm. Now Captain Towerson you have had the Priviledge 250 to be examin'd last: this on the score of my old Friendship with you, though you have ill deserv'd it. But here you stand accus'd of no less Crimes then Robbery first, then Murther, and last Treason: what can you say to clear your self? Towers. You're interested in all, and therefore partial; I have 226 English] Q2, F, D; English Qi. 235 Beamont's] Q2, F, D; Beamonts Qi. 240 shall. Child.] ¿ 2 , F, D; ~ A Qi. 243 me?] D; — Q1-2, F. 246 Aside] Q2, F, D; aside Qi (all put s.d. on I. 244). 247 then?] Q2, F, D; Qi. 2 4 8 + s.d. Dutchmen] Q2, F, D; Dutchmen Qi.

7°

Amboyna

V,i

consider'd o n ' t , and will not plead, because I know you have no right to judge me: for the last Treaty 'twixt our King and you expresly said, that causes Criminal were first to be Examin'd, and then Judg'd, not here, but by the Councel of Defence; to whom I make Appeal. 260 Fisc. This Court conceives that it has power to judge you; deriv'd from the most High and Mighty States, who in this Island are Supream, and that as well in Criminal, as Civil Causes. 1 Dutchman. You are not to question the Authority of the Court which is to Judge you. Towers. Sir, by your favor, I both must, and will: I'le not so far betray my Nations right; we are not here your Subjects, but your Partners: and that Supremacy of power you claim, extends but to the Natives, not to us: dare you, who in the British Seas strike Sayl, nay more, whose Lives and Freedome are our Alms, 270 presume to sit and judge your Benefactors? Your base new upstart Common-Wealth shou'd blush, to doom the Subjects of an English King, the meanest of whose Merchants wou'd disdain the narrow life, and the Domestick baseness of one of those you call your mighty States. Fisc. You spend your Breath in Rayling; speak to the purpose. Har. Hold yet: because you shall not call us cruel, or plead I wou'd be judge in my own cause; I shall accept of that appeal you make, concerning my Sons death; provided first you clear your self from what concerns the publick; for that relating to our 280 general safety, the judgment of it cannot be deferr'd; but with our common danger. Towers. Let me first be bold to question you: what circumstance can make this your pretended Plot seem likely? the Natives first you tortur'd, their confession Extorted so, can prove no crime in us. Consider next the strength of this your Castle; it's Garrison above two hundred Men, besides as many of your City Burgers, all ready on the least Allarme, or Summons, to Reinforce the others, for ten English, and Merchants they, not Souldiers, with the A y d of ten Japanners; all of e'm unarm'd, except

268 British] D; British Q1-2, F. 272, 288 English] Q2, F, D; English Q i .

270

Benefactors?] Q2, F, D;

Qi.

V,i

Amboyna

7i

290 five Swords, and not so many Muskets; th' attempt had only been for Fools or Madmen. Fisc. We cannot help your want of Wit; proceed. Towers. Grant then we had been desperate enough to hazard this; we must at least forecast how to secure possession when we had it. We had no Ship nor Pinnace in the Harbor; nor cou'd have Aid from any Factory: the nearest to us forty Leagues from hence, and they but few in number: you besides this Fort, have yet three Castles in this Isle amply provided for, and eight tall Ships riding at Anchor near; consider this, and think what all 300 the World will judge of it. Harm. Nothing but Falshood is to be expected from such a Tongue, whose Heart is foul'd with Treason. Give him the Beverage. Fisc. 'Tis ready Sir. Harm. Hold; I have some reluctance to proceed to that extremity: he was my Friend, and I wou'd have him franckly to confess: push ope that Prison door, and set before him the image of his pains in other Men. The Scene opens, and discovers the English and the Dutch tormenting them.

sio

Tortufd,

Fisc. Now Sir, how does the Object like you? Towers. Are you Men or Devils? D' Alva, whom you condemn for cruelty did ne're the like; he knew original Villany was in your Blood: your Fathers all are damn'd for their Rebellion; when they Rebell'd, they were well us'd to this: these Tortures ne're were hatch'd in Humane Breasts, but as your Countrey lies confin'd on Hell, just on its Marches, your black Neighbors taught ye, and just such pains as you invent on Earth, Hell has reserv'd for you. Harm. Are you yet mov'd? Towers. But not as you wou'd have me. I could weep tears of 899 consider] Q2, F, D; considering Qi. 308+ s.d. English . . . Dutch] Q2, F, D; English . . . Dutch Qi. 310 Devils?] Q2, F; Qi, D. 315 Hell,] comma failed to print in some copies of Qi.

72

Amboyna

320 Blood to view this usage; but you, as i£ not made of the same Mould, see with dry eyes the Miseries of Men, as they were Creatures of another kind, not Christians, nor Allies, nor Partners with you, but as if Beasts, transfix'd on Theatres, to make you cruel sport. Har. These are but vulgar Objects, bring his Friend; let him behold his Tortures; shut that door. [ T h e Scene clos'd. Enter Beamont led, with Matches ty'd to his

Hands.

Towers, embracing him. Oh my dear friend, now I am truly wretched! even in that part which is most sensible, my friendship: how have we liv'd to see the English name, the scorn of 330 these, the vilest of Mankind. Beam. Courage my friend, and rather praise we Heaven, that it has chose two such as you and me, who will not shame our Countrey with our pains, but stand like Marble Statues in their fires, scorch'd and defac'd perhaps, not melted down. So let 'em burn this Tenement of Earth; they can but burn me naked to my soul that's of a Nobler frame, and will stand Firme, Upright, and Unconsum'd. Fisc. Confess; if you have kindness, save your friend. Towers. Yes, by my death I wou'd, not by my confession; he is 340 so brave, he wou'd not so be sav'd; but wou'd renounce a friendship built on shame. Harm. Bring more Candles, and burn him from the Wrists up to the Elbows. Beam. Do, I'le enjoy the Flames like Sccevola; and when one's roasted, give the other hand. Towers. Let me embrace you while you are a Man, now you must lose that form; be parch'd and rivel'd like a dry'd Mummy, or dead Malefactor, expos'd in Chains, and blown about by Winds. 350 Beam. Yet this I can endure, Go on, and weary out two Elements; Vex Fire and Water with th' Experiments of pains far worse then death. Towers. Oh let me take my turn; you will have double pleasure, I'm asham'd to be the only Englishman untortur'd.

v,i

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Van Her. You soon shou'd have your wish; but that we know in him you suffer more. Harm. Fill me a brim full Glass: now Captain, here's to all your Countreymen; I wish your whole East India Company were in this room, that we might use them thus. 860 Fisc. They shou'd have Fires of Cloves and Cinamon, we wou'd cut down whole Groves to Honour 'em, and be at cost to burn 'em nobly. Beam. Barb'rous Villains! now you show your selves. Harm. Boy, take that Candle thence, and bring it hither, I am exalted, and wou'd light my Pipe just where the Wyck is fed with English Fat. Van Her. So wou'd I; oh the Tobacco tasts Divinely after it. Towers. W e have friends in England who wou'd weep to see this acted on a Theatre, which here you make your pastime. 370 Beam. Oh that this Flesh were turn'd a cake of Ice, that I might in an instant melt away, and become nothing, to escape this Torment, there is not cold enough in all the North to quench my burning blood. [Fiscal whispers Harman. Harm. Do with Beamont as you please, so Towerson dye. Fisc. You'l not confess yet Captain? Towers. Hangman, no. I wou'd have d o n e ' t before, if e're I wou'd: to do it when my friend has suffer'd this, were to be less then he. Fisc. Free him. [They free Beamont. [To Beamont aside. 880 Beamont I have not sworn you shou'd not suffer, but that you shou'd not dye; thank Julia for't, but on your life do not delay this hour to post from hence; so to your next Plantation; I cannot suffer a lov'd Rival near me. Beam. I almost question if I will receive my life from thee: 'tis like a cure from Witches; 'twill leave a sin behind it. Fisc. Nay, I'm not lavish of my courtesie; I can on easy terms resume my gift. 366 376

English] Qa, F, D; English Q i . d o n e ' t ] don't Q 1 - 2 , F, D.

379» 3 7 9 + Stage directions reversed in Qi-2 (AThey [and line centered] both stage directions on one line in F; ATo (and line centered) D.

Qi);

74

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V,i

Harm. Captain, you're a dead man; l i e spare your torture for your Quality; prepare for execution instantly. 890 Towers. I am prepar'd. Fisc. You dye in charity I hope. Towers. I can forgive even thee; my innocence I need not name, you know it. One farewel kiss of my dear Ysabinda, and all my business here on earth is done. Harm. Call her, she's at the door. [Exit Fiscal. Towers, to Beam, embracing. A long and last farewel; I take my death with the more chearfulness because thou liv'st behind me: tell my friends I dy'd so as became a Christian and a Man; give to my brave Employers of the East India Company, the last 400 remembrance of my faithful service; tell 'em I Seal that Service with my Blood; and dying, wish to all their Factories, and all the famous Merchants of our Isle, that Wealth their gen'rous Industry deserves; but dare not hope it with Dutch partnership. Last, there's my heart, I give it in this kiss [Kisses him.] Do not answer me; Friendship's a tender thing, and it would ill become me now to weep. Beam. Adieu, if I wou'd speak, I cannot. [Exit. Enter Ysabinda. Ysab. Is it permitted me to see your Eies once more, before Eternal night shall close 'em? 410 Towers. I summon'd all I had of Man to see you, 'twas well the time allow'd for it, was short, I cou'd not bear it long: 'tis dangerous, and would divide my Love 'twixt Heaven and you. I therefore part in haste; think I am going a suddain journey, and have not the leisure to take a ceremonious long farewel. Ysab. Do you still love me? Towers. Do not suppose I do; 'tis for your ease, since you must stay behind me, to think I was unkind; you'l grieve the less. 395 gg6 403 404 407 416 417 417

[Exit] Q2, F, D; A ~ QI. Towers, to Beam.] F, D; Towers, to Beam. QI-2 (Towes. Qi). Dutch] Q2, F, D; Dutch Qi. [Jftttes him.]] F; A ~ ,— A Qi; ~ . A Qa, D. [Exif] Q2, F, D; a ~ QI. 409 'em?] D; — Q1-2, F. I do;] F; ~ Q1-2; D. me, . . . unkind;] D; . .. Q1-2; ... F. less.] D; Q1-2, F.

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V,i

75

Harm. T h o u g h I suspect you joyn'd in my Sons Murder, yet since it is not prov'd, you have your life. 420 Ysab. I thank you f o r ' t , I'le make the noblest use of your sad gift; that is, to dye unforc'd; I'le make a present of my life to Towerson; to let you see, though worthless of his Love, I would not live without him. Towers. I charge you love my memory, but live. Harm. She shall be strictly guarded from that violence, she means against her self. Ysab. Vain Men I there are so many paths to death, you cannot stop 'em all; o're the green T u r f where my Love's laid, there will I mourning sit and draw no air but from the damps that rise out 430 of that hallow'd Earth; and for my Dyet, I mean my Eies alone shall feed my Mouth. T h u s will I live, till he in pity rise, and the pale shrowd take me in his cold Arms, and lay me kindly by him in his Grave. Enter

Collins, and then Perez, Julia following

him.

Harm. No more; your time's now come, you must away. Coll. Now Devils; you have done your worst with tortures, Death's a privation of pain; but they were a continual dying. Julia. Farewel my dearest, I may have many Husbands, but never one like thee. Perez. As you love my Soul, take hence that W o m a n ; my Eng440 lish friends, I'm not asham'd of death, while I have you for part'ners; I know you innocent, and so am I, of this pretended plot; but I am guilty of a greater crime; For, being married in another Countrey, the Governors perswasions, and my love to that ill Woman, made me leave the first, and make this fatal choice. I'm justly punish'd, for her sake I dye; the Fiscal to enjoy her has accus'd me. T h e r e is another cause by his procurement I shou'd have kill'd Fisc. Away with him, and stop his mouth. 433 Grave.] Q2, F, D; Qi. 434 away.] Q2, F, D; Qi. 436 439-440 English] Q2, F, D; English Qi. 443 Countrey,] Q2, F, D; Qi. 447 kill'd ] Q2, D; Qi,F.

[He is led off.

dying.] Q2, F, D;

Qi.

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Towers. I leave thee Life with no regret at parting, full of 450 whatever thou cou'dst give, I rise from thy neglected Feast, and go to sleep: yet on this brink of death, my Eies are open'd, and Heav'n has bid me prophesy to you th' unjust contrivers of this Tragick Scene; An Age is coming, when an English Monarch with Blood, shall pay that blood which you have shed: to save your Cities from victorious Arms, you shall invite the Waves to hide your Earth, and trembling to the tops of Houses fly, while Deluges invade your lower rooms: Then, as with Waters you have swell'd our Bodies, with damps of Waters shall your Heads beswoln; 460 Till at the last your sap'd foundations fall, And Universal Ruine swallows all. [He's led out with the English; the Dutch remain. Van Her. Ay, ay, we'l venture both our Selves, and Children for such another pull. 1 Dutch. Let him prophesy when his Head's off. 2 Dutch. There's ne'r a Nostradamus of 'em all shall fright us from our gain. Fisc. Now for a smooth Apology, and then a fawning Letter to the King of England; and our work's done. Harm. 'Tis done as I wou'd wish it: Now Brethren, at my 470 proper cost and charges, three days you are my Guests; in which good time we will divide their greatest Wealth by Lots, while wantonly we rifle for the rest: Then in full Romers, and with joyful Hearts We'l drink confusion to all English Starts. [Exeunt. 453 English] Qa, F, D; English Q i . 4 6 1 + s.d. As in (¿2; italics and romans reversed in Qz, D; omitted from F. 464 i ] Q 2 , D; — Qi, F. 465 s] Q2, D ; — Q i , F . 474 English Starts.] Qa, F, D; English ~ A Q i .

Amboyna

Epilogue. Poet once the Spartans led to fight, And made 'em Conquer in the Muses right: •JSo xvou'd our Poet lead you on this day: Showing your tortur'd Fathers in his Play. To one well born, th' affront is worse and more, When he's abus'd, and baffled by a Bore: With an ill Grace the Dutch their mischiefs do, They've both ill Nature and ill Manners too. Well may they boast themselves an antient Nation, 10 For they were bred e're Manners, were in fashion: And their new Common-wealth has set 'em free, Onely from Honour and Civility. Venetians do not more uncouthly ride, Than did their Lubber-State Mankind bestride. Their sway became 'em with as ill a Meen, As their own Paunches swell above their Chin: Yet is their Empire no true Growth but Humour, And onely two Kings Touch can cure the Tumor. As Cato did his Affricque Fruits display: 20 So we before your Eies their Indies lay: All Loyal English will like him conclude, Let Caesar Live, and Carthage be subdu'd. i Spartans] Q2, F, D, M1-2; Spartan's Qi. a right:] colon failed to print in some copies of Qi. 18 Kings] Qs, F, M1-2; King's Qi, D.

77

T H E STATE OF I N N O C E N C E AND FALL OF MAN

T H E

State of Innocence, AND

FALL

of

MAN:

OPERA. Written in Heroique Verfe,

And Dedicated to Her Royal Higbaefs,

DUTCHESS. By fohn Vrj/den, Servant to His Majefty. •• Camilla digtta Vtk:

Vtinam modo dicere pojjem eerie $ Vea Carmine dignat Ovid. Metam.

LONDON.Printed by T.N. for Henry Herring*^ at the Anchor in the Lower Walk of the Nm Exebange. 1677. T I T L E PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION (MACDONALD 8 I A )

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T O H E R Royal Highness, T H E DUTCHESS. MADAM, is so far from being a Vice in Poets, that 'tis almost impossible for them to succeed without it. Imagination must be rais'd, by a desire of Fame, to a desire of Pleasing: And they whom in all Ages Poets have endeavour'd most to please, have been the Beautiful and the Great. Beauty is their Deity to which they Sacrifice, and Greatness is their GuardianAngel which protects them. Both these are so eminently join'd in the Person of Your Royal Highness, that it were not easie for any, but a Poet, to determine which of them out-shines the other. But I confess, MADAM, I am already byass'd in my choice: I can easily resign to others the Praise of Your Illustrious Family, and that Glory which You derive from a long-continu'd Race of Princes, famous for their Actions both in Peace and War: I can give up to the Historians of Your Country, the Names of so many Generals and Heroes which croud their Annals; and to our own, the hopes of those which You are to produce for the British Chronicle. I can yield, without envy, to the Nation of Poets, the Family of Este to which Ariosto and Tasso have ow'd their Patronage; and to which the World has ow'd their Poems: But I could not without extream reluctance resign the Theme of Your Beauty to another Hand. Give me leave, MADAM, to acquaint the World that I am Jealous of this Subject; and let it be no dishonour to You, that after having rais'd the Admiration of Mankind, You have inspir'd one Man to give it voice. But with whatsoever Vanity this new Honour of being Your Poet has fill'd my mind, I confess my self too weak for the Inspiration; the Priest was always unequal to the Oracle: T h e God within him was too mighty for his Breast: He labour'd with the Sacred Revelation, and there was more of the Mystery left behind than Divinity it self could inable him to express. I can but discover a A MBITION

/\

13

derive] Q2-9, F, D; derive Q i .

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part of Your Excellencies to the World; and that too according to the measure of my own weakness. Like those who have survey'd the Moon by Glasses, I can only tell of a new and shining World above us, but not relate the Riches and Glories of the Place. 'Tis therefore that I have already wav'd the Subject of Your Greatness, to resign my self to the Contemplation of what is more peculiarly Yours. Greatness is indeed communicated to some few of both Sexes; but Beauty is confin'd to a more narrow compass: 'Tis only in Your Sex, 'tis not shar'd by many, and its Supreme Perfection is in You alone. And here, MADAM} I am proud that I cannot flatter: You have reconcil'd the differing Judgments of Mankind: for all Men are equal in their Judgment of what is eminently best. T h e Prize of Beauty was disputed only till You were seen; but now all Pretenders have withdrawn their Claims: There is no Competition but for the second place; even the fairest of our Island (which is fam'd for Beauties) not daring to commit their Cause against You, to the Suffrage of those who most partially adore them. Fortune has, indeed, but render'd Justice to so much Excellence, in setting it so high to publick view: or rather Providence has done Justice to it self, in placing the most perfect Workmanship of Heaven, where it may be admir'd by all Beholders. Had the Sun and Stars been seated lower, their Glory had not been communicated to all at once; and the Creator had wanted so much of His Praise, as He had made Your condition more obscure. But He has plac'd You so near a Crown, that You add a Lustre to it by Your Beauty. You are join'd to a Prince who only could deserve You: whose Conduct, Courage, and Success in War, whose Fidelity to His Royal Brother, whose Love for His Country, whose Constancy to His Friends, whose Bounty to His Servants, whose Justice to Merit, whose Inviolable Truth, and whose Magnanimity in all His Actions, seem to have been rewarded by Heaven by the gift of You. You are never seen but You are blest: and I am sure You bless all those who see You. W e think not the Day is long enough when we behold You: And You are so much the business of our Souls, that while You are in sight, we can neither look nor think 16

place; even]

Even Q1-9, F, D.

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83

on any else. There are no Eyes for other Beauties: You only are present, and the rest of Your Sex are but the unregarded parts that fill Your Triumph. Our sight is so intent on the Object of its Admiration, that our Tongues have not leisure even to praise you: for Language seems too low a thing to express your Excellence; and our Souls are speaking so much within, that they despise all foreign conversation. Every man, even the dullest, is thinking more than the most Eloquent can teach him how to utter. Thus MADAM, in the midst of Crouds you Reign in Solitude; and are ador'd with the deepest Veneration, that of Silence. 'Tis true, you are above all mortal wishes: no man desires impossibilities, because they are beyond the reach of Nature: T o hope to be a God, is folly exalted into madness: but by the Laws of our Creation we are oblig'd to Adore him; and are permitted to love him too, at Humane distance. 'Tis the nature of Perfection to be attractive; but the Excellency of the object refines the nature of the love. It strikes an impression of awful reverence; 'tis indeed that Love which is more properly a Zeal than Passion. 'Tis the rapture which Anchorites find in Prayer, when a Beam of the Divinity shines upon them: that which makes them despise all worldly objects, and yet 'tis all but contemplation. T h e y are seldom visited from above; but a single vision so transports them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives. Mortality cannot bear it often: it finds them in the eagerness and height of their Devotion, they are speechless for the time that it continues, and prostrate and dead when it departs. That extasie had need be strong, which without any end, but that of Admiration, has power enough to destroy all other Passions. You render Mankind insensible to other Beauties: and have destroy'd the Empire of Love in a Court which was the seat of his Dominion. You have subverted (may I dare to accuse you of it) even our Fundamental Laws; and Reign absolute over the hearts of a stubborn and Freeborn people tenacious almost to madness of their Liberty. T h e brightest and most victorious of our Ladies make daily complaints of revolted Subjects: if they may be said to be revolted, whose servitude is not accepted: for your Royal Highness is too Great, and too Just a Monarch, either to want or to receive the Homage of Rebellious Fugitives. Yet if some few among the mul-

84

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titude, continue stedfast to their first pretensions, 'tis an Obedience so luke-warm and languishing, that it merits not the name of Passion: their addresses are so faint, and their vows so hollow to their Sovereigns, that they seem only to maintain their Faith, out of a sence of Honor: they are asham'd to desist, and yet grow careless to obtain. Like despairing Combatants they strive against you as if they had beheld unveil'd, the Magical Shield of your Ariosto, which dazled the Beholders with too much brightness: they can no longer hold up their Arms, they have read their destiny in your Eyes. Splende lo Scudo a guisa di Piropo; E Luce altra non e tanto lucente: Cadere in terra alio splendor fu d' vopo, Congli occhi abbacinati, e senza mente. And yet, Madam, if I could find in my self the power to leave this argument of your incomparable Beauty, I might turn to one which would equally oppress me with its greatness. For your Conjugal Virtues have deserv'd to be set as an example, to a less-degenerate, less-tainted Age. T h e y approach so near to Singularity in Ours, that I can scarcely make a Panegyric to your Royal Highness, without a Satyr on many others: but your Person is a Paradice, and your Soul a Cherubin within to guard it. If the excellence of the outside invite the Beholders, the Majesty of your Mind deters them from too bold approaches; and turns their Admiration into Religion. Moral perfections are rais'd higher by you in the softer Sex: as if Men were of too course a mould for Heaven to work on, and that the Image of Divinity could not be cast to likeness in so harsh a Metall. Your Person is so admirable, that it can scarce receive addition, when it shall be glorify'd: and your Soul, which shines thorough it, finds it of a substance so near her own, that she will be pleas'd to pass an Age within it, and to be confin'd to such a Palace. I know not how I am hurried back to my former Theme: I 12 è] é QI-3, Q5-7, F, D; e Q 4 , Q8-9.

13 Cadere . . . allo] Cader . . . a lo Q1-9, F, D.

20 Ours,] Q2-9, F, D; ~ „ Qi.

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85

ought, and purpos'd to have celebrated those indowments and qualities of your Mind, which were sufficient, even without the Graces of your Person, to render you, as you are, the Ornament of the Court, and the object of Wonder to three Kingdoms: but all my praises are but as a Bull-rush cast upon a stream; if they sink not, 'tis because they are born up by the strength of the Current, which supports their lightness; but they are carry'd round again, and return on the Eddy where they first began. I can proceed no farther than your Beauty: and even on that too; I have said so little considering the greatness of the Subject; that, like him, who would lodge a Bowl upon a Precipice, either my praise falls back, by the weakness of the delivery, or staies not on the top, but rowls over, and is lost on the other side. I intended this a Dedication, but how can I consider what belongs to my self, when I have been so long contemplating on you! Be pleas'd then, Madam, to receive this Poem, without Intituling so much Excellency as yours, to the faults and imperfections of so mean a Writer: And instead of being favourable to the Piece, which merits nothing, forgive the presumption of the Author; who is, with all possible veneration, Your ROYAL Most Most

Highness's

Obedient, Humble,

Most Devoted Servant, JOHN

5 stream;] Qz, Q6-9, F, D;

Qi;

£>3-5.

DRYDEN.

86

The State of

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T h e Authors Apology for Heroique Poetry; and Poetique Licence.

T

o satisfie the Curiosity of those who will give themselves the trouble of reading the ensuing P O E M , I think my self oblig'd to render them a Reason, why I publish an OPERA which was never acted. In the first place I shall not be asham'd to own, that my chiefest Motive, was the Ambition which I acknowledg'd in the Epistle. I was desirous to lay at the feet of so Beautiful and Excellent a Princess, a Work which I confess was unworthy her, but which I hope she will have the goodness to forgive. I was also induc'd to it in my own defence: many hundred Copies of it being dispers'd abroad without my knowledge or consent: so that every one gathering new faults, it became at length a Libel against me; and I saw, with some disdain, more nonsence than either I, or as bad a Poet, could have cram'd into it, at a Months warning, in which time 'twas wholly Written, and not since Revis'd. After this, I cannot without injury to the deceas'd Author of Paradice Lost, but acknowledge that this P O E M has receiv'd its entire Foundation, part of the Design, and many of the Ornaments, from him. What I have borrow'd, will be so easily discern'd from my mean Productions, that I shall not need to point the Reader to the places: And, truly, I should be sorry, for my own sake, that any one should take the pains to compare them together: T h e Original being undoubtedly, one of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime POEMS, which either this Age or Nation has produc'd. And though I could not refuse the partiality of my Friend, who is pleased to commend me in his Verses, I hope they will rather be esteem'd the effect of his love to me, than of his deliberate and sober judgment. His Genius is able to make beautiful what he pleases: Yet, as he has been too favorable to me, I doubt not but he will hear of his kindness from many of our Contemporaries.

10

dispers'd] Q2-9, F, D;

Qi.

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87

For, we are fallen into an Age of Illiterate, Censorious, and Detracting people, who thus qualified, set up for Critiques. In the first place I must take leave to tell them, that they wholly mistake the Nature of Criticism, who think its business is principally to find fault. Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant a Standard of judging well: The chiefest part of which is to observe those Excellencies which should delight a reasonable Reader. If the Design, the Conduct, the Thoughts, and the Expressions of a POEM, be generally such as proceed from a true Genius of Poetry, the Critique ought to pass his judgement in favor of the Author. 'Tis malicious and unmanly to snarl at the little lapses of a Pen, from which Virgil himself stands not exempted. Horace acknowledges that honest Homer nods sometimes: He is not equally awake in every Line: But he leaves it also as a standing Measure for our judgments, Non, Ubi plura nitent in Carmine, paucis Offendi maculis, quas aut incuria fudit Aut humana parum cavit Natura. And Longinus, who was undoubtedly, after Aristotle, the greatest Critique amongst the Greeks, in his twenty seventh Chapter mpl vijiovs, has judiciously preferr'd the sublime Genius that sometimes erres, to the midling or indifferent one which makes few faults, but seldome or never rises to any Excellence. He compares the first to a Man of large possessions, who has not leisure to consider of every slight expence, will not debase himself to the management of every trifle: particular summs are not layd out or spar'd to the greatest advantage in his Oeconomy: but are sometimes suffer'd to run to waste, while he is only careful of the Main. On the other side, he likens the Mediocrity of Wit, to one of a mean fortune, who manages his store with extream frugality, or rather parsimony: but who with fear of running into profuseness, never arrives to the magnificence of living. This kind of Genius writes, indeed correctly. A wary man he is in Grammar; 6 well:] — Q1-9, F, D. s i filous] D; v\f/ovs Q i , Q6-9, F; i\j/oûs Q2-5.

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very nice as to Solaecism or Barbarism, judges to a hair of little decencies, knows better than any Man what is not to be written: and never hazards himself so far as to fall: but plods on deliberately, and, as a grave Man ought, is sure to put his staff before him; in short, he sets his heart upon it; and with wonderful care makes his business sure: that is, in plain English, neither to be blam'd, nor prais'd. 1 could, sayes my Author, find out some blemishes in Homer: and am perhaps, as naturally inclin'd to be disgusted at a fault as another Man: But, after all, to speak impartially, his failings are such, as are only marks of humane frailty: they are little Mistakes, or rather Negligences, which have escap'd his pen in the fervor of his writing; the sublimity of his spirit carries it with me against his carelesness: And though Apollonius his Argonautes, and Theocritus his Eidullia, are more free from Errors, there is not any Man of so false a judgment, who would choose rather to have been Apollonius or Theocritus, than Homer. 'Tis worth our consideration, a little to examine how much these Hypercritiques of English Poetry, differ from the opinion of the Greek and Latine Judges of Antiquity: from the Italians and French who have succeeded them; and, indeed, from the general tast and approbation of all Ages. Heroique Poetry, which they contemn, has ever been esteem'd, and ever will be, the greatest work of humane Nature: In that rank has Aristotle plac'd it, and Longinus is so full of the like expressions, that he abundantly confirms the others Testimony. Horace as plainly delivers his opinion, and particularly praises Homer in these Verses. Trojani Belli Scriptorem, Maxime Lolli, Dum tu declamas Romce, Prceneste relegi: Qui quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Plenius ac melius Chrysippo & Crantore dicit. 6 plain English] Q2-g, F, D; plain English Q i . 10 failings] Q2-9, F, D; faillings Q i . 14 Theocritus] Q2-9, F, D; — , Q i . 19 of English] Q4, Q6-9, F, D; of English Q1-3, Q5. 20 Greek and Latine] Q2-g, F, D; Greek and Latine Q i . 29 Prceneste] Q3-9, F, D; praeneste Q1-2.

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And in another place modestly excluding himself, from the number of Poets, because he only writ Odes and Satyres, he tells you a Poet is such an one, Cui mens Divinior, atque os Magna Sonaturum. Quotations are superfluous in an establish'd truth: otherwise I could reckon up amongst the Moderns, all the Italian Commentators on Aristotle's Book Of Poetry; and amongst the French, the greatest of this Age, Boileau and Rapin: the latter of which is alone sufficient, were all other Critiques lost, to teach anew the rules of writing. Any Man who will seriously consider the nature of an Epique Poem, how it agrees with that of Poetry in general, which is to instruct and to delight; what actions it describes, and what persons they are chiefly whom it informs, will find it a work which indeed is full of difficulty in the attempt, but admirable when 'tis well performed. I write not this with the least intention to undervalue the other parts of Poetry: for Comedy is both excellently instructive, and extreamly pleasant: Satyre lashes Vice into Reformation, and humor represents folly, so as to render it ridiculous. Many of our present Writers are eminent in both these kinds; and particularly the Author of the Plain Dealer, whom I am proud to call my Friend, has oblig'd all honest and vertuous Men, by one of the most bold, most general, and most useful Satyres which has ever been presented on the English Theater. I do not dispute the preference of Tragedy; let every Man enjoy his tast: but 'tis unjust, that they who have not the least notion of Heroique writing, should therefore condemn the pleasure which others receive from it, because they cannot comprehend it. Let them please their appetites in eating what they like: but let them not force their dish on all the Table. They who would combat general Authority, with particular Opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of under5 Sonaturum. ] Q 1 - 9 , F, D. 8 Book Of Poetry] Book of Poetry Q 1 - 9 , F, D. 25 the English] Q4, F, D; the English Q 1 - 3 , Q5-9.

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standing better, than other men. Are all the flights o£ Heroique Poetry, to be concluded bombast, unnatural, and meer madness, because they are not affected with their Excellencies? 'Tis just as reasonable as to conclude there is no day, because a blind Man cannot distinguish of Light and Colours. Ought they not rather, in modesty, to doubt of their own judgments, when they think this or that expression in Homer, Virgil, Tasso, or Milton's Paradice, to be too far strain'd, than positively to conclude, that 'tis all fustian, and meer nonsence? 'Tis true, there are limits to be set betwixt the boldness and rashness of a Poet; but he must understand those limits who pretends to judge, as well as he who undertakes to write: and he who has no liking to the whole, ought in reason to be excluded from censuring of the parts. He must be a Lawyer before he mounts the Tribunal: and the Judicature of one Court too, does not qualifie a man to preside in another. He may be an excellent Pleader in the Chancery, who is not fit to rule the Common Pleas. But I will presume for once to tell them, that the boldest strokes of Poetry, when they are manag'd Artfully, are those which most delight the Reader. Virgil and Horace, the severest Writers of the severest Age, have made frequent use of the hardest Metaphors, and of the strongest Hyperboles: And in this case the best Authority is the best Argument. For generally to have pleas'd, and through all ages, must bear the force of Universal Tradition. And if you would appeal from thence to right Reason, you will gain no more by it in effect, than First, to set up your Reason against those Authors; and Secondly, against all those who have admir'd them. You must prove why that ought not to have pleas'd, which has pleas'd the most Learn'd, and the most Judicious: and to be thought knowing, you must first put the fool upon all Mankind. If you can enter more deeply, than they have done, into the Causes and Ressorts of that which moves pleasure in a Reader, the Field is open, you may be heard: but those Springs of humane Nature are not so easily discover'd by every superficial Judge: 5 Colours. Ought] D; ought Qi; ought Q2-9, F. 15 not] Q2-9, F, D; uot Qi. 22 strongest Hyperboles] strongest Hyperboles Q1-9, F, D. 34 every] Q3-9, F, D; ever Q1-2.

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91

It requires Philosophy as well as Poetry, to sound the depth of all the Passions; what they are in themselves, and how they are to be provok'd: and in this Science the best Poets have excell'd. Aristotle rais'd the Fabrique of his Poetry, from observation of those things, in which Euripides, Sophocles, and ALschylus pleas'd: He consider'd how they rais'd the Passions, and thence has drawn rules for our Imitation. From hence have sprung the Tropes and Figures, for which they wanted a name, who first practis'd them, and succeeded in them. T h u s I grant you, that the knowledge of Nature was the Original Rule; and that all Poets ought to study her; as well as Aristotle and Horace her Interpreters. But then this also undeniably follows, that those things which delight all Ages, must have been an imitation of Nature; which is all I contend. Therefore is Rhetorick made an Art: therefore the Names of so many Tropes and Figures were invented: because it was observ'd they had such and such an effect upon the Audience. Therefore Catachreses and Hyperboles have found their place amongst them; not that they were to be avoided, but to be us'd judiciously, and plac'd in Poetry, as heightnings and shadows are in Painting, to make the Figure bolder, and cause it to stand off to sight. Nec retia Cervis Ulla dolurn meditantur; sayes Virgil in his Eclogues: and speaking of Leander Georgiques,

in his

CtEca node natat serus jreta, quern super, ingens Porta tonat Cceli; & scopulis illisa reclamant jEquora: In both of these you see he fears not to give Voice and Thought to things inanimate. 9

in them.] D;

, Qi-a;

Q3-5;

: Q6-9. F.

82 Nec] Q5-9, F; A ~ Q1-4, D. 23-24 meditantur; / sayes] meditantur; sayes Q1-9, F, D. 28 /Equora: ] Q5-9, F; ~ : A Q1-4, D.

92

The State of

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Will you arraign your Master Horace, for his hardness of Expression, when he describes the death of Cleopatra, and sayes she did Asperas tractare serpentes, ut atrum corpore combiberet venenum, because the Body in that action, performs what is proper to the mouth? As for Hyperboles, I will neither quote Lucan, nor Statins, Men of an unbounded imagination, but who often wanted the Poyze of Judgement. T h e Divine Virgil was not liable to that exception; and yet he describes Polyphemus thus: 10

Graditurque per cequor Jam medium; necdum fluctus latera ardua tingit. In imitation of this place, our Admirable Cowley thus paints Goliah. The Valley, now, this Monster seem'd to fill; And we, methought, look'd up to him from our Hill.

Where the two words seem'd, and methought, have mollify'd the Figure: and yet if they had not been there, the fright of the Israelites might have excus'd their belief of the Giants Stature. In the 7th of the /Eneids, Virgil paints the swiftness of Camilla 20 thus: Ilia vel intactce segetis per summa volaret Gramina, nec teneras cursu lasisset aristas; Vel Mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti, Ferret iter, ceteris nec tingeret cequore plantas. Y o u are not oblig'd, as in History, to a literal belief of what the Poet says; but you are pleas'd with the Image, without being couzen'd by the Fiction. Yet even in History, Longinus quotes Herodotus on this occa2 Cleopatra,] Q1-9, F, D. 3 Asperas] Asperos Q1-9, F, D. 4 venerium,] Q1-9, F, D. 11 necdum] nec dum Q1-9, F, D. 16 seem'd, and methought] Q5-9, F, D; seem'd, and methought Q1-4. 19 the 7th] the 8th Qi; the eighth Q2-7, Q9, F; the eight Q8; the 8th D. 24 ceteris] celeres Qi-g, D; celere F.

The State of

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93

sion of Hyperboles. T h e Lacedemonians, sayes he, at the straights o£ Thermopylce, defended themselves to the last extremity: and when their Arms fail'd them, fought it out with their Nails and Teeth: till at length, (the Persians shooting continually upon them) they lay buried under the Arrows of their enemies. It is not reasonable, (continues the Critique) to believe that Men could defend themselves with their Nails and Teeth from an arm'd multitude: nor that they lay buried under a pile of Darts and Arrows; and yet there wants not probability for the Figure: because the Hyperbole seems not to have been made for the sake of the description; but rather to have been produc'd from the occasion. 'Tis true, the boldness of the Figures is to be hidden, sometimes by the address of the Poet; that they may work their effect upon the Mind, without discovering the Art which caus'd it. A n d therefore they are principally to be us'd in passion; when we speak more warmly, and with more precipitation than at other times: for then, Si vis me flere dolendum est primum ipsi tibi; the Poet must put on the Passion he endeavours to represent: A man in such an occasion is not cool enough, either to reason rightly, or to talk calmly. Aggravations are then in their proper places, Interrogations, Exclamations, Hyperbata, or a disorder'd connection of discourse, are graceful there, because they are Natural. T h e summ of all depends on what before I hinted, that this boldness of expression is not to be blam'd; if it be manag'd by the coolness and discretion, which is necessary to a Poet. Yet before I leave this subject, I cannot but take notice how dis-ingenuous our Adversaries appear: All that is dull, insipid, languishing and without sinews in a Poem, they call an imitation of Nature: they onely offend our most equitable Judges, who think beyond them; and lively Images and Elocution, are never to be forgiven. What Fustian, as they call it, have I heard these Gentlemen 6 the Critique] the Critique Q 1 - 9 , F, D. 13 is] D; are Q i - g , F. 22 Interrogations] Q2-9, F, D; Interogations 25 if it] Q2-9, F, D; if if Q i .

Qi.

94

The State of

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find out in Mr. Cowley's Odes? I acknowledge my self unworthy to defend so excellent an Author; neither have I room to do it here: onely in general I will say, that nothing can appear more beautiful to me, than the strength of those Images which they condemn. Imaging is, in it self, the very heighth and life of Poetry. 'Tis, as Longinus describes it, a Discourse, which, by a kind of Enthusiasm, or extraordinary emotion of the Soul, makes it seem to us, that we behold those things which the Poet paints, so as to be pleas'd with them, and to admire them. If Poetry be imitation, that part of it must needs be best, which describes most lively our Actions and Passions; our Virtues and our Vices; our Follies and our Humors: for neither is Comedy without its part of Imaging: and they who do it best, are certainly the most excellent in their kind. This is too plainly prov'd to be denied: but how are Poetical Fictions, how are Hippocentaures and Chymasras, or how are Angels and immaterial Substances to be Imag'd; which some of them are things quite out of Nature: others, such whereof we can have no notion? this is the last refuge of our Adversaries; and more than any of them have yet had the wit to object against us. T h e answer is easie to the first part of it. T h e fiction of some Beings which are not in Nature, (second Notions as the Logicians call them) has been founded on the conjunction of two Natures, which have a real separate Being. So Hippocentaures were imag'd, by joyning the Natures of a Man and Horse together; as Lucretius tells us, who has us'd this word of Image oftner than any of the Poets. Nam certe ex vivo, Centauri non fit Imago, Nulla fuit quoniam talis natura animal: Veriim ubi equi atque hominis, casu, convenit imago, Hcerescit facile extemplo, 8cc. i Cowley's Odes] Q6-8, F; Cowley's Odes Q 1 - 5 , D ; Cowley's Orders Q9. 7 Longinus] Q2-8, F, D; Loginus Q i ; Longinas Q8. 18 Imag'd;] Q5-9, F; Q1-4, D. 85 So Hippocentaures] So Hippocentaures Q i - g , F, D . 25 imag'd] Q5-9, F, D; imagin'd Q 1 - 4 . s8 certe] Q2-3, Q5-6, D; cert6 Q i ; certe Q4, Q7-9, F. 29 animal] Q8-9, F; animal Q 1 - 7 , D .

The State of

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95

T h e same reason may also be alledg'd for Chymaera's and the rest. A n d Poets may be allow'd the like liberty, for describing things which really exist not, if they are founded on popular belief: of this nature are Fairies, Pigmies, and the extraordinary effects of Magick: for 'tis still an imitation, though of other mens fancies: and thus are Shakespeare's Tempest, his Midsummer nights Dream, and Ben. Johnson's Masque of Witches to be defended. For Immaterial Substances we are authoriz'd by Scripture in their description: and herein the T e x t accommodates it self to vulgar apprehension, in giving Angels the likeness of beautiful young men. Thus, after the Pagan Divinity, has Homer drawn his Gods with humane Faces: and thus we have notions of things above us, by describing them like other beings more within our knowledge. I wish I could produce any one example of excellent imaging in all this Poem: perhaps I cannot: but that which comes nearest it, is in these four lines, which have been sufficiently canvas'd by my well-natur'd Censors. Seraph and Cherub, careless of their charge, And wanton, in full ease now live at large: Unguarded leave the passes of the Sky; And all dissolv'd in Hallelujahs lye. I have heard (sayes one of them) of Anchove's dissolv'd in Sauce; but never of an Angel in Hallelujahs. A mighty Wittycism, (if you will pardon a new word!) but there is some difference between a Laugher and a Critique. He might have Burlesqu'd Virgil too, from whom I took the Image. Invadunt urbem, somno vinoque sepultam. A Cities being buried is just as proper an occasion, as an Angels being dissolv'd in Ease, and Songs of Triumph. Mr. Cowley lies as open too in many places: Where their vast Courts the Mother Waters keep, 8cc. i for Chymaera's] 29 as an] Q2-9, F, 31 their] Q2-9, F, 31-96:1 8cc. / For]

for Chymaera's Q1-9, F, D. D; us an Q i . D; there Q i . F, D; ire. for Q1-9.

96

The State of

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For if the mass of Waters be the Mothers, then their Daughters, the little streams, are bound in all good manners, to make Court'sie to them, and ask them Blessing. How easie 'tis to turn into ridicule, the best descriptions, when once a man is in the humor of laughing, till he wheezes at his own dull jest! but an Image which is strongly and beautifully set before the eyes of the Reader, will still be Poetry, when the merry fit is over: and last when the other is forgotten. I promis'd to say somewhat of Poetique Licence, but have in part anticipated my discourse already. Poetique Licence I take to be the Liberty, which Poets have assum'd to themselves in all ages, of speaking things in Verse, which are beyond the severity of Prose. 'Tis that particular character, which distinguishes and sets the bounds betwixt Oratio soluta, and Poetry. This, as to what regards the thought, or imagination of a Poet, consists in Fiction: but then those thoughts must be express'd; and here arise two other branches of it: for if this Licence be included in a single word, it admits of Tropes: if in a Sentence or Proposition, of Figures: both which are of a much larger extent, and more forcibly to be us'd in Verse than Prose. This is that Birthright which is deriv'd to us from our great Forefathers, even from Homer down to Ben. and they who would deny it to us, have, in plain terms, the Foxes quarrel to the Grapes; they cannot reach it. How far these Liberties are to be extended, I will not presume to determine here, since Horace does not. But it is certain that they are to be varied, according to the Language and Age in which an Author writes. That which would be allow'd to a Grecian Poet, Martial tells you, would not be suffer'd in a Roman. And 'tis evident that the English, does more nearly follow the strictness of the latter, than the freedoms of the former. Connection of Epithetes, or the conjunction of two words in one, are frequent and elegant in the Greek, which yet Sir Philip Sidney, and the Translator of Du Bartas, have unluckily attempted in the English; though this I confess, is not so proper an Instance of Poetique Licence, as it is of variety of Idiom in Languages. Horace a little explains himself on this subject of Licentia Poetica; in these Verses,

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97

Pictoribus atque Poetis Quidlibet audendi, semper fuit cequa potestas: Sed non, ut placidis coeant immitia, non ut Serpentes avibus geminentur, Tygribus Heedi. He would have a Poem of a piece: not to begin with one thing and end with another: he restrains it so far, that Thoughts of an unlike Nature, ought not to be joyn'd together: That were indeed to make a Chaos. He tax'd not Homer, nor the Divine Virgil, for interessing their gods in the Wars of Troy and Italy; neither had he now liv'd, would he have tax'd Milton, as our false Critiques have presum'd to do, for his choice of a supernatural Argument: but he would have blam'd any Author, who was a Christian, had he introduc'd into his Poem Heathen Deities, as Tasso is condemn'd by Rapin on the like occasion: and as Camoens, the Author of the Lusiads, ought to be censur'd by all his Readers, when he brings in Bacchus and Christ into the same Adventure of his Fable. From that which has been said, it may be collected, that the definition of Wit (which has been so often attempted, and ever unsuccessfully by many Poets,) is only this: That it is a propriety of Thoughts and Words; or in other terms, Thoughts and Words, elegantly adapted to the Subject. If our Critiques will joyn issue on this Definition, that we may convenire in aliquo tertio; if they will take it as a granted Principle, 'twill be easie to put an end to this dispute: No man will disagree from anothers judgement, concerning the dignity of Style, in Heroique Poetry: but all reasonable Men will conclude it necessary, that sublime Subjects ought to be adorn'd with the sublimest, and (consequently often) with the most figurative expressions. In the mean time I will not run into their fault of imposing my opinions on other men, any more than I would my Writings on their tast: I have onely laid down, and that superficially enough, my present thoughts; and shall be glad to be taught better, by those who pretend to reform our Poetry. 12 21

any] F; my Qi-g, D. Thoughts] Q2-9, F, D; Thought

14 Qi.

by] Qz-g, F, D;

Qi.

THE STATE OF I N N O C E N C E , AND FALL OF MAN. AN OPERA.

The first Scene represents a Chaos, or a confus'd Mass of Matter; the Stage is almost wholly dark: A symphony of Warlike Music is heard for some time; then from the Heavens, (which are opened) fall the rebellious Angels wheeling in the Air, and seeming transfix'd with Thunderbolts: The bottom of the Stage being opened, receives the Angels, who fall out of sight. Tunes of Victory are play'd, and an Hymn sung; Angels discovered above, brandishing their Swords: The Music ceasing, and the Heavens being clos'd, the Scene shifts, and on a sudden represents Hell: Part of the Scene is a Lake of Brimstone or rowling Fire; the Earth of a burnt colour: The fall'n Angels appear on the Lake, lying prostrate; a Tune of Horrour and Lamentation is heard.

A C T I. SCENE I. Lucifer raising himself on the Lake. Lucifer. Is this the Seat our Conqueror has given? And this the Climate we must change for Heaven? These Regions and this Realm my Wars have got; This Mournful Empire is the Loser's Lot: In Liquid Burnings or on Dry to dwell, Is all the sad Variety of Hell. But see, the Victor has recall'd, from far, T h ' Avenging Storms, his Ministers of War:

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99

His Shafts are spent, and his tir'd Thunders sleep; Nor longer bellow through the Boundless Deep. Best take th' occasion, and these Waves forsake, While time is giv'n. Ho, Asmoday, awake, If thou are he: but Ah! how chang'd from him, Companion of my Arms! how wan! how dim! How faded all thy Glories are! I see My self too well, and my own change, in thee. Asmoday. Prince of the Thrones, who, in the Fields of Light, Led'st forth th' imbattel'd Seraphim to fight, W h o shook the Pow'r of Heavens Eternal State, Had broke it too, if not upheld by Fate; But now those hopes are fled: thus low we lie, } Shut from his day, and that contended Skie, / And lost, as far as Heav'nly Forms can die; / Yet, not all perish'd: we defie him still, And yet wage War, with our unconquer'd Will. Lucif. Strength may return. Asm. Already of thy Vertue I partake, Erected by thy Voice. Lucif. See on the Lake Our Troops like scatter'd Leaves in Autumn, lie: First let us raise our selves, and seek the drie, Perhaps more easie dwelling. Asm. From the Beach, T h y well-known Voice the sleeping Gods will reach, And wake th' Immortal Sence which Thunders noise Had quell'd, and Lightning, deep had driv'n within 'em. Lucif. With Wings expanded wide, our selves we'll rear, And fly incumbent on the dusky Air: Hell thy new Lord receive. Heaven cannot envy me an Empire here. [Both fly to dry Land.] Asm. Thus far we have prevail'd; if that be gain Which is but change of place, not change of pain. Now summon we the rest. Lucif. Dominions, Pow'rs, ye Chiefs of Heav'n's bright Host, 33

which] Q2-9, F, D, M4-6; with Q i , M1-3; My omits

passage.

100

The State of

Innocence

(Of Heav'n, once yours; but now, in Battel, lost) Wake from your slumber: Are your Beds of Down? Sleep you so easie there? or fear the frown Of him who threw you thence, and joys to see Your abject state confess his Victory? Rise, rise, ere from his Battlements he view Your prostrate postures, and his Bolts renew, T o strike you deeper down. Asm. They wake, they hear, Shake off their slumber first, and next their fear; And only for th' appointed Signal stay. Lucif. Rise from the Flood, and hither wing your way. Moloch from the Lake. T h i n e to command; our part 'tis to obey. [The rest of the Devils rise up and fly to the Land.] Lucif. So, now we are our selves again, an Host Fit to tempt Fate, once more, for what we lost, T ' o'erleap th' Etherial Fence, or if so high W e cannot climb, to undermine his Skie, And blow him up, who justly Rules us now, Because more strong: should he be forc'd to bow, T h e right were ours again: 'Tis just to win T h e highest place; t' attempt, and fail, is sin. Mol. Chang'd as we are, we're yet from Homage free; W e have, by Hell, at least, gain'd liberty: That's worth our fall; thus low tho' we are driven, Better to Rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven. Lucif. There spoke the better half of Lucifer! Asm. 'Tis fit in frequent Senate we confer, And then determine how to steer our course; T o wage new War by Fraud, or open Force. T h e Doom's now past; Submission were in vain. Mol. And, were it not, such baseness I disdain. I would not stoop, to purchase all above; And should contemn a Pow'r whom Pray'r could move, 56

lost,] — Q1-9, F, D, M3-7;

Mi-a.

The State of

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101

As one unworthy to have conquer'd me. Beelzebub. Moloch, in that, all are resolv'd like thee. T h e means are unpropos'd; but 'tis not fit Our dark Divan in publick view should sit: Or what we plot against the Thunderer, T h ' Ignoble Crowd of Vulgar Devils hear. Lucif. A Golden Palace let be rais'd on high; T o imitate? No, to out-shine the Skie! All Mines are ours, and Gold above the rest: Let this be done; and quick as 'twas exprest. [A Palace rises, where sit, as in Council, Lucifer, Asmoday, Moloch, Belial, Beelzebub and Sathan.] Most high and mighty Lords, who better fell From Heav'n, to rise States-General of Hell, Nor yet repent, though ruin'd and undone, Our upper Provinces already won, (Such pride there is in Souls created free, Such hate of Universal Monarchy;) Speak, (for we therefore meet) If Peace you chuse, your Suffrages declare; Or means propound, to carry on the War. Mol. My sentence is for War; that open too: Unskill'd in Stratagems; plain Force I know: Treaties are vain to Losers; nor would we, Should Heav'n grant Peace, submit to Sovereignty. We can no caution give we will adore; And He above is warn'd to trust no more. What then remains but Battel? Sathan. 1 agree, With this brave Vote; and if in Hell there be Ten more such Spirits, Heav'n is our own again: We venture nothing, and may all obtain. Yet who can hope but well, since ev'n Success Makes Foes secure, and makes our danger less. 8 4 + s.d. Lucifer, Asmoday, Moloch, Belial, Beelzebub and Sathan] Q5-9, F, D; all italics in Q.1-4, My; no italics in Mi-6. 100 1] M6; A ~ Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7.

102

The State of

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Seraph and Cherub, careless of their charge, And wanton, in full ease now live at large, Ungarded leave the passes of the Skie, And all dissolv'd in Hallelujahs lie. no Mol. Grant that our hazardous attempt prove vain; We feel the worst, secur'd from greater pain: Perhaps we may provoke the Conqu'ring Foe \ T o make us nothing; yet, ev'n then, we know > That not to be, is not to be in woe. ' Belial. That knowledge which, as Spirits, we obtain, Is to be valu'd in the midst of pain: Annihilation were to lose Heav'n more: We are not quite exil'd where thought can soar. Then cease from Arms; 120 Tempt him not farther to pursue his blow; And be content to bear those pains we know. If what we had we could not keep, much less Can we regain what those above possess. Beelzebub. Heav'n sleeps not; from one wink a breach would be In the full Circle of Eternity. Long pains, with use of bearing, are half eas'd; Heav'n unprovok'd, at length may be appeas'd. By War, we cannot scape our wretched lot; And may, perhaps, not warring, be forgot, iso Asm. Could we repent, or did not Heav'n well know Rebellion once forgiv'n, would greater grow: I should, with Belial, chuse ignoble ease; But neither will the Conquerour give Peace, Nor yet so lost in this low state we are, As to despair of a well-manag'd War. Nor need we tempt those heights which Angels keep, Who fear no force, or ambush from the Deep. 106-109 These lines are differently punctuated in "The Authors Apology" (A) in some editions (see p. 95). 106 Seraph] Q2-9, F, M4-7, Qi(A); Qi; D; M1-2; ~ Mj. 106

Cherub,] Q 9 , D , M 4 - 7 , Q i ( A ) - 3 ( A ) , Q5(A)-8(A), F(A);

M1-2; M3. 109 dissolv'd] Q2-9, F, D, M1-7, Qi(A);

Qi.

QI; ~

A

QA-8, F ;

The State of

Innocence

What if we find some easier Enterprize? There is a place, if antient Prophecies 140 And Fame in Heav'n not err, the blest abode Of some new Race, call'd Man, a Demy-God, Whom, near this time, th' Almighty must create; He swore it, shook the Heav'ns, and made it Fate. Lucif. I heard it; through all Heav'n the rumour ran, And much the talk of this intended Man: Of form Divine; but less in excellence Than we; indu'd with Reason lodg'd in Sence: The Soul pure Fire, like ours, of equal force; But, pent in Flesh, must issue by discourse: 150 We see what is; to Man Truth must be brought By Sence, and drawn by a long Chain of thought: By that faint light, to will and understand; For made less knowing, he's at more command. Asm. Though Heav'n be shut, that World if it be made As nearest Heav'n, lies open to invade: Man therefore must be known, his Strength, his State, And by what Tenure he holds all of Fate. Him let us then seduce or overthrow: The first is easiest; and makes Heav'n his Foe. too Advise, if this attempt be worth our care. Belial. Great is th' advantage, great the hazards are. Some one (but who that task dares undertake?) Of this new Creature must discovery make. Hell's Brazen Gates he first must break, then far Must wander through old Night, and through the War Of antique Chaos; and, when these are past, Meet Heav'n's Out-guards who scout upon the waste: At every Station must be bid to stand, And forc'd to answer every strict demand. 170 Mol. This Glorious Enterprise [Rising up.] Lucif. Rash Angel, stay; [Rising, and laying his Scepter on Moloch his head.] That Palm is mine, which none shall take away. 1 7 0 + s.d. Moloch his] Moloch his Q1-4; Moloch's Q5-9, F, D, M4; Molocks M i - s , M6; Moloch M3, M5; Mol: M7.

104

The State of Innocence

I, i

Hot Braves, like thee, may fight; but know not well T o manage this, the last great Stake of Hell. Why am I rank'd in State above the rest, If while I stand of Sovereign Pow'r possest, Another dares, in danger, farther go? Kings are not made for ease, and Pageant-show. Who would be Conquerour, must venture all: He merits not to rise, who dares not fall, wo Asm. The praise, and danger, then, be all your own. Lucif. On this Foundation I erect my Throne: Through Brazen Gates, vast Chaos, and old Night, I'll force my way; and upwards steer my flight: Discover this new World, and newer Man; Make him my Foot-step to mount Heav'n again: Then, in the clemency of upward Air, We'll scour our spots, and the dire Thunders scar, With all the remnants of th' unlucky War, And once again grow bright, and once again grow fair. 190 Asm. Mean time the Youth of Hell strict guard may keep, And set their Centries to the utmost deep, That no Etherial Parasite may come T o spie our ills, and tell glad tales at home. Lucif. Before yon' Brimstone-Lake thrice ebb and flow, (Alas, that we must measure Time by woe!) I shall return: (my mind presages well) And outward lead the Colonies of Hell. Your care I much approve; what time remains, With Sports and Music, in the Vales and Fields, 200 And whate'er Joy so sad a Climate yields, Seek to forget, at least divert your pains. Betwixt the first Act and the second, while the Chiefs sit in the Palace, may be expressed the Sports of the Devils; as Flights and Dancing in Grotesque Figures: and a Song expressing the change of their condition; what they enjoy'd before; and how they fell bravely in Battel, having deserv'd Victory by their Valour; and what they would have done if they had Conquer'd.

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105

A C T II. SCENE I. A Champaign

Country.

Adam, as newly created, laid on a Bed of Moss and Flowers, by a Rock. Adam. What am I? or from whence? For that I am I know, because I think; but whence I came, Or how this Frame of mine began to be, What other Being can disclose to me? I move, I see; I speak, discourse, and know, Though now I am, I was not always so. Then that from which I was, must be before: Whom, as my Spring of Being, I adore. How full of Ornament is all I view 10 In all its parts! and seems as beautiful as new: O goodly order'd Work! O Pow'r Divine, Of thee I am; and what I am is thinel Raphael descends

to Adam in a

[Rwing.]

Cloud.

Raphael. First of Mankind, made o'er the World to Reign, Whose Fruitful Loins an Unborn Kind contein, Well hast thou reason'd; of himself is none But that Eternal Infinite, and One, Who never did begin, who ne'er can end; On Him all Beings, as their Source, depend: We first, who of his Image most partake, 20 Whom He all Spirit, Immortal, Pure, did make; Man next, whose Race exalted must supply The place of those who, falling, lost the Sky. 18 depend:] — Q1-9, F, D, Mg, M7; ~ A M1-2, M6; M3-4. 20 make;] Q1-5, Q7-8, F, D, M7; ~ A Q6, Ma, M6; Qg, M4-5; Mi, M3. 21 next,] M3, M5-6; Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; M1-2. 21 exalted] M1-2, M5-6; Q1-6, Q8-9, F, D, M4, M7; Q7; excellence M3.

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Adam. Bright Minister of Heav'n, sent here below T o me, who but begin to think and know, If such could fall from bliss, who knew and saw By near admission, their Creator's Law, What hopes have I, from Heav'n remote so far, T o keep those Laws, unknowing when I err? Raphael. Right Reason's Law to every humane heart T h ' Eternal, as his Image, will impart: This teaches to adore Heaven's Majesty: In pray'r and praise, does all devotion lye: So doing, thou and all thy race are blest. Adam. Of every creeping thing, of Bird, and Beast, I see the kinds: in pairs distinct they go; T h e Males their loves, their lovers Females know. T h o u nam'dst a race which must proceed from me, Yet my whole Species in my self I see: A barren sex, and single, of no use; But full of forms which I can ne'r produce. Raphael. T h i n k not the pow'r, who made thee thus, can find No way like theirs to propagate thy kind. Mean time, live happy, in thy self alone; Like him who, single, fills th' Etherial Throne. T o study Nature will thy time employ: Knowledge and Innocence, are perfect Joy. Adam. If solitude were best, th' All-wise above Had made no Creature for himself to love. I add not to the pow'r he had before; Yet to make me, extends his goodness more. He would not be alone, who all things can; But peopled Heav'n with Angels, Earth with Man. Raphael. As Man and Angels to the Deity, So all inferiour creatures are to thee. Heav'n's greatness no society can bear; Servants he made, and those thou want'st not here. Adam. Why did he Reason in my Soul implant, And speech, th' effect of reason? to the mute 47 58

All-wise] Q2-9, F, D, M4; allwise Q i , M j , M5, M7; All wise M1-2, M6. reason?] Q2-9, F, D, M4-5, M7; Qi; M 1 - 3 , M6.

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107

My speech is lost; my reason, to the Brute. Love, and society, more blessings bring T o them, the slaves, than pow'r to me their King. Raphael. Thus far, to try thee; but, to Heav'n, 'twas known It was not best for man to be alone; A n equal, yet thy subject, is design'd, For thy soft hours, and to unbend thy mind. T h y stronger soul shall her weak reason sway; A n d thou, through love, her beauty shalt obey: T h o u shalt secure her helpless sex from harms; And she thy cares shall sweeten, with her charms. Adam. What more can Heav'n bestow, or man require? Raphael. Yes; he can give, beyond thy own desire. A mansion is provided thee, more fair T h a n this; and worthy Heav'n's peculiar care: Not fram'd of common Earth, nor fruits, nor flowers, Of vulgar growth; but like Celestial Bowers: T h e soil luxuriant, and the fruit divine, 1 Where golden Apples, on green branches shine, / And purple grapes dissolve into immortal wine. ' For noon day's heat, are closer Arbors made; And for fresh ev'ning Ayr, the op'ner glade. Ascend: and, as we go, More wonders thou shalt know. Adam. And, as we go, let Earth and Heav'n above Sound our great Maker's pow'r and greater love. [They ascend to soft Musick and a Song is sung.

SCENE II. The Scene changes; and represents above, a Sun, gloriously rising, and moving orbicularly: at a distance, below, is the Moon; the part next the Sun enlightened, the other dark. A black cloud comes whirling from the adverse part of the Heavens, bearing 64 design'd,] Q 2 ; — Q i ; ~ A Q3-9, F, D, M1-7. 84+ s.d. [They] Q5-9, F, D, M4; A ~ Q1-4 ( M i - j , M5-7 omit this s.d.). SCENE II.] all texts omit.

108

The State of Innocence

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Lucifer in it; at his nearer approach, the body of the Sun is dark'ned. Lucifer. A m I become so monstrous? so disfigur'd, T h a t nature cannot suffer my approach, Or look me in the face? but stands agast; And that fair light which gilds this new made Orb, Shorn of his beams, shrinks in? Accurst ambition! A n d thou, black Empire of the neather World, How dearly have I bought you! But, 'tis past: I have already gone too far to stop, A n d must push on my dire revenge, in ruin Of this gay frame, and Man, my upstart rival; In scorn of me created. Down, my pride, And all my swelling thoughts; I must forget, A while, I am a Devil; and put on A smooth, submissive face; else I, in vain Have past through Night and Chaos to discover Those envy'd skies again, which I have lost. But stay; far off I see a Chariot driv'n, Flaming with beams, and in it Uriel, One of the seaven; (I know his hated face) W h o stands in presence of th' Eternal Throne, And seems the Regent of that glorious light. From that part of the Heavens where the Sun appears, a Chariot is discovered, drawn with white horses; and in it Uriel the Regent of the Sun. The Chariot moves swiftly, towards Lucifer; and at Uriel's approach, the Sun recovers his light. Uriel. Spirit, who art thou? and from whence arriv'd? (For I remember not thy face, in Heav'n) Or by command, or hither led by choice? l Lucifer.] Q2-9, F, D, M4, M6-7; Q i , M i , M3, M5; M2. 5 in?] Mi—2, M5, M7; Q1-8; Qg, F, M4; D; ~ A M3, M6. 17 off] M1-3, M5-6; Q1-5, M7; Q6-9, F, D, M4. 20 Throne,] Q4-9, F, D, M3-5, M7; Q1-3; M1-2, M6. 2 1 + s.d. Heavens] D, M1-3, M5-6; Q1-9, F, M4, M7. 8 1 + s.d. recovers] Q2-9, F, D, M 1 - 7 ; recover's Q i .

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109

Or wander'st thou within this lucid Orb, And stray'd from those fair fields of light above, Amidst this new creation want'st a guide, T o reconduct thy steps? Lucifer. Bright Uriel, Chief of the seaven, thou flaming Minister, W h o guard'st this new created Orb of light, (The world's eye that, and thou the eye of it) T h y favor, and high Office, make thee known: A n humble Cherub I, and of less note, Yet, bold, by thy permission, hither come, On high discoveries bent. Uriel. Speak thy design. Lucifer. Urg'd by renown of what I heard above Divulg'd by Angels nearest Heav'n's high King, Concerning this new World, I came to view (If worthy such a favor) and admire This last effect of our great Maker's pow'r: Thence, to my wond'ring fellows I shall turn, Full fraught with joyful tidings of these works, New matter of his Praise, and of our Songs. Uriel. T h y business is not what deserves my blame, Nor thou, thy self, unwelcome; see, fair Spirit, Below yon' Sphere, (of matter not unlike it,) There hangs the ball of Earth and Water mixt, Self-Center'd, and unmov'd. Lucifer. But where dwells Man? Uriel. On yonder Mount; thou seest it fenc'd with Rocks, A n d round th' ascent a Theatre of Trees, A sylvane Scene, which rising by degrees, Leads up the eye below, nor gluts the sight With one full prospect, but invites by many, T o view at last the whole: there his abode, Thither direct thy flight. Lucifer. O blest be thou Who, to my low converse, hast lent thy Ear, A n d favour'd my request: hail, and farewel. [Flies downward out of sight.

1 IO

The State of

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Uriel. Not unobserv'd thou goest, who e'r thou art; Whether some Spirit, on Holy purpose bent, so Or some fall'n Angel from below broke loose, W h o com'st with envious eyes, and curst intent, T o view this World, and its created Lord: Here will I watch, and, while my Orb rouls on, Pursue from hence, thy much suspected flight; And, if disguis'd, pierce through with beams of light. [The Chariot drives forward out of sight.

S C E N E III. Paradise. Trees cut out on each side, with several Fruits upon them: a Fountain in the midst: at the far end, the Prospect terminates in Walks. Adam. If this be dreaming, let me never wake; But still the joyes of that sweet sleep partake. Methought but why do I my bliss delay By thinking what I thought? Fair Vision stay; My better half, thou softer part of me, | T o whom I yield my boasted Soveraignty, > I seek my self, and find not, wanting thee. / Enter Eve. Eve. Tell me ye Hills and Dales, and thou fair Sun, W h o shin'st above, what am I? whence begun? 10 Like my self, I see nothing: from each Tree T h e feather'd kind peep down, to look on me; And Beasts, with up-cast eyes, forsake their shade, 63 while] Q2-9, F, D, M4; white Q i ; as M i - g , M5-7. SCENE III. / Paradise] T h e Scene Paradise Q j - g , F, D, M1-7. 4 Fair] Qa-9, F, D, M1-7; Qi. 7 [£xii] Q5-9, D, M6; Q1-4, F, M1-5, M7.

[Exit.

II, iii

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111

And gaze, as if I were to be obey'd. Sure I am somewhat which they wish to be, A n d cannot: I my self am proud of me. What's here? another Firmament below, [Looks into the Fountain. Spread wide, and other trees that downward grow? And now a Face peeps up, and now draws near, With smiling looks, as pleas'd to see me here. 20 As I advance, so that advances too, A n d seems to imitate what e're I do: W h e n I begin to speak, the lips it moves; Streams drown the voice, or it would say it loves. Yet when I would embrace, it will not stay: [Stoops down to embrace. Lost e'r 'tis held; when nearest, far away. Ah, fair, yet false; ah Being, form'd to cheat, By seeming kindness, mixt with deep deceipt. Enter Adam. Adam. O Virgin, Heav'n begot, and born of Man, T h o u fairest of thy great Creator's Works; 30 Thee, Goddess, thee th' Eternal did ordain His softer Substitute on Earth to Reign: And, wheresoe'r thy happy footsteps tread, Nature, in triumph, after thee is led. Angels, with pleasure, view thy matchless Grace, And love their Maker's Image in thy Face. Eve. O, only like my self, (for nothing here So graceful, so majestick does appear:) Art thou the Form my longing eyes did see, Loos'd from thy Fountain, and come out to me? 40 Yet, sure thou art not, nor thy Face, the same; Nor thy Limbs moulded in so soft a frame: T h o u look'st more sternly, dost more strongly move; And more of awe thou bear'st, and less of love. 16+

s.d.

the] M i - 2 , M 5 ; a Q 1 - 9 , F , D , M 3 - 4 , M6-7.

112

The State of

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Innocence

Yet pleas'd I hear thee, and above the rest; I, next my self, admire and love thee best. Adam. Made to command, thus freely I obey, And at thy feet the whole Creation lay. Pity that love thy beauty does beget: What more I shall desire, I know not yet. First let us lock'd in close embraces be; Thence I, perhaps, may teach my self, and thee. Eve. Somewhat forbids me, which I cannot name; For ignorant of guilt, I fear not shame: But some restraining thought, I know not why, Tells me, you long should beg, I long deny. Adam. In vain! my right to thee is seal'd above; Look round and see where thou canst place thy Love: All creatures else are much unworthy thee; They match'd, and thou alone art left for me. If not to love, we both were made in vain: I my new Empire would resign again, A n d change, with my dumb slaves, my nobler mind; Who, void of reason, more of pleasure find. Methinks, for me they beg, each, silently, Demands thy Grace, and seems to watch thy Eye. Eve. I well fore-see, when e'r thy suit I grant, T h a t I my much-lov'd Soveraignty shall want: Or like my self, some other may be made; A n d her new Beauty may thy heart invade. Adam. Could Heav'n some greater Master-piece devise, Set out with all the glories of the Skies: T h a t beauty yet in vain he should decree, Unless he made another heart for me. Eve. With how much ease I, whom I love, believe! Giving my self, my want of worth I grieve. Here, my inviolable Faith I plight, So, thou be my defence, I, thy delight. [Exeunt he leading her. 56 Adam.] Qï-ç), F, D, M i , M3-4, M7; Qi; ~ A Ma, M5; 68 may] Q2-9, F, D, M3-7; Q i ; way M1-2.

M6.

The State of

Innocence

A C T III. SCENE I. Paradise. Lucifer. Fair place; yet what is this to Heav'n, where I Sate next, so almost equall'd the most high? I doubted, measuring both, who was more strong; Then, willing to forget time since so long, Scarce thought I was created: vain desire Of Empire, in my thoughts still shot me higher, T o mount above his sacred Head: ah why, W h e n he so kind, was so ungrateful I? He bounteously bestow'd unenvy'd good On me: in arbitrary Grace I stood: T ' acknowledge this, was all he did exact; Small Tribute, where the W i l l to pay was act. 1 mourn it now, unable to repent, As he, who knows my hatred, to relent, Jealous of pow'r once question'd: hope, farewel; A n d with hope, fear; no depth below my Hell Can be prepar'd: then, ill be thou my good; And vast destruction, be my envy's food. T h u s I, with Heav'n, divided Empire gain; \ Seducing Man, I make his project vain, / And, in one hour, destroy his six days pain. / They come again; I must retire. Enter Adam and Eve. Adam. T h u s shall we live in perfect bliss, and see, Deathless our selves, our num'rous progeny. T h o u young and beauteous, my desires to bless; I, still desiring, what I still possess. 2 high?] F, D, M5; Q i , M3; Q2-9, M4; Mi-8, M6-7. 14 hatred,] Q1-9, F, D, M1-7. 20 vain,] Q6-9, F, M7; Q1-5, D, M4, M6; ~ A M i - g ; M5 omits line.

U4

The State of

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Eve. Heav'n, from whence Love (our greatest Blessing) came, Can give no more, but still to be the same. T h o u more of pleasure may'st with me partake; I, more of pride, because thy bliss I make. Adam. W h e n to my Arms thou broughtst thy Virgin Love, Fair Angels, sung our Bridal Hymn above: T h ' Eternal, nodding, shook the Firmament, And conscious Nature gave her glad consent. Roses unbid, and ev'ry fragrant Flow'r, Flew from their stalks, to strow thy Nuptial Bower: T h e furr'd and feather'd kind, the triumph did pursue, A n d Fishes leapt above the streams, the passing Pomp to view. Eve. W h e n your kind Eyes look'd languishing on mine, And wreathing Arms did soft embraces joyn, A doubtful trembling seiz'd me first all o'r; Then, wishes; and a warmth, unknown before: What follow'd, was all extasie and trance; Immortal pleasures round my swimming eyes did dance, And speechless joys, in whose sweet tumult tost, I thought my Breath, and my new Being lost. Lucif. O Death to hear! and a worse Hell on Earth: [Aside. What mad profusion on this clod-born Birth: Abyss of joyes, as if Heav'n meant to shew What, in base matters, such a hand could do: Or was his Virtue spent, and he no more With Angels could supply th' exhausted store Of which I swept the Sky And wanting Subjects to his haughty Will, On this mean Work, employ'd his trifling skill? Eve. Blest in our selves, all pleasures else abound; Without our care, behold th' unlabour'd Ground, 27 greatest Blessing)] Qg, F, M4; ~ QI-3, Q5-8, D, M1-2, M5; BIessingA Q(; greater blessings) M3; — M6; greatis blessing) M7. 27 came,] Q9, M4-5; Q1-8, D; ~ A F, M1-3, M7; ~(> M6. 50 matters,] Q2-9, F, D; Q i ; matter M1-3, M5-6; ~ A M4; matter, M7. 52 supply] Q2-9, F, D, M1-7; supyly Q i . 53 Sky ] M 3 , M5-6; Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M4, M 7 ; ~ : A Q4; ~ A A Mi—2. 55 skill?] Q1-9, F, D, Mi, M3-7; ~ A M2.

The State of

Innocence

Bounteous of Fruit; above our shady Bowers T h e creeping Jess'min thrusts her fragrant Flowers; T h e Myrtle, Orange, and the blushing Rose, \ With bending heads so nigh their blooms disclose, > Each seems to smell the flavor which the other blows: ; By these the Peach, the Guava, and the Pine, \ And creeping 'twixt 'em all, the mant'ling Vine, / Does round their trunks, her purple clusters twine. ' Adam. All these are ours, all nature's excellence Whose tast or smell can bless the feasted sence: One only fruit, in the mid garden plac'd, (The tree of knowledge,) is deny'd our tast; (Our proof of duty to our Maker's will:) Of disobedience, death's the threatned ill. Eve. Death is some harm, which, though we know not yet Since threatned, we must needs imagine great: And sure he merits it, who disobeys That one command, and one of so much ease. Lucifer. Must they then dye, if they attempt to know? He sees they would rebel, and keeps them low. On this foundation I their ruine lay; Hope to know more shall tempt to disobey. I fell by this, and, since their strength is less, Why should not equal means give like success? Adam. Come, my fair love, our mornings task we lose; Some labor ev'n the easiest life would choose: Our is not great; the dangling boughs to crop, 58 Fruit;] M5; Q1-9, F, D, M3, M6-7; ,~ A M i - s ; ffruits M4. 59 Jess'min] D, M1-3, M5-7; Jess'min Q1-9, F, M4. 60 The] Q2-9, F, D, M1-7; Thy Qi. 61 heads] Mi-3, M5-7; heaps Q1-9, F, D, M4 ("p" in Qi is inverted "d"). 63 Peach] D, M1-3, M5-6; Peach Q1-9, F, M4; Beach M7. 63 the Guava] D, M7; the Guava Q1-9, F, M4; the [space] M1-2; ye nectring M3; the Cedar M5; the Mirtle M6. 63 Pine] D, M1-3, M5-7; Pine Qi-g, F, M4. 64 Vine] D, M1-3, M5-7; Vine Qi-g, F, M4. 69 deny'd] Q5-9, F, D, M4; denys Qi; deni'd Q2; denied Q3-4; forbid M1-2, Mg-7; forbad M3. 76 know?] F, D, M5, M7; ~ A Q1-4, Mi—2, M6; Q5-9, M3-4. 78 lay;] Q6-9, F, M1-2, M4; Q1-5, D; M3, M5, M7; ~ A M6. 79 disobey.] Q2-9, F, D, M1-2, M7; ~ A Qi, M4, M6; M3; Mg.

ii6

The State of

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Whose too luxuriant growth our Alleys stop, And choak the paths: this our delight requires, A n d Heav'n no more of daily work desires. Eve. With thee to live, is Paradise alone: Without the pleasure of thy sight, is none. I fear small progress will be made this day; So much our kisses will our task delay. Lucifer. W h y have not I like these, a body too, Form'd for the same delights which they pursue? I could (so variously my passions move) Enjoy and blast her, in the act of love. Unwillingly I hate such excellence; She wrong'd me not; but I revenge th' offence Through her, on Heav'n whose thunder took away | My birth-right skyesl live happy whilst you may, / Blest pair, y' are not allow'd another dayl )

I I I , ii

[Exeunt.

[Exit.

S C E N E II. Gabriel and Ithuriel descend, carried on bright Clouds; and flying cross each other, then light on the ground. Gabriel. Ithuriel, since we two Commission'd are From Heav'n the Guardians of this new-made pair, Each mind his charge, for, see, the night draws on, And rising mists pursue the setting Sun. Ithuriel. Blest is our lot to serve; our task we know: T o watch, least any, from th' Abyss below, Broke loose, disturb their sleep with dreams; or worse, Assault their beings with superior force. Uriel flies down from the Sun. 87 desires.] Q2-3, Q5-9, F, D, M3-6; ~ A Q i , M1-2, M7; Q4. 91 [Exeunt] Q5-9, F, D, M6; A ~ Q1-3, M1-5, M7; Q4 omits s.d. 99 birth-right skyes] D; birth-right-skyes Q1-6; Birthright Skies Q7-9, F, M1-2, M4-7; birth-right: skies M3. 100 allow'd] Q2-9, F, D, Mi—2, M4-7; alow'd Qi, M3. 100 [Exit] Q5~g, F, D, M6; a ~ Q1-4, M1-3, M5, M7; M4 omits s.d. S C E N E II.] all texts omit.

Ill, ii

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117

Uriel. Gabriel, if now the watch be set, prepare With strictest guard, to show thy utmost care. T h i s morning came a spirit, fair he seem'd, Whom, by his face, I some young Cherub deem'd, Of Man he much inquir'd and where his place, With shews of zeal to praise his maker's grace; But I, with watchful eyes, observ'd his flight, And saw him on yon steepy Mount alight, There, as he thought unseen, he lay'd aside His borrow'd masque, and reassum'd his pride: I mark'd his looks, averse to Heav'n and good; Dusky he grew, and long revolving stood On some deep, dark design; thence shot with hast, A n d or'e the mounds of Paradise he past: By his proud port, he seem'd the Prince of hell; And here he lurcks, in shades, till night: search well Each grove and thicket, pry in every shape, Lest, hid in some, th' arch hypocrite escape. Gabriel. If any spirit come t' invade, or scout From hell, what earthy fence can keep him out? But rest secure of this, he shall be found, } And taken, or proscrib'd this happy ground. > Ithuriel. T h o u to the East, I westward walk the round, ) And meet we in the midst. Uriel. Heav'n your design Succeed: your charge requires you, and me mine. [Uriel flies forward out of sight: the two Angels Exeunt severally. 32 midst. / Uriel. ] midst. (Uri.) Q1-9, F, D, M4 (midstA Q1-4; AUriel.A D); Middst. / Vriel M1-2, M5; midst— / Uriel A Mg; midst / M6; midst. / Uriel A M7. 33+ s.d. [Uriel] Q7-9, F, D; A ~ Q1-6, M1-7.

ii8

The State of

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SCENE III. A night-piece of a pleasant Bower: Adam and Eve asleep in it. Enter Lucifer. Lucifer. So, now they lye, secure in love, and steep Their sated sences in full draughts of sleep. By what sure means can I their bliss invade? By violence? No; for they're immortal made. Their Reason sleeps; but Mimic fancy wakes, Supplies her parts, and wild Idea's takes From words and things, ill sorted, and misjoyn'd; T h e Anarchie of thought and Chaos of the mind: Hence dreams confus'd and various may arise; 10 These will I set before the Woman's eyes; T h e weaker she, and made my easier prey; Vain shows, and Pomp, the softer sex betray. [Lucifer sits down by Eve, and seems to whisper in her ear. A Vision, where a Tree rises loaden with Fruit; four Spirits rise with it, and draw a canopie out of the tree, other Spirits dance about the Tree in deform'd shapes, after the Dance an Angel enters, with a Woman, habited like Eve. Angel, singing. Look up, look up, and see What Heav'n prepares for thee; Look up, and this fair fruit behold, Ruddy it smiles, and rich with streaks of gold. T h e loaded branches downward bend, SCENE III.] all texts omit. g wakes,] D, M3; — Q i ; Q2-9, F, M4; ~ A M5; makesA M6; M7 (M1-2 omit passage). 6 Supplies] Q6-9, F, D, M4-5, M7; Supply's Q1-4; Supplys Q5, M3, M6 (M1-2 omit passage). i « + s.d. [Lucifer] Q6-9, F, D; A ~ Q1-5, M4 (s.d. omitted by MI-J, M5-7).

Ill, iii

The State of

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Willing they stoop, and thy fair hand attend. Fair Mother of Mankind, make haste And bless, and bless thy senses with the taste. Woman. No; 'tis forbidden, I In tasting it shall dye. Angel. Say who injoyn'd this harsh command. Woman. 'Twas Heav'n; and who can Heav'n withstand? Angel. Why was it made so fair, why plac'd in sight? Heav'n is too good to envy man's delight. See, we before thy face will try, What thou so fear'st and will not dye. [The Angel takes the fruit and gives to the Spirits who danc'd, they immediately put off their deform'd shapes, and appear Angels. Angel, singing. Behold what a change on a sudden is herel How glorious in beauty, how bright they appear! From spirits deform'd they are Deities made, T h e i r pinions at pleasure, the clouds can invade, [The Angel gives to the Woman who eats. T i l l equal in honor they rise With him who commands in the skies: T h e n taste without fear, and be happy and wise. Woman. Ah, now I believe; such a pleasure I find As enlightens my eyes, and enlivens my mind. [The spirits who are turn'd Angels fly up, when they have tasted. I only repent I deferr'd my content. Angel. Now wiser experience has taught you to prove What a folly it is, 18 attend.] Q3-9,F, D, M4, M7; ~ A Q i , M1-2, M6; Q2, M3; M5. 21 'tis] Q2-9, F, D, M5-6; tis Q i , Mi—2, M4, M7; it is M3. 28+ s.d. [The] Q6-g, F, D, M4, M6-7; A ~ Q1-5, M1-3, M5. 28+ s.d. Spirits] Q2-9, F, M1-7; Q i , D. 29 Angel,] Angels Q1-2, Q5-8, F, M4; Angels. Q3-4, D; Angels, Q9; ~ A M1-3, M5-7. 30 beauty,] Q2-9, F, D, M i , M3-7; ~ A Q i , M2. 31 made,] Q2-9, F, D, M3-g, M7; ~ A Qi, M1-2, M6.

120

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III, iii

Out of fear to shun bliss. T o the joy that's forbidden we eagerly move; It inhances the price, and increases the love. Chorus of both. T o the joy, &c. Two Angels descend, they take the Woman each by the hand, and fly up with her out of sight. The Angel who sung, and the Spirits who held the Canopy, at the same instant sink down with the Tree. Enter Gabriel and Ithuriel to Lucifer who remains. Gabriel. What art thou? speak thy name, and thy intent. W h y here alone? and on what errand sent? Not from above: no, thy wan looks betray Diminish'd light, and eyes unus'd to day. Lucifer. Not to know me, argues thy self unknown: T i m e was when, shining next th' Imperial throne, I sate in awful state; while such as thou Did, in th' ignoble crowd, at distance bow. Gabriel. Think'st thou, vain spirit, thy glories are the same? A n d seest not sin obscures thy God-like frame? I know thee now, by thy ungrateful Pride; T h a t shows me what thy faded looks did hide: Tray tor to him who made, and set thee high; And fool, that pow'r which form'd thee to defie. Lucifer. Go, slaves, return, and fawn in Heav'n again; Seek thanks from him whose quarrel you maintain. Vile wretches! of your servitude to boast: You basely keep the place I bravely lost. Ithuriel. Freedome is choice of what we will and do: \ T h e n blame not servants who are freely so. / 'Tis base, not to acknowledge what we owe. / 4 5 + s.d. Canopy,. . . instant] Q2-9, F, D, M4; ~ A . . . Qi; ~ A .. . M1-3, M5-6; ... M7. 53 crowd,] Q5-9, F, M4; crow'dA Q i , M1-2; crow'd, Q2-4, M7; D, M6; croudeA M3, M5. 57 hide:] Mi, M5; Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M2, M6; Mg. 61 quarrel] Q2-9, F, D, M4-7; quarel Q i , M3; Quarrells M1-2.

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Lucifer. Thanks, how er'e due, proclame subjection yet: I fought for pow'r to quit th' upbraided debt. Who er'e expects our thanks himself repaies; 70 And seems but little, who can want our praise. Gabriel. What in us duty, shows not want in him: Blest in himself alone T o whom no praise we, by good deeds, can add; Nor can his glory suffer from our bad. Made for his use; yet he has form'd us so We, unconstrain'd, what he commands us do. So praise we him and serve him freely best: Thus thou, by choice, art fall'n, and we are blest. Ithuriel. This, lest thou think thy plea, unanswer'd, good; so Our question thou evad'st; how did'st thou dare T o break Hell bounds, and near this humane pair In nightly ambush lye? Lucifer. Lives there who would not seek to force his way From pain, to ease; from darkness, to the day? Should I, who found the means to scape, not dare T o change my sulphu'rous smoak, for upper Ayr? When I, in fight, sustain'd your Thunderer, And Heav'n on me, alone spent half his war, Think'st thou those wounds were light? should I not seek so T h e clemency of some more temp'rate Clime T o purge my gloom; and by the Sun refin'd, Bask in his beams, and bleach me in the wind? Gabriel. If pain to shun, be all thy business here, Methinks, thy fellows the same course should steer. Is their pain less who yet behind thee stay? Or thou less hardy to endure than they? Lucifer. Nor one, nor t' other; but as leaders ought, I ventur'd first alone; first danger sought; And first explor'd this new created frame, IOO Which fill'd our dusky Regions with its fame: 79 Pka.] Q2-9, F, M4; Qi, D, M1-3, M5-7. 80 evad'st;] Q2-5, M5, M7; Qi, M1-3, M6; Q6-9, F, D; M4. 82 lye? ] ~ ? A Q1-9, F, D, M4-5, M7; beset M3; M6 (passage omitted by Mi-2).

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In hopes my fainting Troops to settle here, A n d to defend, against your Thunderer, This spot of earth; or nearer Heav'n repair, A n d forrage to his gates from Middle Ayr. Ithuriel. Fool, to believe thou any part canst gain \ From him, who could'st not thy first ground maintain. > Gabriel. But whether that design, or one as vain, ; T ' attempt the lives of these, first drew thee here; Avoid the place; and never more appear no Upon this Hallow'd earth, else prove our might. Lucifer. Not that I fear, do I decline the fight: You I disdain; let me with him contend On whom your limitary pow'rs depend. More honour from the sender than the sent: T i l l then, I have accomplish'd my intent; And leave this place, which but augments my pain Gazing to wish, yet hopeless to obtain. [Exit, they following

him.

A C T IV. SCENE I. Paradise. Adam and Eve. Adam. Strange was your dream, and full of sad portent; Avert it, Heav'n, (if it from Heav'n were sent:) Let on thy foes the dire presages fall; T o us be good and easy, when we call. Eve. Behold, from far a breaking Cloud appears, Which, in it, many winged warriours bears. Their glory shoots upon my aking sense; T h o u stronger may'st endure the floud of light, n o earth,] Q2-9, F, D, M3-6; ~ A Q i ; Mi-a; M7. 113 pow'rs] M7; power's Q1-4; Powers Q5-9, F, D, M3-4, M6; power Mi-a, M5. 117+ s.d. Exit, they] M5-6 ( ~ A ~ M6); [They Q1-9, D, M4; They F; Exit And they M1-2; Ext they M3; Ex: they M7. 6 warriours] Q3, Q6-9, F, D, M1-7 (warriers M3, M6); wariours Q i - a , Q4-5.

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A n d while in shades I chear my fainting sight Encounter the descending excellence.

[Exit.

The State of

The Cloud descends with six Angels in it; and when it's near the ground, breaks; and on each side, discovers six more: they descend out of the Cloud. Raphael and Gabriel discourse with Adam, the rest stand at distance. Raphael. First of mankind, that we, from Heav'n are sent Is from Heav'n's care thy ruine to prevent. T h ' Apostate Angel has, by night, been here, A n d whisper'd through thy sleeping consorts ear Delusive dreams; thus warn'd by us, beware; A n d guide her frailty, by thy timely care. Gabriel. These, as thy guards from outward harms, are sent: Ills from within, thy reason must prevent. Adam. Natives of Heav'n, who, in compassion deign T o want that place where joyes immortal reign, In care of me; what praises can I pay Defended in obedience; taught t' obey? Raphael. Praise him alone who, God-like, form'd thee free, W i t h will unbounded, as a Deity; W h o gave thee reason, as thy Aid, to chuse Apparent good, and evil to refuse. Obedience is that good; T h i s Heav'n exacts A n d Heav'n, all just, from man requires not acts W h i c h man wants pow'r to do: pow'r then is giv'n Of doing good; but not compell'd by Heav'n. Gabriel. Made good; that thou dost to thy Maker owe: But to thy self, if thou continu'st so. Adam. Freedome of will, of all good things is best; But can it be by finite man possest? I know not how Heav'n can communicate W h a t equals man to his Creators state. Raphael. Heav'n cannot give his boundless pow'r away; 15 18 24

dreams;] Q2-9, M4-5; Qi, M1-3; F; — D, M7; Ills] Q2-9, F, D, M1-4, M6; Qi, My; 111 M5. Deity] Q 8 - 9 , F , D , M i - 7 ; D i e t y Q i .

M6.

124

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But boundless libertie of choice he may. So Orbs, from the first mover, motion take; Yet each their proper revolutions make. Adam. Grant Heav'n could once have given us liberty; \ Are we not bounded, now, by firm decree, > Since what so er'e is preordain'd, must be? J Else Heav'n, for man, events might preordain, And man's free will might make those orders vain. Gabriel. T h ' Eternal, when he did the world create, All other agents did necessitate: So, what he order'd, they by nature do; Thus light things mount, and heavy downward go. Man only boasts an arbitrary state. Adam. Yet causes their effects necessitate In willing agents: where is freedom then? Or who can break the chain which limits men T o act what is unchangeably forecast, Since the first cause gives motion to the last? Raphael. Heav'n by fore-knowing what will surely be, ) Does only, first, effects in causes see; > And finds, but does not make necessity. ) Creation, is of pow'r and will th' effect, Foreknowledge only of his Intellect; His prescience makes not, but supposes things; Infers necessity to be; not brings. Thus thou art not constrain'd to good or ill; Causes which work th' effect, force not the will. Adam. The force unseen, and distant I confess; But the long chain makes not the bondage less. Ev'n Man himself may to himself seem free, And think that choice which is necessity. Gabriel. And who but man should judge of man's free state? Adam. I find that I can chuse to love, or hate; Obey, or disobey; do good, or ill: Yet such a choice is but consent; not will. 54 forecast,] Q6-9, F, D, M3, M6-7;

Q1-5, M4;

Mi;

M2;

M5.

The State of

Innocence

I can but chuse what he has first design'd, For he before that choice, my will confin'd. Gabriel. Such impious fancies, where they entrance gain, Make Heav'n, all pure, thy crimes to preordain. Adam. Far, far from me be banish'd such a thought: I argue only to be better taught. Can there be freedom, when what now seems free «0 Was founded on some first necessity? For what ere cause can move the will t' elect Must be sufficient to produce th' effect: And what's sufficient must effectual be; T h e n how is man, thus forc'd by causes free? Raphael. Sufficient causes, only work th' effect W h e n necessary agents they respect. Such is not man; who, though the cause suffice, Yet often he his free assent denies. Adam. What causes not, is not sufficient still. 90 Gabriel. Sufficient in it self; not in thy will. Raphael. When we see causes join'd t' effects at last, T h e chain but shows necessity that's past. That what's done, is: (ridiculous proof of fate!) T e l l me which part it does necessitate? I'll chuse the other; there I'll link th' effect. O chain, which fools, to catch themselves, projectl Adam. T h o u g h no constraint from Heav'n, or causes, be; Heav'n may prevent that ill he does foresee: And, not preventing, though he does not cause, 100 He seems to will that man should break his laws. Gabriel. Heav'n may permit, but not to ill consent; For hind'ring ill, he would all choice prevent. 'Twere to unmake, to take away thy will. Adam. Better constrain'd to good, than free to ill. Raphael. But what reward or punishment could be If man to neither good nor ill were free? T h ' Eternal justice could decree no pain T o him whose sins it self did first ordain; A n d good compell'd, could no reward exact:

125

126

The State of

Innocence

His pow'r would shine in goodness, not thy act. Our task is done: obey; and, in that choice, T h o u shalt be blest, and Angels shall rejoyce. [Raphael and Gabriel fly up in the

Cloud:

the other Angels go o f f . Adam. Hard state of life! since Heav'n fore-knows my will, Why am I not ty'd up from doing ill? W h y am I trusted with my self at large, When he's more able to sustain the charge? Since Angels fell, whose strength was more than mine, 'Twould show more grace my frailty to confine. Fore-knowing the success, to leave me free, Excuses him, and yet supports not me.

To him, Eve. Eve. Behold my heart's dear Lord, how high the Sun Is mounted, yet our labor not begun. T h e ground, unbid, gives more than we can ask; But work is pleasure when we chuse our task. Nature, not bounteous now, but lavish growes; Our paths with flow'rs, she prodigally strowes; With pain we lift up our intangled feet, While cross our walks the shooting branches meet. Adam. Well has thy care advis'd; 'tis fit we hast; Nature's too kind, and follows us too fast; Leaves us no room her treasures to possess, But mocks our industry with her excess; And wildly wanton wears by night away T h e sign of all our labors done by day. Eve. Since, then, the work's so great, the hands so few, This day let each a several task pursue. By thee, my hands to labor will not move, But round thy neck, employ themselves in love. 116 he's] Q2-9, F, D, M3-7; hee's Qi, M1-2. 120+ s.d. At right in Q1-9, F, D, M4 ([To Q1-2, Q5-7, Qg, F); omitted 130 Nature's] Q2-9,F, D, Mg, M5-7; Natur's Qi; Natures M1-2, M4.

by M j .

The State of

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127

When thou would'st work, one tender touch, one smile 140 (How can I hold?) will all thy task beguile. Adam. So hard we are not to our labor ty'd That smiles, and soft endearements, are deny'd. Smiles, not allow'd to Beasts, from reason move, And are the priviledge of humane love: And if, sometimes, each others eyes we meet, Those little vacancies, from toil, are sweet. But you, by absence, would refresh your joyes, Because perhaps my conversation cloyes. Yet this, would prudence grant, I could permit. 150 Eve. What reason makes my small request unfit? Adam. The fall'n Archangel, envious of our state, Pursues our Beings with immortal hate: And hopeless to prevail by open force, Seeks hid advantage to betray us worse: Which when asunder, will not prove so hard; For both together are each others guard. Eve. Since he, by force, is hopeless to prevail He can by fraud alone our minds assail: And to believe his wiles my truth can move 160 Is to misdoubt my reason or my love. Adam. Call it my care, and not mistrust of thee; Yet thou art weak, and full of Art is he; Else how could he that Host seduce to sin Whose fall has left the Heav'nly nation thin? Eve. I grant him arm'd with subtilty, and hate; But why should we suspect our happy state? Is our perfection of so frail a make; As ev'ry plot can undermine or shake? Think better both of Heav'n, thy self, and me: 170 Who always fears, at ease can never be. Poor state of bliss, where so much care is shown As not to dare to trust our selves alone! A dam. Such is our state, as not exempt from fall; 15a 157

hate:] M5; Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; force] Q2-9, F, D, M1-7; foree Qi.

M1-2, M6;

M3.

128

The State of

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Yet firm, if reason to our ayd we call: And that, in both, is stronger than in one; I would not; why would'st thou, then, be alone? Eve. Because thus warn'd, I know my self secure, And long my little trial to endure: T ' approve my faith; thy needless fears remove; i8o Gain thy esteem, and so deserve thy love. If all this shake not thy obdurate will, Know that, ev'n present, I am absent still: And then what pleasure hop'st thou in my stay When I'm constrain'd, and wish my self away? Adam. Constraint does ill with love and beauty sute; I would presuade; but not be absolute. Better be much remiss than too severe; If pleas'd in absence thou wilt still be here: Go; in thy native innocence proceed, 190 And summon all thy reason at thy need. Eve. My Soul, my eyes delight; in this I find Thou lov'st; because to love is to be kind. [Embracing him. Seeking my trial, I am still on guard: Tryals less sought, would find us less prepar'd. Our foe's too proud the weaker to assail; Or doubles his dishonour if he fail. [Exit. Adam. In love, what use of prudence can there be? More perfect I, and yet more pow'rful she. Blame me not, Heav'n if thou love's pow'r had'st try'd, 200 What could be so unjust to be deny'd? One look of hers my resolution breaks; Reason it self turns folly when she speaks: And aw'd by her whom it was made to sway, Flatters her pow'r, and does its own betray. [Exit. 184 away?] D; Q1-9, F, M1-7. 196 [£xit] D, M6; Q1-2, M1-3, M5, M7; s.d. omitted by Q3-9, F, M4. 204 [£x£i] D, M6; Q1-2, M1-3, M5, M7; s.d. omitted by Q.3-9, F, M4.

IV, ii

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129

SCENE II. The middle part of the Garden is represented, where four Rivers meet: on the right side of the Scene, is plac'd the Tree of life, on the left, the Tree of Knowledge. Enter Lucifer. Lucifer. Methinks the beauties of this place should mourn; T h ' immortal fruits, and Flow'rs at my return Should hang their wither'd heads; for sure my breath Is now more poys'nous, and has gather'd death Enough, to blast the whole Creation's frame: Swoln with despite, with sorrow, and with shame, Thrice have I beat the wing, and rid with night About the world, behind the globe of light, T o shun the watch of Heav'n; such care I use: 10 (What pains will malice, rais'd like mine, refuse? Not the most abject form of Brutes to take.) \ Hid in the spiry volumes of the snake, > I lurk'd within the covert of a Brake; ) Not yet descry'd. But, see, the woman here Alone! beyond my hopes! no guardian near. Good Omen that: I must retire unseen, And, with my borrow'd shape, the work begin. [Retires. Enter Eve. Eve. Thus far, at least, with leave; nor can it be A sin to look on this Celestial tree: 20 I would not more; to touch a crime may prove: Touching is a remoter tast in love. Death may be there, or poyson in the smell, S C E N E II.] M$, M5, M7 (Scae: M7; 2 A M5); omitted by Qi-p, F, D, M4; Scene 2*: M 1 - 2 ; Scene ye 2d M6. 10 refuse?] Q2-g, F, D, M 4 - 5 , M7; Qi, M 1 - 2 , M6; Mg. 11-13 Brace omitted by Q1-4, D, Mi-j, M6.

îgo

The State of

Innocence

IV, ii

(If death in any thing so fair can dwell:) But Heav'n forbids: I could be satisfy'd Were every tree but this, but this deny'd. A Serpent enters on the Stage, and makes directly to the Tree of Knowledge, on which winding himself, he plucks an apple; then descends and carries it away. Strange sight! did then our great Creator grant That priviledge, which we their Masters want, To these inferiour beings? or was it chance? And was he blest with bolder ignorance? I saw his curling crest the trunk infold: The ruddy fruit, distinguish'd ore with gold, And smiling in its native wealth, was torn From the rich bough, and then in triumph born: The vent'rous victor march'd unpunish'd hence, And seem'd to boast his fortunate offence. To her Lucifer in a humane

shape.

Lucifer. Hail, Soveraign of this Orbl form'd to possess The world, and, with one look, all nature bless. Nature is thine; thou, Empress, dost bestow On fruits, to blossom; and on flowers, to blow. They happy, yet insensible to boast Their bliss: more happy they who know thee most. Then happiest I, to humane reason rais'd, And voice, with whose first accents thou art prais'd. Eve. What art thou, or from whence? for on this ground, Beside my Lord's, ne're heard I humane sound. Art thou some other Adam, form'd from Earth, And com'st to claim an equal share, by birth, In this fair field? or sprung of Heav'nly race? Lucifer. An humble native of this happy place, Thy vassal born, and late of lowest kind, Whom Heav'n neglecting made, and scarce design'd But threw me in, for number to the rest,

I V , ii

The State of

Innocence

Below the mounting bird, and grazing beast; By chance not prudence, now superior grown. Eve. T o make thee such, what miracle was shown? Lucifer. W h o would not tell what thou vouchsaf'st to hear? Saw'st thou not late a speckled serpent rear His gilded spires to climb on yon' fair tree? Before this happy minute I was he. Eve. T h o u speak'st of wonders: make thy story plain. Lucifer. Not wishing then, and thoughtless to obtain, So great a bliss; but, led by sence of good, Inborn to all, I sought my needful food: Then, on that Heav'nly tree, my sight I cast; T h e colour urg'd my eye, the scent my tast. Not to detain thee long; I took, did eat: Scarce had my palate touch'd th' immortal meat, But on a sudden, turn'd to what I am: God-like, and, next to thee, I fair became: Thought, spake, and reason'd; and, by reason found Thee, Nature's Queen, with all her graces crown'd. Eve. Happy thy lot; but far unlike is mine: Forbidd to eat, not daring to repine. 'Twas Heav'n's command; and should we disobey, What rais'd thy Being, ours must take away. Lucifer. Sure you mistake the precept, or the tree: Heav'n cannot envious of his blessings be. Some chance-born plant he might forbid your use, As wild, or guilty of a deadly juice: Not this, whose colour, scent divine, and tast, Proclaim the thoughtful Maker not in hast. Eve. By all these signs, too well I know the fruit, And dread a pow'r severe, and absolute. Lucifer. Severe, indeed; ev'n to injustice hard; If death, for knowing more, be your reward: Knowledge of good, is good; and therefore fit; A n d to know ill, is good; for shunning it. Eve. What, but our good, could he design in this, 55 56

shown?] Q2-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-5, M7; hear?] Qfr-g, F, M4-5, M7; Q1-5;

Qi; M3, M6. D, M1-2, M6; M3.

132

The State of

Innocence

IV, ii

Who gave us all, and plac'd in perfect bliss? Lucifer. Excuse my zeal, fair Soveraign in your cause, Which dares to tax his arbitrary laws. 'Tis all his aym to keep you blindly low, } That servile fear from ignorance may flow: > W e scorn to worship whom too well we know. ' He knows that eating you shall god-like be; As wise, as fit to be ador'd, as he. For his own int'rest he this Law has giv'n; Such Beauty may raise factions in his Heav'n. By awing you, he does possession keep, xoo And is too wise to hazard partnership. Eve. Alass who dares dispute with him that right? T h e power which form'd us must be infinite. Lucifer. Who told you how your form was first design'd? T h e Sun and Earth, produce of every kind; Grass, Flow'rs, and Fruits; nay, living creatures too: Their mould was base; 'twas more refin'd in you: Where vital heat, in purer Organs wrought, Produc'd a nobler kind rais'd up to thought; And that perhaps, might his beginning be: no Something was first; I question if 'twere he. But grant him first, yet still suppose him good, Not envying those he made, immortal food. Eve. But death, our disobedience must pursue. Lucifer. Behold, in me, what shall arrive to you. I tasted; yet I live: nay, more; have got A state more perfect than my native lot. Nor fear this petty fault his wrath should raise: Heav'n rather will your dauntless virtue praise, That sought, through threat'ned death, immortal good: 120 Gods are immortal only by their food. Tast and remove What diff'rence does 'twixt them and you remain: As I gain'd reason, you shall God-head gain. Eve, aside. He eats, and lives, in knowledge greater grown: 90

109

beginning] Q2-9, D, M3, M6; begining Q i , F , M 1 - 2 , M 4 - 5 , M7.

v,i

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133

Was death invented then for us alone? Is intellectual food to man deny'd Which Brutes have, with so much advantage try'd? Nor only try'd themselves, but frankly, more, T o me have offer'd their unenvi'd store? 130 Lucifer. Be bold, and all your needless doubts remove: View well this Tree, (the Queen of all the grove,) How vast her bole, how wide her arms are spread, How high above the rest she shoots her head, Plac'd in the mid'st; would Heav'n his works disgrace, By planting poyson in the happiest place? Hast; you lose time and God-head by delay. [Plucking the Fruit. Eve looking about her. 'Tis done; I'll venture all and disobey. Perhaps, far hid in Heav'n, he does not spy, And none of all his Hymning guards are nigh. 140 T o my dear lord, the lovely fruit I'll bear; He to partake my bliss, my crime shall share. [Exit hastily. Lucifer. She flew, and thank'd me not, for hast: 'twas hard With no return such counsel to reward. My work is done, or much the greater part; She's now the tempter, to ensnare his heart. He, whose firm faith no reason could remove, Will melt before that soft seducer, love. [Exit.

A C T V. SCENE I. Paradise. Eve, with a bough

in her

hand.

Eve. Methinks, I tread more lightly on the ground; My nimble feet, from unhurt flow'rs rebound: 1 3 6 + s.d. [Plucking] Q3-9, F, D, M4; Q1-2; [plucks M6-7; different s.d. without bracket in MI-J, M5. 142 'twas] Q2~9, D, M3-7; t'was Qi; 'was F; twas M1-2. A C T ] Q2-4, Q6-9, F, D, M2, M4-6; — Qi, Q5, M3, M7; Mi. SCENE] Q2-9, F, D, M3-6; — Qi; M1-2; Scae. M7. 2 flow'rs] Qi-6, Q9, D, M7; ffow'rs Qi; Flowers Q7-8, F, M1-6.

134

The State of

V, i

Innocence

I walk in Ayr, and scorn this Earthly seat; Heav'n is my palace; this my base retreat. Take me not Heav'n, too soon; 'twill be unkind T o leave the partner of my bed behind. I love the wretch; but stay, shall I afford Him part? already he's too much my Lord. 'Tis in my pow'r to be a Soveraign now; And, knowing more, to make his manhood bow. Empire is sweet; but how if Heav'n has spy'd? If I should dye, and he above provide Some other Eve, and place her in my stead? Shall she possess his love, when I am dead? No; he shall eat, and dye with me, or live: Our equal crimes shall equal fortune give. Enter Adam. Adam. What Joy, without your sight, has earth in store? While you were absent, Eden was no more. Winds murmur'd, through the leaves, your long delay; And fountains, or'e their pebles, chid your stay. But with your presence cheer'd, they cease to mourn, And walks wear fresher green, at your return. Eve. Henceforth you never shall have cause to chide; No future absence shall our joys divide: 'Twas a short death my love ne'r try'd before, And therefore strange; but yet the cause was more. Adam. My trembling heart forbodes some ill; I fear T o ask that cause which I desire to hear. What means that lovely fruit? what means (alassl) That blood, which flushes guilty in your face? Speak do not yet, at last, I must be told. Eve. Have courage then: 'tis manly to be bold. This fruit why dost thou shake? no death is nigh: 'Tis what I tasted first; yet do not dye. Adam. Is it (I dare not ask it all at first; 17 store?] Q5-9, F, M1-2, M4-5, M7;

Q1-4, D;

M3;

M6.

v,i

The State of Innocence

Doubt is some ease to those who fear the worst:) Say, 'tis not. Eve. 'Tis not what thou need'st to fear: What danger does in this fair fruit appear? We have been cozen'd; and had still been so, Had I not ventur'd boldly first to know. Yet, not I first; I almost blush to say The serpent eating taught me first the way. The serpent tasted, and the god-like fruit Gave the dumb voice; gave reason, to the Brute. Adam. O fairest of all creatures, last, and best, Of what Heav'n made, how art thou dispossest Of all thy native Glories! fain! Decay'd! (Pity so rare a frame so frail was made) Now cause of thy own ruine; and with thine, (Ah, who can live without thee?) cause of mine. Eve. Reserve thy pity, till I want it more: I know my self much happier than before; More wise, more perfect, all I wish to be, Were I but sure Alass! of pleasing thee. Adam. Y' have shown how much you my content design: Yet ah! would Heav'n's displeasure pass like mine. Must I without you, then, in wild woods dwell? Think, and but think of what I lov'd so well Condemn'd to live with subjects ever mute; A salvage Prince, unpleas'd though absolute? Eve. Please then your self with me, and freely tast, Lest I, without you, should to Godhead hast: Lest diff'ring in degree, you claim too late Unequal love, when 'tis deny'd by fate. Adam. Cheat not your self, with dreams of Deity; Too well, but yet too late, your crime I see: Nor think the fruit your knowledge does improve; But you have beauty still, and I have love. 50 54 60

thee?] M5; Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M6; M3. thee.] Q2-9, F, D, M2, M4-5, M7; Qi, M3; ~ A Mi, M6. absolute?] Qi-g, F, D, Mi, M3, M5-7; ~ A M2, M4.

135

136

The State of

Innocence

Not cozen'd, I, with choice, my life resign: Imprudence was your fault, but love is mine. [Takes the Fruit and eats it. Eve embracing him. O wond'rous pow'r of matchless love exprest: Why was this trial thine, of loving best? I envy thee that lot; and could it be, Would venture something more than death, for thee. Not that I fear, that death th' event can prove; W ' are both immortal, while so well we love. Adam. What e're shall be the event, the lot is cast: Where appetites are giv'n, what sin to tast? Or if a sin, 'tis but by precept such; T h ' offence so small, the punishment's too much, T o seek so soon his new made world's decay: Nor we, nor that, were fashion'd for a day. Eve. Give to the winds thy fear of death, or ill; And think us made but for each others will. Adam. I will, at least, defer that anxious thought, A n d death, by fear, shall not be nigher brought: If he will come, let us to joyes make hast; T h e n let him seize us when our pleasure's past, We'll take up all before; and death shall find W e have drain'd life, and left a void behind.

[Exeunt.

S C E N E II. Enter Lucifer. Lucifer. 'Tis done, Sick nature, at that instant, trembled round; And Mother Earth, sigh'd, as she felt the wound. Of how short durance was this new-made state! 69 I,] M7; Q i ; ~ A Q2-9, F, D, M1-6. 70 mine.] Q2-3, Q5-8, F, D, M3-6; Q i , Qg; ~ A Q4, M1-2, M7. SCENE II.] all texts omit. 1 done, ] Q1-9, M4; F, M7; D; M1-2; M3, M5-6. 3 wound.] Q6-9, F, D, M4, M7; Q 1 - 5 , M3; ~ A M i - g , M6; M5.

A D A M T A K E S THE F R U I T ( A C T V , SCENE i)

FROM The Dramatic

Works of John Dry den, Esq. (1735)

V , iii

The State of

Innocence

157

How far more mighty than Heav'ns love, Hells hatel His project ruin'd, and his King of clay: He form'd, an Empire for his foe to sway. Heav'n let him rule, which by his arms he got; I'm pleas'd to have obtain'd the second lot. 10 This Earth is mine; whose Lord I made my thrall; Annexing to my Crown, his conquer'd Ball. Loos'd from the lakes, my Legions I Will lead, And, o're the darkned Ayr, black Banners spread: Contagious damps, from hence, shall mount above, A n d force him to his inmost Heav'n's remove. [A Clap of thunder is heard. He hears already, and I boast too soon; I dread that Engine which secur'd his Throne. I'll dive below his wrath, into the deep, A n d waste that Empire, which I cannot keep. [Sinkes down.

SCENE III. Raphael and Gabriel descend. Raphael. As much of grief as happiness admits In Heav'n, on each Celestial forehead sits: Kindness for man, and pity for his fate, May mix with bliss, and yet not violate. T h e i r Heav'nly harps a lower strain began; A n d in soft Music, mourn'd the fall of man. Gabriel. I saw th' Angelic guards, from earth ascend, (Griev'd they must now no longer man attend:) T h e beams about their Temples dimly shone; 10 One would have thought the crime had been their own. T h ' Etherial people flock'd for news in hast, W h o m they, with down cast lookes, and scarce saluting past: While each did, in his pensive brest, prepare 1 5 + s.d. [A] Q6-9, F, D; A ~ Q1-5, M1-7 (s.d. centered in Q1-5, Mi-2, M5, My). SCENE III.] all texts omit. 4 mix] Q2-9, F, D, M1-6, M7 (second hand); mixt Q i , M7 (first hand).

138

The State of Innocence

V, iv

A sad accompt of their succesless care. Raphael. T h ' Eternal yet, in Majesty severe, And strictest justice, did mild pity bear: Their deaths deferr'd; and banishment, (their doom) In penitence forseen, leaves mercy room. Gabriel. T h a t message is thy charge: mine, leads me hence; Plac'd at the garden's gate, for its defence, Lest, man, returning, the blest place pollute, A n d scape from death, by life's immortal fruit. [Exeunt severally. SCENE IV. Another Clap of Thunder. Enter Adam and Eve, affrighted. Adam. In what dark cavern shall I hide my head? Where seek retreat, now innocence is fled? Safe in that guard, I durst ev'n Hell defy; Without it, tremble now, when Heav'n is nigh. Eve. What shall we do? or where direct our flight? \ Eastward as far as I could cast my sight, ? From op'ning Heavens, I saw descending light. ' Its glitt'ring through the Trees, I still behold; T h e Cedar tops seem all to burn with gold. Adam. Some shape divine, whose beams I cannot bear! Would I were hid, where light could not appear. Deep into some thick covert would I run, Impenetrable to the Stars, or Sun, A n d fenc'd from day, by night's eternal skreen; Unknown to Heav'n, and to my self unseen. Eve. In vain: what hope to shun his piercing sight Who, from dark Chaos, stroke the sparks of light? 22+ s.d. Exeunt] Q2-9, F, M1-4, M6-7; QI, D; — M5. SCENE IV.] all texts omit. s.d. As in M}, M;; "Another . . . Thunder." is centered and on same line as the exeunt in Hi, 22+ in Q1-9, F, D; it is on a line above the exeunt in Mi-2, M4, on a line below it in M6-y.

5 flight?] Q2-3, Q5-9, F, D, M4-5, M7;

QI, Q4, MI-S, M6;

M3.

V , iv

The State of Innocence

139

Adam. These should have been your thoughts when parting hence, You trusted to your guideless innocence. See now th' effects of your own wilful mind: Guilt walks before us; Death pursues behind. So fatal 'twas to seek temptations out: Most confidence has still most cause to doubt. Eve. Such might have been thy hap, alone assail'd; And so, together, might we both have fail'd. Curs'd vassallage of all my future kind: First Idolis'd, till loves hot fire be o're, T h e n slaves to those who courted us before. Adam. I counsel'd you to stay; your pride refus'd: By your own lawless will you stand accus'd. Eve. Have you that priviledge of only wise, And would you yield to her you so despise? You should have shown th' Authority you boast, And, Soveraign-like, my headlong will have crost: Counsel was not enough to sway my heart; A n absolute restraint had been your part. Adam. Ev'n such returns do they deserve to find, W h e n force is lawful, who are fondly kind. Unlike my love; for when thy guilt I knew, I shar'd the curse which did that crime pursue. Hard fate of love! which rigor did forbear, And now 'tis tax'd, because 'twas not severe. Eve. You have, your self, your kindness overpay'd: He ceases to oblige, who can upbraid. Adam. On womens virtue, who too much rely, T o boundless will, give boundless liberty. Restraint you will not brook; but think it hard Your prudence is not trusted as your guard: And, to your selves so left, if ill ensues, You first our weak indulgence will accuse. Curst be that hour 39

knew,] Q2-9, F, D, M3-g, M 7 ; , — Q i ; ~

A

M i - a , M6.

140

The State of

Innocence

When, sated with my single happiness, I chose a partner, to controle my bliss, W h o wants that reason which her will should sway, A n d knowes but just enough to disobey. Eve. Better with Brutes my humble lot had gone; Of reason void, accountable for none: T h ' unhappiest of creation is a wife, Made lowest, in the highest rank of life: Her fellow's slave; to know and not to chuse: Curst with that reason she must never use. Adam. Add, that she's proud, fantastick, apt to change; Restless at home; and ever prone to range: With shows delighted, and so vain is she, She'll meet the Devil; rather than not see. Our wise Creator, for his Quires divine, Peopled his Heav'n with Souls all masculine. A h : why must man from woman take his birth? Why was this sin of nature made on earth? This fair defect; this helpless ayd call'd wife; T h e bending crutch of a decrepit life? Posterity no pairs, from you shall find, But such, as by mistake of love are joyn'd: T h e worthiest men, their wishes ne'r shall gain; But see the slaves, they scorn, their loves obtain. Blind appetite shall your wild fancies rule; False to desert, and faithful to a fool. [Turns in anger from her, and is going off. Eve kneeling. Unkind! wilt thou forsake me, in distress, For that which now is past me to redress? I have misdone; and I endure the smart: Loath to acknowledge; but more loath to part. T h e blame be mine; you warn'd, and I refus'd: What would you more? I have my self accus'd. Was plighted faith so weakly seal'd above That, for one error, I must lose your love? Had you so err'd, I should have been more kind, 6a 71

Adam.] Q2-9, F , D , M4, M7; Q i ; ~ A M 1 - 3 , M5; life?] M5; — Q 1 - 9 , F, D , M3-4, M6-7; ~ A M i - a .

M6.

V, iv

The State of Innocence

141

Than to add pain to an afflicted mind. Adam. Y' are grown much humbler; than you were before: I pardon you; but see my face no more. 90 Eve. Vain pardon, which includes a greater ill: Be still displeas'd; but let me see you still. Without your much-lov'd sight, I cannot live: You more than kill me if you so forgive. T h e Beasts, since we are fain, their Lords despise; And, passing, look at me, with glaring eyes: Must I then wander helpless, and alone? You'll pity me, too late, when I am gone. Adam. Your penitence does my compassion move; As you deserve it, I may give my love. 100 Eve. On me, alone, let Heav'n's displeasure fall: You merit none, and I deserve it all. Adam. You all Heav'n's wrath! how could you bear a part, Who bore not mine, but with a bleeding heart? I was too stubborn, thus to make you sue: Forgive me; I am more in fault, than you. Return to me, and to my love return; And, both offending, for each other mourn. Enter Raphael. Raphael. Of sin to warn thee, I before was sent; For sin, I now pronounce thy punishment: 110 Yet that much lighter than thy crimes require; Th' All-good does not his creatures death desire: Justice must punish the rebellious deed: Yet punish so, as pity shall exceed. Adam. I neither can dispute his will, nor dare: Death will dismiss me from my future care, And lay me softly in my native dust, T o pay the forfeit of ill-manag'd trust. Eve. Why seek you death? consider ere you speak: The laws were hard; the pow'r to keep 'em, weak. 100 Eve.] Q2-9, F, D, M4, M7; Qi; M1-3, M5; M6. 111 All-good] Q2-9, F, D, Mi-g, M4; all-good Qi, Mg, M5-7.

142

The State of Innocence

V, iv

120 Did we solicite Heav'n to mould our clay? From darkness, to produce us to the day? Did we concur to life, or chuse to be, Was it our will which form'd, or was it he? Since 'twas his choice, not ours, which plac'd us here; T h e laws we did not chuse, why should we bear? Adam. Seek not, in vain, our maker to accuse: Terms were propos'd; pow'r left us to refuse. T h e good we have enjoy'd from Heav'n's free will; And shall we murmur to endure the ill? wo Should we a rebel-son's excuse receive, Because he was begot without his leave? Heav'n's right, in us, is more: first form'd to serve; The good, we merit not; the ill, deserve. Raphael. Death is defer'd, and penitence has room T o mitigate, if not reverse the doom: But, for your crime, th' Eternal does ordain In Eden you no longer shall remain. Hence, to the lower world, you are exil'd: This place, with crimes, shall be no more defil'd. wo Eve. Must we this blissful Paradise forego? Raphael. Your lot must be where Thorns and Thistles grow, Unbid, as Balme and Spices did at first; For man, the earth, of which he was is curst. By thy own toil procur'd, thou food shalt eat; [To Adam. And know no plenty, but from painful sweat. She, by a curse, of future wives abhorr'd, Shall pay obedience to her lawful Lord: And he shall rule, and she in thraldome live; Desiring more of love than man can give. 150 Adam. Heav'n is all mercy; labor I would chuse; And could sustain this Paradise to lose: T h e bliss; but not the place: here could I say 121

A fter this line Qi repeats 11.120-121 as follows: Did we sollicite Heav'n to mould our clay. From darkness, to produce us to the day? 144 [To Adam.] D, M6; A ~ (at beginning of line) Q1-9, F, M3-4, M7; (centered, on a separate line) M1-2, M5.

The State of

Innocence

HB

Heav'n's winged messenger did pass the day; Under this Pine the glorious Angel stay'd: Then, show my wondring progeny the shade. In woods and lawnes, where er'e thou didst appear, Each place some Monument of thee should bear. I, with green turfs, would grateful Altars raise, And Heav'n, with Gums and offer'd Incense praise. Raphael. Where er'e thou art, he is; th' Eternal mind Acts through all places; is to none confin'd: Fills Ocean, Earth, and Ayr, and all above, And through the Universal Mass does move. T h o u canst be no where distant: yet this place Had been thy Kingly seat, and here thy race, From all the ends of peopled-Earth, had come T o rev'rence thee, and see their native home. Immortal, then; now sickness, care, and age, And war, and luxury's more direful rage, T h y crimes have brought, to shorten mortal breath, With all the num'rous family of Death. Eve. My spirits faint, while I these ills foreknow: And find my self the sad occasion too. But what is death? Raphael. In vision, thou shalt see his griesly face, T h e King of Terrors, raging in thy race: That, while in future fate thou shar'st thy part, A kind remorse, for sin, may seize thy heart. The Scene shifts, and discovers deaths of several sorts. A battle at land, and a Naval fight. Adam. O wretched off-spring! O unhappy state Of all mankind, by me betray'd to fate! Born, through my crime, to be offenders first; 156 didst] Q2-9, F, D, M1-7; dist Q i . 160 art,] Q2-9, F, D, M1-5, M7; Q i ; ~ A M6. 174 death? ] Mi, M5; A Q1-9, F, D, Ma, M4, M7; 176 race:] Q3, Q7-9, F, M4; Q1-2, Q4-6, D, M7; MI-2, M6;

M3, M6. M3; M5.

The State of

144

Innocence

V, iv

A n d , f o r t h o s e sins t h e y c o u l d n o t s h u n , a c c u r s t . Eve.

W h y is l i f e f o r c ' d o n m a n ; w h o m i g h t h e c h o o s e ,

W o u l d n o t accept, w h a t he, w i t h p a i n , m u s t lose? U n k n o w i n g , h e r e c e i v e s it, a n d , w h e n k n o w n , H e t h i n k s i t h i s , a n d v a l u e s it, 'tis g o n e .

Raphael.

B e h o l d of ev'ry a g e ; r i p e m a n h o o d see,

D e c r e p i t years, a n d helpless infancy: T h o s e w h o , b y l i n g r i n g sickness, lose t h e i r b r e a t h ; 190 A n d t h o s e w h o , b y d e s p a i r , s u b o r n t h e i r d e a t h : See y o n ' m a d fools w h o , for s o m e trivial R i g h t , F o r love, o r for mistaken h o n o u r

fight:

See those, m o r e m a d , w h o t h r o w t h e i r lives a w a y

\

I n needless w a r s ; t h e Stakes w h i c h M o n a r c h s lay, > W h e n for each others Provinces they play.

;

T h e n as i f e a r t h t o o n a r r o w w e r e f o r f a t e , O n o p e n Seas t h e i r q u a r r e l s t h e y d e b a t e ; In hollow wood they

floating

Armies bear;

A n d force imprison'd winds to bring 'em near. 200

Eve.

W h o would the miseries of m a n foreknow?

N o t knowing; we but share our part of woe: N o w , w e the fate of f u t u r e Ages b e a r ; And, ere their birth, behold our dead appear.

Adam.

T h e deaths, t h o u show'st, a r e forc'd a n d full o f strife;

Cast h e a d l o n g f r o m t h e p r e c i p i c e of life. Is t h e r e n o s m o o t h d e s c e n t ? n o painless w a y O f kindly m i x i n g w i t h o u r native clay?

Raphael.

T h e r e is; b u t r a r e l y s h a l l t h a t p a t h b e t r o d

W h i c h , w i t h o u t h o r r o r , leads to deaths abode. 210 S o m e f e w , b y t e m p ' r a n e e t a u g h t , a p p r o a c h i n g s l o w , T o distant fate, by easy j o u r n e y s , g o : G e n t l y t h e y l a y ' e m d o w n , as e v ' n i n g s h e e p O n t h e i r o w n w o o l l y fleeces, softly sleep.

Adam.

So noiseless w o u l d I live, s u c h d e a t h t o

L i k e timely fruit, n o t shaken by the wind, B u t r i p e l y d r o p p i n g f r o m t h e sapless b o u g h A n d , d y i n g , n o t h i n g t o m y self w o u l d o w e . Eve.

T h u s , daily c h a n g i n g , with a d u l l e r tast

O f less'ning joyes, I, by degrees, w o u l d wast:

find,

The

State

of

Innocence

145

220 Still quitting ground, by unperceiv'd decay, And steal my self from life, and melt away. Raphael. Death you have seen: now see your race revive, How happy they in deathless pleasures live. Far more than I can show, or you can see, Shall crown the blest with immortality. Here

a Heaven

soft Music,

descends, a Song and

full of Angels

and blessed

Spirits,

with

Chorus.

Adam. O goodness infinite! whose Heav'nly will Can so much good produce, from so much ill! Happy their state! Pure, and unchang'd, and needing no defence, 230 From sins, as did my frailer Innocence. Their joy sincere, and with no sorrow mixt: Eternity stands permanent, and fixt, And wheels no longer on the Poles of time: Secure from fate, and more secure from crime. Eve. Ravish'd, with Joy, I can but half repent T h e sin which Heav'n makes happy in th' event. Raphael. Thus arm'd, meet firmly your approaching ill: For, see, the guards, from yon' far eastern hill, Already move, nor longer stay afford; 240 High, in the Ayr, they wave the flaming sword, Your signal to depart: Now, down amain They drive, and glide, like meteors through the plain. Adam. Then farewel all; I will indulgent be T o my own ease, and not look back to see. When what we love we ne'r must meet again, T o lose the thought, is to remove the pain. Eve. Farewell, you happy shades! Where Angels first should practice Hymns, and string 2«o 228 236 247 M5. 248

unperceiv'd] Q2-9, F, D, M1-7; Qi. state! ] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; — Mi; M2; ~ M3, M5-6. event.] Q2-9, F, D, M3~5, M7; Qi; M1-2, M6. shades! ] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; Mi, M3; Ma, M6; string] Q2-9, F, D, M i , M3-6;

Qi; strings M2;

M7.

146

The State of

Innocence

V, iv

Their tuneful Harps, when they to Heav'n wou'd sing. 250 Farewell, you flow'rs, whose buds, with early care, I watch'd, and to the chearful sun did rear: Who now shall bind your stems? or, when you fall, With fountain streams, your fainting souls recall? A long farewell to thee, my nuptial bow'r, Adorn'd with ev'ry fair and fragrant flow'r. And last, farewell, farewell my place of birth; I go to wander in the lower earth, As distant as I can; for, dispossest, Farthest from what I once enjoy'd, is best. 260 Raphael. The rising winds urge the tempestuous Ayr; And on their wings, deformed Winter bear: The beasts already feel the change; and hence, They fly, to deeper coverts, for defence: The feebler herd, before the stronger run; For now the war of nature is begun: But, part you hence in peace, and having mourn'd your sin, For outward Eden lost, find Paradise within. [Exeunt. 255 fragrant] Q2-9, F, D, M1-7; flagrant Qi. 258 dispossest] Q2-9, F, D, M i , M4, M7; disposest Qi, M3, M5; dispossd M2; dispossess't M6. 267 [Exeunt] Q5-9, F, D; A ~ Q1-4, M1-5, M7; omitted by M6.

AURENG-ZEBE

AURENG-ZEBE: A

TRAGEDY Afted at the

Royal Theatre. Written by

J O H N

D R Y D E N ,

Servant to his Majefty. •Sed, cum fregit fubfeilia verfu, Efttrit, ittUSfam Paridi nifi vendat Agaven. Juv. fUtCnCcD,

ROGER

L'ESTRANGE.

LONDON, Piintcd by T . N . for Henry Herringvian, at .the Anchor in the Lower Walk of the h'av Exchange. 1676. T I T L E P A G E OF T H E FIRST EDITION ( M A C D O N A L D 8OA)

Aureng-Zebe

149

To the Right Honourable, JOHN, Earl of MULGRAVE, Gentleman of his Majesty's Bed-Chamber, and Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter. My Lord, '•—j—«is a severe Reflection which Montaign has made on PrinI ces, That we ought not, in reason, to have any expectaJ L tions of Favour from them; and that 'tis kindness enough, if they leave us in possession of our own. The boldness of the Censure shows the free Spirit of the Author: And the Subjects of England may justly congratulate to themselves, that both the Nature of our Government, and the Clemency of our King, secure us from any such Complaint. I, in particular, who subsist 10 wholely by his Bounty, am oblig'd to give posterity a far other account of my Royal Master, than what Montaign has left of his. Those Accusations had been more reasonable, if they had been plac'd on inferiour Persons. For in all Courts, there are too many, who make it their business to ruine Wit: And Montaign, in other places, tells us, what effects he found of their good Natures. He describes them such, whose Ambition, Lust, or private Interest, seems to be the onely end of their Creation. If good accrue to any from them, 'tis onely in order to their own designs: conferr'd most commonly on the base and infamous; and never given, but 20 onely hapning sometimes on well deservers. Dulness has brought them to what they are; and Malice secures them in their Fortunes. But somewhat of Specious they must have, to recommend themselves to Princes, (for Folly will not easily go down in its own natural form with discerning Judges.) And diligence in waiting, is their gilding of the Pill; for that looks like Love, though 'tis onely Interest. 'Tis that which gains 'em their advantage over witty Men; whose love of Liberty and Ease, makes 17

seems] seem Q1-5, F, D.

i5°

Aureng-Zebe

them willing too often to discharge their burden of Attendance on these officious Gentlemen. 'Tis true, that the nauseousness of such Company is enough to disgust a reasonable Man; when he sees, he can hardly approach Greatness, but as a Moated Castle; he must first pass through the Mud and Filth with which it is encompass'd. These are they, who wanting Wit, affect Gravity, and go by the name of Solid men: and a solid man is, in plain English, a solid, solemn Fool. Another disguise they have, (for Fools, as well as Knaves, take other names, and pass by an Alias) and that is the Title of honest Fellows. But this honesty of theirs ought to have many Grains for its Allowance; for certainly they are no farther honest, than they are silly: They are naturally mischievous to their power; and if they speak not maliciously, or sharply, of witty men, 'tis onely because God has not bestow'd on them the gift of utterance. They fawn and crouch to men of parts, whom they cannot ruine: quote their Wit when they are present, and when they are absent, steal their Jests: But to those who are under 'em, and whom they can crush with ease, they show themselves in their natural Antipathy; there they treat W i t like the common Enemy, and give it no more quarter, than a Dutch-man would to an English Vessel in the Indies; they strike Sail where they know they shall be master'd, and murder where they can with safety. This, my Lord, is the Character of a Courtier without W i t ; and therefore that which is a Satyre to other men, must be a Panegyrick to your Lordship, who are a Master of it. If the least of these Reflections could have reach'd your Person, no necessity of mine could have made me to have sought so earnestly, and so long to have cultivated your kindness. As a Poet, I cannot but have made some observations on Mankind: T h e lowness of my Fortune has not yet brought me to flatter Vice; and 'tis my duty to give testimony to Virtue. 'Tis true, your Lordship is not of that nature, which either seeks a Commendation, or wants it. 7-8 plain English] D; plain English Q1-5, F. 20-21 a Dutch-man] F, D; a Dutch-man Qi-g; a Dutch-man Q4-5. 21 an English] Q4-5, F, D; an English Q1-3. 32 Lordship is] Q i (corrected state), Q2-5, F, D; Lordship's Q i (uncorrected state). 33 wants] Q i (uncorrected state) D; want Q i (corrected state), Q2-5, F.

Aureng-Zebe Your mind has always been above the wretched affectation of Popularity. A popular man is, in truth, no better than a Prostitute to common Fame, and to the People. He lies down to every one he meets for the hire of praise; and his Humility is onely a disguis'd Ambition. Even Cicero himself, whose Eloquence deserv'd the admiration of Mankind; yet by his insatiable thirst of Fame, he has lessen'd his Character with succeeding Ages: His Action against Catiline may be said to have ruin'd the Consul, when it sav'd the City: for it so swell'd his Soul, which was not truly great, that ever afterwards it was apt to be over-set with vanity. And this made his Virtue so suspected by his Friends, that Brutus, whom of all men he ador'd, refus'd him a place in his Conspiracy. A Modern Wit has made this Observation on him, That coveting to recommend himself to Posterity, he begg'd it as an Alms of all his Friends, the Historians, to remember his Consulship: And observe, if you please, the odness of the event; all their Histories are lost, and the vanity of his request stands yet recorded in his own Writings. How much more great and manly in your Lordship, is your contempt of popular applause, and your retir'd Virtue, which shines onely to a few; with whom you live so easily and freely, that you make it evident, you have a Soul which is capable of all the tenderness of Friendship; and that you onely retire your self from those, who are not capable of returning it. Your kindness, where you have once plac'd it, is inviolable: And 'tis to that onely I attribute my happiness in your love. This makes me more easily forsake an Argument, on which I could otherwise delight to dwell: I mean, your Judgment in your choice of Friends; because I have the honour to be one: After which, I am sure you will more easily permit me to be silent, in the care you have taken of my Fortune; which you have rescu'd, not onely from the power of others, but from my worst of Enemies, my own modesty and Laziness: Which favour, had it been employ'd on a more deserving Subject, had been an effect of Justice in your Nature; but, as plac'd on me, is onely Charity. Yet, withal, 'tis conferr'd on such a man, as prefers your kindness it self, before any of its Consequences; and who values, 89 one:]

Q1-5, F, D.

32

Laziness:]

Q1-5, F, D.

152

Aureng-Zebe

as the greatest of your Favours, those of your Love, and of your Conversation. From this constancy to your Friends, I might reasonably assume, that your Resentments would be as strong and lasting, if they were not restrain'd by a nobler Principle of good Nature and Generosity. For certainly, 'tis the same composition of Mind, the same Resolution and Courage, which makes the greatest Friendships, and the greatest Enmities. And he who is too lightly reconcil'd, after high Provocations, may recommend himself to the World for a Christian, but I should hardly trust him for a Friend. T h e Italians have a Proverb to that purpose, To forgive the first time shows me a good Catholic, the second time a Fool. T o this firmness in all your Actions (though you are wanting in no other Ornaments of Mind and Body, yet to this) I principally ascribe the Interest your Merits have acquir'd you in the Royal Family. A Prince, who is constant to himself, and steady in all his undertakings; one with whom that Character of Horace will agree, Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruince, Such an one cannot but place an esteem, and repose a confidence on him, whom no Adversity, no change of Courts, no Bribery of Interests, or Cabals of Factions, or Advantages of Fortune, can remove from the solid foundations of Honour and Fidelity. Ille meos, primus qui me sibi junxit, amores Abstulit; ille habeat secum, servetque sepulcro. How well your Lordship will deserve that praise, I need no inspiration to foretel. You have already left no room for Prophecy: your early undertakings have been such, in the service of your King and Countrey, when you offer'd your self to the most dangerous employment, that of the Sea; when you chose to abandon those delights, to which your Youth and Fortune did invite you, to undergo the hazards, and, which was worse, the company of common Sea-men, that you have made it evident, you will re10

T h e Italians] Q4-5, F, D; The Italians Q1-3.

Aureng-Zebe

1

5B

fuse no opportunity of rendring your self useful to the Nation, when either your Courage or Conduct shall be requir'd. T h e same zeal and faithfulness continues in your Bloud, which animated one of your Noble Ancestors to sacrifice his life in the Quarrel of his Sovereign: though, I hope, both for your sake, and for the publick Tranquillity, the same occasion will never be offer'd to your Lordship, and that a better Destiny will attend you. But I make haste to consider you as abstracted from a Court, which (if you will give me leave to use a term of Logick) is onely an Adjunct, not a Propriety of Happiness. The Academicks, I confess, were willing to admit the Goods of Fortune into their Notion of Felicity; but I do not remember, that any of the Sects of old Philosophers did ever leave a room for Greatness. Neither am I form'd to praise a Court, who admire and covet nothing, but the easiness and quiet of retirement. I naturally withdraw my sight from a Precipice; and, admit the Prospect be never so large and goodly, can take no pleasure even in looking on the downfall, though I am secure from the danger. Methinks there's something of a malignant joy in that excellent description of Lucretius, Suave mari magno turbantibus cequora ventis E terra, magnum alterius spectare laborem; Non quia vexari quenquam est jucunda voluptas Sed quibus ipse malis careas, quid cernere suave est. I am sure his Master Epicurus, and my better Master Cowley, prefer'd the solitude of a Garden, and the conversation of a friend to any consideration, so much as a regard, of those unhappy People, whom in our own wrong, we call the great. True greatness, if it be any where on Earth, is in a private Virtue; remov'd from the notion of Pomp and Vanity, confin'd to a contemplation of it self, and centring on it self: Omnis enim per se Divum natura, necesse est Immortali cevo summa cum pace fruatur; 16

and,]

Q1-5, F, D.

154

Aureng-Zebe Curd semota, Ipsa suis pollens opibus

metuque

If this be not the life of a Deity, because it cannot consist with Providence; 'tis at least a godlike life: I can be contented, (and I am sure I have your Lordship of my opinion) with an humbler station in the Temple of Virtue, than to be set on the Pinacle of it. Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre Errare, atque viam palantis qucerere vitce. T h e truth is, the consideration of so vain a Creature as man, is not worth our pains. I have fool enough at home without looking for it abroad: and am a sufficient Theater to my self of ridiculous actions, without expecting company, either in a Court, a T o w n , or Play-house. 'Tis on this account that I am weary with drawing the deformities of Life, and Lazars of the People, where every figure of imperfection more resembles me than it can do others. If I must be condemn'd to Rhyme, I should find some ease in my change of punishment. I desire to be no longer the Sisyphus of the Stage; to rowl up a Stone with endless labour (which to follow the proverb, gathers no Mosse) and which is perpetually falling down again. I never thought my self very fit for an Employment, where many of my Predecessors have excell'd me in all kinds; and some of my Contemporaries, even in my own partial Judgment, have out-done me in Comedy. Some little hopes I have yet remaining, and those too, considering my abilities, may be vain, that I may make the world some part of amends, for many ill Playes, by an Heroique Poem. Your Lordship has been long acquainted with my design; the subject of which you know is great, the story English, and neither too far distant from the present Age, nor too near approaching it. Such it is in my opinion that I could not have wish'd a nobler occasion to do honour by it to my King, my Country, and my friends; most of our antient Nobility being concern'd in the Action. And your Lord24 29

in Comedy] in Comedy Q1-5, F, D.. story English] Q4-5, D; story English Q1-3; Story English F.

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ship has one particular reason to promote this undertaking, because you were the first who gave me the opportunity of discoursing it to his Majesty, and his Royal Highness: They were then pleas'd, both to commend the Design, and to encourage it by their Commands. But the unsettl'dness of my condition has hitherto put a stop to my thoughts concerning it. As I am no successor to Homer in his Wit, so neither do I desire to be in his Poverty. I can make no Rhapsodies, nor go a begging at the Grcecian doors, while I sing the praises of their Ancestors. The times of Virgil please me better, because he had an Augustus for his Patron. And to draw the Allegory nearer you, I am sure I shall not want a Mcecenas with him. 'Tis for your Lordship to stir up that remembrance in his Majesty, which his many avocations of business have caus'd him, I fear, to lay aside: And, (as himself and his Royal Brother are the Heroes of the Poem) to represent to them the Images of their Warlike Predecessors; as Achilles is said to be rous'd to Glory, with the sight of the Combat before the Ships. For my own part, I am satisfi'd to have offer'd the Design; and it may be to the advantage of my Reputation to have it refus'd me. In the mean time, my Lord, I take the confidence to present you with a Tragedy; the Characters of which are the nearest to those of an Heroick Poem. 'Twas dedicated to you in my heart, before 'twas presented on the Stage. Some things in it have pass'd your approbation, and many your amendment. You were likewise pleas'd to recommend it to the King's perusal, before the last hand was added to it, when I receiv'd the favour from him, to have the most considerable event of it modell'd by his Royal Pleasure. It may be some vanity in me to add his Testimony then, and which he graciously confirm'd afterwards, that it was the best of all my Tragedies; in which he has made Authentick my private opinion of it; at least, he has given it a value by his Commendation, which it had not by my Writing. That which was not pleasing to some of the fair Ladies in the last Act of it, as I dare not vindicate, so neither can I wholly 12 Mcecenas] Mecenas Qi; Meraenas Q2-5, F, D. 14 aside:] — Q1-5, F, D. 27 it,] Qi (corrected state), Q2-5, F, D; and Qi (uncorrected state).

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condemn, till I find more reason for their Censures. T h e procedure of Indamora and Melesinda, seems yet, in my judgment, natural, and not unbecoming of their Characters. If they who arraign them fail not more, the World will never blame their conduct: A n d I shall be glad, for the honour of my Countrey, to find better Images of Virtue drawn to the life in their behaviour, than any I could feign to adorn the Theatre. I confess, I have onely represented a practicable Virtue, mix'd with the frailties and imperfections of humane life. I have made my Heroine fearful of death, which neither Cassandra nor Cleopatra would have been; and they themselves, I doubt it not, would have outdone Romance in that particular. Yet their Mandana (and the Cyrus was written by a Lady) was not altogether so hard-hearted: for she sat down on the cold ground by the King of Assyria, and not onely piti'd him, who dy'd in her defence; but allow'd him some favours, such, perhaps, as they would think, should onely be permitted to her Cyrus. I have made my Melesinda, in opposition to Nourmahal, a Woman passionately loving of her Husband, patient of injuries and contempt, and constant in her kindness, to the last: and in that, perhaps, I may have err'd, because it is not a Virtue much in use. Those Indian Wives are loving Fools, and may do well to keep themselves in their own Countrey, or, at least, to keep company with the Arria's and Portia's of old Rome: some of our Ladies know better things. But, it may be, I am partial to my own Writings: yet I have labour'd as much as any man, to divest my self of the self-opinion of an Author; and am too well satisfi'd of my own weakness, to be pleas'd with any thing I have written. But on the other side, my reason tells me, that, in probability, what I have seriously and long consider'd, may be as likely to be just and natural, as what an ordinary Judge (if there be any such amongst those Ladies) will think fit, in a transient Presentation, to be plac'd in the room of that which they condemn. T h e most judicious Writer is sometimes mistaken, after all his care: but the hasty Critick, who judges on a view, is full as liable to be deceiv'd. Let him first consider all the Arguments, which the Author had, 9-10

my Heroine] my Heroine Q 1 - 5 , F, D.

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!57

to write this, or to design the other, before he arraigns him of a fault: and then, perhaps, on second thoughts, he will find his Reason oblige him to revoke his Censure. Yet, after all, I will not be too positive. Homo sum, humani a me nihil alienum puto. As I am a Man, I must be changeable: and sometimes the gravest of us all are so, even upon ridiculous accidents. Our minds are perpetually wrought on by the temperament of our Bodies: which makes me suspect, they are nearer alli'd, than either our Philosophers or School-Divines will allow them to be. I have observ'd, says Montaign, that when the Body is out of Order, its Companion is seldom at his ease. An ill Dream, or a Cloudy day, has power to change this wretched Creature, who is so proud of a reasonable Soul, and make him think what he thought not yesterday. And Homer was of this opinion, as Cicero is pleas'd to translate him for us: Tales sunt hominum mentes quali pater ipse Jupiter, auctifera lustravit lampade terras. Or as the same Author, in his Thusculane Questions, speaks with more modesty than usual of himself: Nos in diem vivimus; quodcunque animos nostros probabilitate percussit, id dicimus. 'Tis not therefore impossible, but that I may alter the conclusion of my Play, to restore my self into the good Graces of my fair Criticks. And your Lordship, who is so well with them, may do me the Office of a Friend and Patron, to intercede with them on my promise of amendment. T h e Impotent Lover in Petronius, though his was a very unpardonable crime, yet was receiv'd to mercy on the terms I offer. Summa excusationis mea hac est: placebo tibi, si culpam emendare permiseris. But I am conscious to my self of offering at a greater boldness, in presenting to your view what my meanness can produce, than in any other error of my Play: And therefore make haste to break off this tedious Address, which has, I know not how, al4 a] k Q1-5, F, D. 18 Author] Q2-5, F, D; Author Q i . 18 his Thusculane Questions] his Thusculane Questions QI~5, F; his Tusculane Questions D. 31 Play:] QI- 5 > F, D.

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ready run it self into so much of Pedantry, with an excuse of Tully's, which he sent with his Books De Finibus, to his Friend Brutus, De ipsis rebus autem, scepenumero Brute vereor ne reprehendar, cum heec ad te scribam, qui turn in Poesi, (I change it from Philosophià) turn in optimo genere Poeseos tantum processeris. Quod si facerem quasi te erudiens, jure reprehenderer. Sed ab eo plurimum absum: nec, ut ea cognoscas quce tibi notissima sunt ad te mitto: sed quia facillime in nomine tuo acquiesco, & quia te habeo cequissimum eorum studiorum, qua mihi com10 munia tecum sunt, cestimatorem ir judicem. Which you may please, my Lord, to apply to your self, from him, who is Your Lordship's most obedient humble

Servant,

DRYDEN. 3 7 8

scepenumero] Q4-5, F; saepenumerò Q1-3, D. plurimum] plurimùm Q1-5, F, D. quia facillime] quià facillimè Q1-3; quià facillimé Q4-5, F; quia facillimè D.

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PROLOGUE.

O

UR Author by experience finds it true, 'Tis much more hard to please himself than you: And out of no feign'd modesty, this day, Damns his laborious Trifle of a Play: Not that its worse than what before he writ, But he has now another taste of Wit; And to confess a truth, (though out of time) Grows weary of his long-lov'd Mistris, Rhyme. Passion's too fierce to be in Fetters bound, And Nature flies him like Enchanted Ground. What Verse can do, he has perform'd in this, Which he presumes the most correct of his: But spite of all his pride, a secret shame Invades his breast at Shakespear's sacred name: Aw'd when he hears his Godlike Romans rage, He, in a just despair, would quit the Stage; And to an Age less polish'd, more unskill'd, Does, with disdain the foremost Honours yield. As with the greater Dead he dares not strive, He wou'd not match his Verse with those who live: Let him retire, betwixt two Ages cast, T h e first of this, and hindmost of the last. A losing Gamester, let him sneak away; He bears no ready Money from the Play. T h e Fate which governs Poets, thought it fit, He shou'd not raise his Fortunes by his Wit. T h e Clergy thrive, and the litigious Bar; Dull Heroes fatten with the spoils of War: All Southern Vices, Heav'n be prais'd, are here; But Wit's a luxury you think too dear. W h e n you to cultivate the Plant are loath,

13 pride,... shame] F, D; 16 Stage;] Q1-5, F, D.

...

Q1-5.

i6o

Aureng-Zebe 'Tis a shrewd sign 'twas never of your growth: And Wit in Northern Climates will not blow, Except, like Orange-trees, 'tis hous'd from Snow. There needs no care to put a Play-house down, 'Tis the most desart place of all the Town. We and our Neighbours, to speak proudly, are Like Monarchs, ruin'd with expensive War. While, like wise English, unconcern'd, you sit, And see us play the Tragedy of Wit.

34

Orange-trees] Orange-trees Q1-5, F, D.

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161

Persons Represented The old Emperor. Aureng-Zebe, his Son. Morat, his younger Son. Arimant, Governour of Agra. Dianet. Solyman. Mir Baba. Abas. Asaph Chan. Fazel Chan. Nourmahal, the Empress. Indamora, a Captive Queen. Melesinda, Wife to Morat. Zayda, Favourite Slave to the Empress.

By Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr.

Mohun. Hart. Kynaston. Wintershal.

Indian Lords, or Omrahs, of several Factions.

Mrs. Marshal. Mrs. Cox. Mrs. Corbet. Mrs. Uphil.

SCENE, Agra, in the Year 1660. Aureng-Zebe,] Q 3 ; ~ A Qi-a, Q4-5, F, D.

AURENG-ZEBE, A TRAGEDY.

A C T I. S C E N E I. Arimant, Asaph Chan, Fazel Chan.

Arim. Heav'n seems the Empire of the East to lay O n the success of this important day: Their Arms are to the last decision bent, And Fortune labours with the vast event: She now has in her hand the greatest stake, Which for contending Monarchs she can make. What e'r can urge ambitious Youth to fight, She pompously displays before their sight: Laws, Empire, All permitted to the Sword, And Fate could ne'r an ampler Scene afford. Asaph. Four several Armies to the Field are led, Which, high in equal hopes four Princes Head: Indus and Ganges, our wide Empires Bounds, Swell their dy'd Currents with their Natives wounds: Each purple River winding, as he runs, His bloudy arms about his slaughter'd Sons. Fazel. I well remember you foretold the Storm, W h e n first the Brothers did their Factions form: W h e n each, by curs'd Cabals of Women, strove T o draw th' indulgent King to partial Love. Arim. What Heav'n decrees, no prudence can prevent. T o cure their mad Ambition, they were sent A C T I. SCENE 1.] D; A C T I. Q1-5, F. s.d. Chan . . . Chan] Q3-5, F, D; Chawn . . . Chawn Q1-2.

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T o rule a distant Province each alone. What could a careful Father more have done? He made provision against all, but Fate; While, by his health, we held our peace of State. T h e weight of seventy Winters prest him down, He bent beneath the burthen of a Crown: Sickness, at last, did his spent Body seize, And life almost sunk under the disease: Mortal 'twas thought, at least by them desir'd, Who, impiously, into his years inquir'd: As at a Signal, streight the Sons prepare For open force, and rush to sudden War: Meeting, like Winds broke loose upon the Main, T o prove, by Arms, whose Fate it was to Reign. Asaph. Rebels and Parricides! Arim. Brand not their actions with so foul a name: Pity, at least, what we are forc'd to blame. When Death's cold hand has clos'd the Father's eye, You know the younger Sons are doom'd to die. Less ills are chosen greater to avoid, And Nature's Laws are by the States destroy'd. What courage tamely could to death consent, And not, by striking first, the blow prevent? Who falls in fight, cannot himself accuse, And he dies greatly who a Crown pursues. To them, Solyman Agah. Solym. A new Express all Agra does afright: Darah and Aureng-Zebe are joyn'd in Fight; T h e Press of people thickens to the Court, T h ' impatient crowd devouring the report. Arim. T ' each changing news they chang'd affections bring, And servilely from Fate expect a King. Solym. The Ministers of State, who gave us Law, In corners, with selected Friends, withdraw: There, in deaf murmurs, solemnly are wise; Whisp'ring, like Winds, ere Hurricanes arise.

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The most corrupt are most obsequious grown, And those they scorn'd, officiously they own. Asaph. In change of Government, The Rabble rule their great Oppressors Fate: Do Sovereign Justice, and revenge the State. Solym. The little Courtiers, who ne'r come to know The depth of Factions, as in Mazes go, Where Int'rests meet and cross so oft, that they With too much care are wilder'd in their way. A rim. What of the Emperor? Solym. Unmov'd, and brave, he like himself appears, And, meriting no ill, no danger fears: Yet mourns his former vigour lost so far, T o make him now spectator of a War: Repining that he must preserve his Crown By any help or courage but his own: Wishes, each minute, he could unbeget Those Rebel-Sons, who dare t' usurp his Seat: T o sway his Empire with unequal skill, And mount a Throne, which none but he can fill. Arim. Ohl had he still that Character maintain'd, Of Valour, which in blooming Youth he gain'dl He promis'd in his East a glorious Race; Now, sunk from his Meridian, sets apace. But as the Sun, when he from Noon declines, And with abated heat, less fiercely shines, Seems to grow milder as he goes away, Pleasing himself with the remains of Day: So he who, in his Youth, for Glory strove, Would recompence his Age with Ease and Love. Asaph. The name of Father hateful to him grows, Which, for one Son, produces him three Foes. Fazel. Darah, the eldest, bears a generous mind; But to implacable revenge inclin'd, Too openly does Love and hatred show: A bounteous Master, but a deadly Foe. 91

inclin'd,] D; —. Q1-5. F.

Aureng-Zebe Solym. From Sujah's valour I should much expect, But he's a Bigot of the Persian Sect: And, by a Foreign Int'rest seeks to Reign, Hopeless by Love the Sceptre to obtain. Asaph. Morat's too insolent, too much a Brave, His Courage to his Envy is a Slave. 100 What he attempts, if his endeavours fail T ' effect, he is resolv'd no other shall. Arim. But Aureng-Zebe, by no strong passion sway'd, Except his Love, more temp'rate is, and weigh'd: This Atlas must our sinking State uphold; In Council cool, but in Performance bold: He sums their Virtues in himself alone, And adds the greatest, of a Loyal Son: His Father's Cause upon his Sword he wears, And with his Arms, we hope, his Fortune bears, no Solym. T w o vast Rewards may well his courage move, A Parent's Blessing, and a Mistris Love. If he succeed, his recompence, we hear, Must be the Captive Queen of Cassimere. To them, Abas. Abas. Mischiefs on mischiefs, greater still, and more: The neighb'ring Plain with Arms is cover'd o'r: The Vale an Iron-Harvest seems to yield Of thick-sprung Lances in a waving Field. The pollish'd Steel gleams terribly from far, And every moment nearer shows the War. 120 The Horses Neighing by the Wind is blown, And Castl'd Elephants o'r-look the Town. Arim. If, as I fear, Morat these Pow'rs commands, Our Empire on the brink of ruine stands: T h ' ambitious Empress with her Son is joyn'd, And, in his Brother's absence, has design'd The unprovided Town to take with ease, 95 Bigot] F; Bigot Q1-5, D. 121 Castl'd Elephants] Q2-5, F, D; Castl'd-Elephants Qi.

165

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And then, the Person of the King to seize. Solym. T o all his former Issue she has shown Long hate, and labour'd to advance her own. Ab. These Troops are his. Surat he took; and thence, preventing Fame, By quick and painful Marches hither came. Since his approach, he to his Mother sent, And two long hours in close debate were spent. Arim. I'll to my Charge, the Cittadel, repair, And show my duty by my timely care. To them the Emperor with a Letter in his hand: after him, an Ambassador, with a Train following. Asaph. But see, the Emperor! a fiery red His Brows and glowing Temples does o'r-spread, Morat has some displeasing Message sent. Amb. Do not, great Sir, misconstrue his intent; Nor call Rebellion what was prudent care, T o guard himself by necessary War: While he believ'd you living, he obey'd: His Governments but as your Vice-Roy sway'd: But, when he thought you gone, T ' augment the number of the Bless'd above, He deem'd 'em Legacies of Royal love: Nor arm'd his Brothers Portions to invade, But to defend the present you had made. Emp. By frequent Messages, and strict Commands, He knew my pleasure to discharge his Bands: Proof of my life my Royal Signet made; Yet still he arm'd, came on, and disobey'd. Amb. He thought the Mandat forg'd, your death conceal'd: And but delay'd, till truth should be reveal'd. Emp. News of my death from Rumor he receiv'd; And what he wish'd, he easily believ'd: But long demurr'd, though from my hand he knew 154

Mandat] Mandat Q1-5, F, D.

167

Aureng-Zebe I liv'd, so loath he was to think it true. 160 Since he pleads ignorance to that command, Now let him show his duty, and disband. Amb. His Honour, Sir, will suiter in the Cause, He yields his Arms unjust if he withdraws: And begs his Loyalty may be declar'd, By owning those he leads to be your guard. Emp. I, in my self, have all the Guard I need; Bid the presumptuous Boy draw off with speed: If his audacious Troops one hour remain, My Cannon from the Fort shall scour the Plain. 170 Amb. Since you deny him entrance, he demands His Wife, whom cruelly you hold in Bands: Her, if unjustly you from him detain, He justly will by force of Arms regain. Emp. O'r him, and his, a right from Heav'n I have; Subject, and Son, he's doubly born my Slave. But whatsoe'r his own demerits are, Tell him, I shall not make on Women, War. And yet I'll do her Innocence the grace, T o keep her here, as in the safer place, wo But thou, who dar'st this bold defiance bring, May'st feel the rage of an offended King. Hence from my sight, without the least reply: One word, nay, one look more, and thou shalt die. [Exit Re-enter

Ambassador.

Arimant.

Arim. May Heav'n, great Monarch, still augment your bliss With length of days, and every day like this. For, from the Banks of Gemna news is brought, Your Army has a bloudy Battel fought: Darah from Loyal Aureng-Zebe is fled; And fourty thousand of his Men lie dead, wo T o Sujah next your conquering Army drew; Him they surpris'd, and easily o'r-threw. Emp. 'Tis well.

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Arim. But well? what more could at your wish be done, Than two such Conquests gain'd by such a Son? Your pardon, mighty Sir; You seem not high enough your Joys to rate; You stand indebted a vast sum to Fate: And should large thanks for the great Blessing pay. Emp. My fortune owes me greater every day. 200 And, should my joy more high for this, appear, It would have argu'd me before of fear. How is Heav'n kind, where I have nothing won, And Fortune onely pays me with my own? Arim. Great Aureng-Zebe did duteous care express: And durst not push too far his good success; But lest Morat the City should attack, Commanded his victorious Army back; Which, left to march as swiftly as they may, ) Himself comes first, and will be here this day, > 210 Before a close-form'd Siege shut up his way. ' Emp. Prevent his purpose, hence, with all thy speed. Stop him; his entrance to the Town forbid. Arim. How, Sir? your Loyal, your Victorious Son? Emp. Him would I, more than all the Rebels, shun. Arim. Whom with your pow'r and fortune, Sir, you trust; Now to suspect is vain, as 'tis unjust. He comes not with a Train to move your fear, But trusts himself, to be a pris'ner here. You knew him brave, you know him faithful now: 220 He aims at Fame, but Fame from serving you. 'Tis said, Ambition in his breast does rage: Who would not be the Hero of an Age? All grant him prudent: prudence interest weighs, And interest bids him seek your love and praise. I know you grateful; When he march'd from hence, You bad him hope an ample recompence: He conquer'd in that hope; and from your hands, His Love, the precious pledge he left, demands. 193 2ii

welI?]~IQi-5,F,D. hence,] D; hence, hence Q1-5, F.

205 success;] Q1-5, F, D. 222 Hero] Hero Q1-5, F, D.

Aureng-Zebe Emp. No more; you search too deep my wounded mind: 230 And show me what I fear, and would not find. My Son has all the debts of duty paid: Our Prophet sends him to my present aid. Such virtue to distrust were base and low: I'm not ungrateful or I was not so! Inquire no farther, stop his coming on: I will not, cannot, dare not see my Son. Arim. 'Tis now too late his entrance to prevent: Nor must I to your ruine give consent. At once your Peoples heart and Son's you lose: 240 And give him all, when you just things refuse. Emp. Thou lov'st me sure; thy faith has oft been tri'd, In ten pitch'd Fields, not shrinking from my side, Yet giv'st me no advice to bring me ease. Arim. Can you be cur'd, and tell not your disease? I ask'd you, Sir. Emp. Thou should'st have ask'd again: There hangs a secret shame on guilty men. Thou shouldst have pull'd the secret from my breast, \ Torn out the bearded Steel to give me rest: I At least, thou should'st have ghess'd [ 250 Yet thou art honest, thou could'st ne'r have ghess'd. J Hast thou been never base? did Love ne'r bend Thy frailer Virtue, to betray thy Friend? Flatter me, make thy Court, and say, It did: Kings in a Crowd would have their Vices hid. We would be kept in count'nance, sav'd from shame: And own'd by others who commit the same. Nay, now I have confess'd. Thou seest me naked, and without disguise: I look on Aureng-Zebe with Rivals eyes. 260 He has abroad my enemyes o'recome, And I have sought to ruin him at home. Arim. This free confession shows you long did strive: 247-250 No brace in Q1-5, F, D. 250 ne'r] Q4; near Qi; ne'er Q2-3, Q5, F, D. 262 shows] Q2, D; showes Qi; shews Q3-5, F.

169

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170

And virtue, though opprest, is still alive. But what success did your injustice find? Emp. What it deserv'd, and not what I design'd. Unmov'd she stood, and deaf to all my prayers, As Seas and Winds to sinking Mariners. But Seas grow calm, and Winds are reconcil'd: Her Tyrant beauty never grows more mild. 270 Pray'rs, promises, and threats were all in vain. Arim. Then cure your self by generous disdain. Emp. Virtue, disdain, despair, I oft have tri'd, And foil'd, have with new Arms my Foe defi'd. This made me with so little joy to hear The Victory, when I the Victor fear. Arim. Something you swiftly must resolve to do, Lest Aureng-Zebe your secret Love should know. Morat without does for your ruine wait; And would you lose the Buckler of your State? 280 A jealous Empress lies within your Arms, Too haughty to endure neglected Charms. Your Son is duteous, but (as Man) he's frail. And just revenge o'r vertue may prevail. Emp. Go then to Indamora, say from me, Two Lives depend upon her secresie. Bid her conceal my passion from my Son. Though Aureng-Zebe return a Conqueror, Both he and she are still within my pow'r. Say, I'm a Father, but a Lover too: 290 Much to my Son, more to my self I owe. When she receives him, to her words give Law: And even the kindness of her glances awe. See, he appears! [After a short whisper, Arimant departs. Enter Aureng-Zebe, Dianet, and Attendants. Aureng-Zebe kneels to his Father, and kisses his hand. Aur. My Vows have been successful as my Sword: My pray'rs are heard, you have your health restor'd. 293+

s.d.

Aureng-Zebe] Q2-5, F, D; AurengZebe Q i .

Aureng-Zebe Once more 'tis given me to behold your face: The best of Kings and Fathers to embrace. Pardon my tears; 'tis joy which bids 'em flow, A joy which never was sincere till now. 300 That which my Conquest gave I could not prize; Or 'twas imperfect till I saw your eyes. Emp. Turn the discourse: I have a reason why I would not have you speak so tenderly. Knew you what shame your kind expressions bring, You would in pity spare a wretched King. A ur. A King! you rob me, Sir, of half my due: You have a dearer name, a Father too. Emp. I had that name. Aur. What have I said or done, That I no longer must be call'd your Son? 8io 'Tis in that name, Heav'n knows, I glory more, Than that of Prince, or that of Conqueror. Emp. Then you upbraid me; I am pleas'd to see You're not so perfect, but can fail, like me. I have no God to deal with. Aur. Now I find Some slie Court-Devil has seduc'd your mind: Fill'd it with black suspicions, not your own: And all my actions through false Optics shown. I ne'r did Crowns ambitiously regard: Honour I sought, the generous mind's reward. 320 Long may you live! while you the Sceptre sway I shall be still most happy to obey. Emp. Oh, Aureng-Zebe! thy virtues shine too bright, They flash too fierce: I, like the Bird of Night, Shut my dull eyes, and sicken at the sight. Thou hast deserv'd more love than I can show: But 'tis thy fate to give, and mine to owe. Thou seest me much distemper'd in my mind: Pull'd back, and then push'd forward to be kind. Virtue, and fain I would my silence break, 380 But have not yet the confidence to speak. Leave me, and to thy needful rest repair.

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172

Aur. Rest is not suiting with a Lover's care. I have not yet my Indamora seen. Emp. Somewhat I had forgot; come back again: So weary of a Father's company? Aur. Sir, you were pleas'd your self to license me. Emp. You made me no relation of the Fight. Besides, a Rebel's Army is in sight. Advise me first: yet go . 840 He goes to Indamora; I should take A kind of envious joy to keep him back. Yet to detain him makes my love appear: I hate his presence, and his absence fear. Aur. T o some new Clime, or to thy native Sky, Oh friendless and forsaken Virtue flie. T h y Indian Air is deadly to thee grown: Deceit and canker'd malice rule thy Throne. W h y did my Arms in Battel prosp'rous prove, T o gain the barren praise of Filial love? 860 T h e best of Kings by Women is misled, Charm'd by the Witchcraft of a second Bed. Against my self I Victories have wonn, And by my fatal absence am undone. To him Indamora, with Arimant. But here she comes! In the calm Harbour of whose gentle breast, My Tempest-beaten Soul may safely rest. Oh, my heart's joyl what e'r my sorrows be, T h e y cease and vanish, in beholding theel Care shuns thy walks; as at the cheerful light, 860 T h e groaning Ghosts, and Birds obscene take flight. By this one view, all my past pains are paid: And all I have to come more easie made. Ind. Such sullen Planets at my Birth did shine, They threaten every Fortune mixt with mine. Fly the pursuit of my disastrous love, 335

company?] D;

Q 1 - 5 , F.

[Is going.

[Aside.

[Exit.

Aureng-Zebe

173

And from unhappy Neighbourhood remove. Aur. Bid the laborious Hind, Whose hardned hands did long in Tillage toil, Neglect the promis'd Harvest o£ the Soil. 870 Should I, who cultivated Love with Bloud, Refuse possession of approaching good? Ind. Love is an aery good Opinion makes; Which he who onely thinks he has, partakes: Seen by a strong Imagination's Beam; That tricks and dresses up the gaudy Dream. Presented so, with rapture 'tis enjoy'd: Rais'd by high Fancy, and by low destroy'd. Aur. If Love be Vision, mine has all the fire Which, in first Dreams, young Prophets does inspire: 880 I dream, in you, our promis'd Paradice: An Ages tumult of continu'd bliss. But you have still your happiness in doubt: Or else 'tis past, and you have dream't it out. Ind. Perhaps not so. Aur. Can Indamora prove So alter'd? Is it but, Perhaps you Love? Then farewell all I I thought in you to find A Balm, to cure my much distemper'd mind. I came to grieve a Father's heart estrang'd; But little thought to find a Mistris chang'd. 390 Nature her self is chang'd to punish me: Virtue turn'd Vice, and Faith Inconstancy. Ind. You heard me not Inconstancy confess: 'Twas but a Friend's advice to love me less. Who knows what adverse Fortune may befall? Arm well your mind: hope little, and fear all. Hope, with a goodly prospect, feeds your Eye: Shows, from a rising ground, possession nigh: Shortens the distance, or o'r-looks it quite: So easie 'tis to travel with the sight. 400 Aur. Then to despair you would my Love betray, 37s

makes;]

Q1-5, F, D.

373

partakes:]

QI~5, F, D.

174

Aureng-Zebe

By taking hope, its last kind Friend, away. You hold the Glass, but turn the Perspective; And farther off the lessen'd Object drive. You bid me fear: in that your change I know: You would prepare me for the coming blow. But, to prevent you, take my last Adieu; "J I'll sadly tell my self you are untrue, > [Going. Rather than stay to hear it told by you. ' Ind. Stay, Aureng-Zebe, I must not let you go. \ 410 And yet believe your self, your own worst Foe, / Think I am true, and seek no more to know. ' Let in my breast the fatal Secret lie, 'Tis a sad Riddle, which, if known, we die. [Seeming to pause. Aur. Fair Hypocrite, you seek to cheat in vain; Your silence argues you ask time to feign. Once more, farewel: the snare in sight is laid, 'Tis my own fault if I am now betray'd. [Going again. Ind. Yet once more stay; you shall believe me true, Though in one Fate I wrap my self and you. 420 Your absence Arim. Hold; you know the hard Command I must obey: you onely can withstand Your own mishap. I beg you on my Knee, Be not unhappy by your own Decree. Aur. Speak, Madam, by (if that be yet an Oath) Your Love, I'm pleas'd we should be ruin'd both. Both is a sound of joy. In Death's dark Bow'rs our Bridals we will keep: And his cold hand Shall draw the Curtain when we go to sleep. 430 Ind. Know then, that Man whom both of us did trust, Has been to you unkind, to me unjust. The Guardian of my Faith so false did prove, As to sollicite me with lawless Love: Pray'd, promis'd, threaten'd, all that Man could do, Base as he's great; and need I tell you who? Aur. Yes; for I'll not believe my Father meant: Speak quickly, and my impious thoughts prevent.

I,i

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175

Ind. Yo've said; I wish I could some other namel Arim. My duty must excuse me, Sir, from blame. 440 A Guard there. Enter

Guards.

Aur.— •Slave, for me? My Orders are Arim. T o seize this Princess, whom the Laws of War Long since made Prisoner. •Villain. Aur. -Sir, I know Arim. Your Birth, nor durst another call me so. Aur. I have redeem'd her; and as mine she's free. Arim. You may have right to give her liberty: But with your Father, Sir, that right dispute; For his commands to me were absolute; If she disclos'd his love, to use the right Of War, and to secure her from your sight. 450 A ur. I'll rescue her, or die. [Draws. And you, my friends, though few, are yet too brave T o see your Gen'rals Mistris made a Slave. [All draw. Ind. Hold, my dear Love! if so much pow'r there lies, As once you own'd, in Indamora's Eyes, Lose not the Honour you have early wonn; But stand the blameless pattern of a Son. My love your claim inviolate secures: 'Tis writ in Fate, I can be onely yours. My suff'rings for you make your heart my due: 460 Be worthy me, as I am worthy you. Aur. (Putting up his sword.) I've thought, and bless'd be you who gave me time: My Virtue was surpris'd into a Crime. Strong Virtue, like strong Nature, struggles still: Exerts it self, and then throws off the ill. I to a Son's and Lover's praise aspire: And must fulfil the parts which both require. How dear the cure of jealousie has cost!

176

Aureng-Zebe

With too much care and tenderness y' are lost. So the fond Youth from Hell redeem'd his Prize, T i l l , looking back, she vanish'd from his eyesl [Exeunt severally.

A C T II. SCENE I. Betwixt the Acts, a Warlike Tune is plaid, shooting off Guns, and shouts of Souldiers are heard, as in an Assault. Aureng-Zebe, Arimant, Asaph Chan, Fazel Chan, Solyman. A ur. What man could do, was by Morat perform'd: T h e Fortress thrice himself in person storm'd. Your valour bravely did th' Assault sustain; And fill'd the Moats and Ditches with the Slain: Till, mad with rage, into the Breach he fir'd: Slew Friends and Foes, and in the Smoak retir'd. Arim. T o us you give what praises are not due: Morat was thrice repuls'd, but thrice by you. High, over all, was your great conduct shown: You sought our safety, but forgot your own. Asaph. Their Standard, planted on the Battlement, Despair and death among the Souldiers sent: You, the bold Omrah tumbled from the Wall; And shouts of Victory pursu'd his fall. Fazel. T o you, alone, we owe this prosp'rous day: Our Wives and Children rescu'd from the prey: Know your own int'rest Sir, where e'r you lead, W e joyntly vow to own no other Head. Solym. Your wrongs are known. Impose but your commands; This hour shall bring you twenty thousand hands. A ur. Let them who truly would appear my friends, Employ their Swords, like mine, for noble ends. 470 Till,] Q i ; ~ A Q2-5, F, D. A C T II. SCENE I.] D; A C T II. Q1-5, F. s.d. Betwixt... Solyman.] romans and italics reversed in Qi-2. s.d. Chan . . . Chan] D; Chawn ... Chawn Q1-5, F. 4 Slain:] Q1-5, F, D.

Aureng-Zebe

177

N o more: remember you have bravely done: Shall Treason end, what Loyalty begun? I own no wrongs; some grievance I confess, But Kings, like Gods, at their own time redress. Yet, some becoming boldness I may use: I've well deserv'd, nor will he now refuse. [Aside. I'll strike my Fortunes with him at a heat: And give him not the leisure to forget. [Exit, attended by the Omrahs. Arim. OhI Indamora, hide those fatal Eyes; T o o deep they wound whom they too soon surprise: My Virtue, Prudence, Honour, Interest, all Before this Universal Monarch fall. Beauty, like Ice, our footing does betray; W h o can tread sure on the smooth slippery way? Pleas'd with the passage, we slide swiftly on: And see the dangers which we cannot shun. To him, Indamora. Ind. I hope my liberty may reach thus far: These Terras Walks within my limits are. I came to seek you, and to let you know, How much I to your generous Pity owe. T h e King, when he design'd you for my Guard, Resolv'd he would not make my Bondage hard: If otherwise, you have deceiv'd his end; And whom he meant a Guardian, made a Friend. Arim. A Guardian's Title I must own with shame: But should be prouder of another Name. Ind. And therefore 'twas I chang'd that Name before: I call'd you Friend, and could you wish for more? Arim. I dare not ask for what you would not grant: But wishes, Madam, are extravagant. T h e y are not bounded with things possible: I may wish more then I presume to tell: Desire's the vast extent of humane mind, 31

those] these Q 1 - 5 , F, D .

Aureng-Zebe

178

It mounts above, and leaves poor hope behind. I could wish Ind. What? Arim. Why did you speak? yo've dash'd my Fancy quite: Ev'n in th' approaching minute of delight. I must take breath Ere I the Rapture of my wish renew, And tell you then, It terminates in you. Ind. Have you consider'd what th' event would be? Or know you, Arimant, your self, or me? Were I no Queen, did you my beauty weigh, My Youth in bloom, your Age in its decay? Arim. I my own Judge, condemn'd my self before: For pity aggravate my crime no more. So weak I am, I with a frown am slain; You need have us'd but half so much disdain. Ind. I am not cruel yet to that degree: Have better thoughts both of your self, and me. Beauty a Monarch is, Which Kingly power magnificently proves By crouds of Slaves, and peopled Empire loves. And such a Slave as you, what Queen would lose? Above the rest, I Arimant would chuse: For counsel, valour, truth, and kindness too, All I could wish in man, I find in you. Arim. What Lover could to greater joy be rais'd? I am, methinks, a God by you thus prais'd. Ind. T o what may not desert, like yours, pretend? You have all qualities that fit a Friend. Arim. So Mariners mistake the promis'd Coast: And, with full Sails, on the blind Rocks are lost. T h i n k you my aged veins so faintly beat, They rise no higher than to Friendships heat? So weak your Charms, that, like a Winter's night, T w i n k l i n g with Stars, they freez me while they light? 75 81

proves] rais'd?]

Q1-5, F, D. Q1-5, F, D.

86

full] Q2-5, F, D; ful Q i .

Aureng-Zebe

179

Ind. Mistake me not, good Arimant, I know My Beauty's pow'r, and what my charms can do. You your own Talent have not learn'd so well; But practise one, where you can ne'r excel. You can at most, To an indiif'rent Lover's praise pretend: But you would spoil an admirable Friend. Arim. Never was Amity so highly priz'd; Nor ever any Love so much despis'd. 100 Ev'n to my self ridiculous I grow; And would be angry, if I knew but how. Ind. Do not. Your Anger, like your Love, is vain: When e'r I please, you must be pleas'd again. Knowing what pow'r I have your will to bend, I'll use it; for I need just such a Friend. You must perform, not what you think is fit: But, to what ever I propose, submit. Arim. Madam, you have a strange Ascendant gain'd; You use me like a Courser, spurr'd and rein'd: 110 If I fly out, my fierceness you command, Then sooth, and gently stroke me with your hand. Impose; but use your pow'r of Taxing well: When Subjects cannot Pay, they soon Rebel. Enter the Emperor, unseen by them. Ind. My Rebels punishment would easie prove: You know y' are in my pow'r by making Love. Arim. Would I, without dispute, your will obey, And could you, in return, my life betray? Emp. What danger, Arimant, is this you fear? Or what Love-secret which I must not hear? 120 These alter'd looks some inward motion show. His cheeks are pale, and yours with blushes glow. Ind. 'Tis what, with justice, may my anger move: He has been bold, and talk'd to me of Love. Arim. I am betray'd, and shall be doom'd to die!

[To her.

[Aside.

i8o

Aureng-Zebe

Emp. Did he, my Slave, presume to look so high? That crawling Insect, who from Mud began, Warm'd by my Beams, and kindl'd into Man? Durst he, who does but for my pleasure live, Intrench on Love, my great Prerogative? 130 Print his base Image on his Sovereign's Coin? 'Tis Treason if he stamp his Love with mine. Arim. 'Tis true, I have been bold; but if it be A crime Ind. He means, 'tis onely so to me. You, Sir, should praise, what I must disapprove: He insolently talk'd to me of Love: But, Sir, 'twas yours, he made it in your name: You, if you please, may all he said disclaim. Emp. I must disclaim what e'r he can express: His groveling sense will show my passion less. 140 But stay, if what he said my message be, What fear, what danger could arrive from me? He said, He feard you would his life betray. Ind. Should he presume again, perhaps I may. Though in your hands he hazard not his life, Remember, Sir, your fury of a Wife; Who, not content to be reveng'd on you, The Agents of your passion will pursue. Emp. If I but hear her nam'd, I'm sick that day; The sound is mortal, and frights life away. 150 Forgive me, Arimant, my jealous thought: Distrust in Lovers is the tender'st fault. Leave me, and tell thy self in my excuse, Love, and a Crown, no Rivalship can bear; And precious things are still possess'd with fear. [Exit Arimant bowing. This, Madam, my excuse to you may plead; Love should forgive the faults which Love has made. Ind. From me, what pardon can you hope to have, Robb'd of my Love, and treated as a Slave? Emp. Force is the last relief which Lovers find:

II, i

Aureng-Zebe

100 And 'tis the best excuse of Woman-kind. Ind. Force never yet a generous Heart did gain: We yield on parley, but are storm'd in vain. Constraint, in all things, makes the pleasure less; Sweet is the Love which comes with willingness. Emp. No; 'tis resistance that inflames desire: Sharpens the Darts of Love, and blows his Fire. Love is disarm'd that meets with too much ease: He languishes, and does not care to please. And therefore 'tis your golden Fruit you guard 170 With so much care, to make possession hard. Ind. Was't not enough you took my Crown away, But cruelly you must my Love betray? I was well pleas'd to have transferr'd my right, And better chang'd your Claim of Lawless might, By taking him, whom you esteem'd above Your other Sons, and taught me first to love. Emp. My Son, by my command his course must steer: I bad him love, I bid him now forbear. If you have any kindness for him still, 180 Advise him not to shock a Father's will. Ind. Must I advise? T h e n let me see him, and I'll try t' obey. Emp. I had forgot, and dare not trust your way. But send him word, He has not here an Army to command: Remember he and you are in my hand. Ind. Yes, in a Father's hand, whom he has serv'd; And, with the hazard of his life, preserv'd. But piety to you, unhappy Prince, 190 Becomes a crime, and duty an offence: Against your self, you with your Foes combine, And seem your own destruction to design. Emp. You may be pleas'd your Politiques to spare: I'm old enough, and can my self take care. 160

Woman-kind] Qs-5, F, D; Wooman-kind Qi.

181

Aureng-Zebe

182

Ind. Advice from me was, I confess, too bold: Y* are old enough it may be, Sir, too old. Emp. You please your self with your contempt of Age: But Love, neglected, will convert to Rage. If on your head my fury does not turn, 200 Thank that fond dotage which so much you scorn. But, in another's person, you may prove, There's warmth for Vengeance left, though not for Love. Re-enter Arimant. Arimant. The Empress has the Anti-chambers past, And this way moves with a disorder'd haste: Her brows, the stormy marks of anger bear. Emp. Madam, retire: she must not find you here. \Exit Indamora with Arimant. Enter Nourmahal hastily. Nour. What have I done, that Nourmahal must prove The scorn and triumph of a Rival's Love? My eyes are still the same, each glance, each grace, "J 210 Keep their first lustre, and maintain their place; > Not second yet to any other face. ; Emp. What rage transports you? are you well awake? Such Dreams distracted minds in Feavers make. Nour. Those Feavers you have giv'n, those Dreams have bred, By broken Faith, and an abandon'd Bed. Such Visions hourly pass before my sight; } Which from my eyes their Balmy slumbers fright, > In the severest silence of the night: > Visions, which in this Cittadel are seen; 220 Bright, glorious Visions of a Rival Queen. Emp. Have patience, my first flames can ne'r decay: These are but Dreams, and soon will pass away. Thou know'st, my Heart, my Empire, all is thine: 196 218

enough night:]

] Q1-3; Qi-2, (¿5, F, D;

Q4-5, F; Q3-4.

D.

II, i

Aureng-Zebe

183

In thy own Heav'n of Love serenely shine: Fair as the face of Nature did appear, \ When Flowers first peep'd, and Trees did Blossoms bear, > And Winter had not yet deform'd th' inverted Year: ) Calm as the Breath which fans our Eastern Groves, And bright as when thy Eyes first lighted up our Loves. 23o Let our eternal Peace be seal'd by this, With the first ardour of a Nuptial Kiss. [ O f f e r s to kiss her. Nour. Me would you have, me your faint kisses prove, The dregs and droppings of enervate Love? Must I your cold long-labouring age sustain, And be to empty joys provok'd in vain? Receive you sighing after other Charms, And take an absent Husband in my Arms? Emp. Even these reproaches I can bear from you: You doubted of my Love, believe it true. 240 Nothing but Love this patience could produce; And I allow your rage that kind excuse. Nour. Call it not patience; 'tis your guilt stands mute: You have a cause too foul to bear dispute. You wrong me first, and urge my rage to rise, \ T h e n I must pass for mad; you, meek and wise, > Good man, plead merit by your soft replies. ' Vain priviledge poor Women have of tongue: Men can stand silent, and resolve on wrong. Emp. What can I more? my friendship you refuse, 250 And even my mildness, as my crime, accuse. Nour. Your sullen silence cheats not me, false Man; I know you think the bloudiest things you can. Could you accuse me, you would raise your voice: Watch for my crimes, and in my guilt rejoyce. But my known virtue is from scandal free, And leaves no shadow for your calumny. Emp. Such virtue is the plague of humane life: A virtuous Woman, but a cursed Wife. In vain of pompous chastity y' are proud: 227

Year:]

Q 1 - 5 , F, D.

Aureng-Zebe

184

II, i

26o Virtue's adultery of the Tongue, when loud, I, with less pain, a Prostitute could bear, Than the shrill sound of Virtue, virtue hear. In unchaste Wives There's yet a kind of recompensing ease: Vice keeps 'em humble, gives 'em care to please: But against clamorous Virtue, what defence? It stops our mouthes, and gives your noise pretence. Nour. Since Virtue does your indignation raise, 'Tis pity but you had that Wife you praise. 270 Your own wild appetites are prone to range; And then you tax our humours with your change. Emp. What can be sweeter than our native home? Thither for ease, and soft repose, we come: Home is the sacred refuge of our life: Secur'd from all approaches, but a Wife. If thence we fly, the cause admits no doubt: None but an Inmate Foe could force us out. Clamours, our privacies uneasie make: Birds leave their Nests disturb'd, and Beasts their Haunts forsake. 280 Nour. Honour's my crime that has your loathing bred: You take no pleasure in a virtuous Bed. Emp. What pleasure can there be in that estate, Which your unquietness has made me hate? I shrink far off Dissembling sleep, but wakeful with the fright. The day takes off the pleasure of the night. Nour. My thoughts no other joys but pow'r pursue: Or, if they did, they must be lost in you. And yet the fault's not mine 290 Though Youth and Beauty cannot warmth command; The Sun in vain shines on the barren Sand. Emp. 'Tis true, of Marriage-bands I'm weary grown. Love scorns all ties, but those that are his own. 272 home?]

Q1-5, F, D.

282 there] Qs-5, F, D; their Qi.

II, i

Aureng-Zebe

Chains that are dragg'd, must needs uneasie prove: For there's a God-like liberty in Love. Nour. What's Love to you? T h e bloom of Beauty other years demands; Nor will be gather'd by such wither'd hands: You importune it with a false desire: 300 Which sparkles out, and makes no solid fire. This impudence of Age, whence can it spring? All you expect, and yet you nothing bring: Eager to ask, when you are past a grant; Nice in providing what you cannot want. Have conscience; give not her you love this pain: Sollicite not your self, and her, in vain. All other Debts may compensation find: But Love is strict, and will be paid in kind. Emp. Sure of all ills, Domestic are the worst; 310 When most secure of blessings, we are curst. When we lay next us what we hold most dear, Like Hercules, invenom'd Shirts we wear; And cleaving mischiefs. Nour. What you merit, have: And share, at least, the miseries you gave. Your days, I will alarm, I'll haunt your nights: And, worse than Age, disable your delights. May your sick Fame still languish, till it die: All Offices of Pow'r neglected lie, > And you grow cheap in every Subject's eye: ' 320 Then, as the greatest Curse that I can give; Unpiti'd, be depos'd; and after live. Emp. Stay; and now learn, How criminal soe'r we Husbands are, 'Tis not for Wives to push our crimes too far. Had you still Mistris of your temper been, I had been modest, and not own'd my Sin. Your fury hardens me: and what e'r wrong 302 319

bring:] — Q i - 5 , F, D. eye:]~.Qi-5,F,D.

185

[Going o f f .

Aureng-Zebe

i86

You suffer, you have cancell'd by your tongue. A Guard there; seize her: she shall know this hour, 33o What is a Husband's and a Monarch's pow'r. [Guard seizes her. Enter Aureng-Zebe. Nour. I see for whom your Charter you maintain: ) I must be fetter'd, and my Son be slain, > T h a t Zelyma's ambitious Race may reign. 7 Not so you promis'd, when my Beauty drew A l l Asia's Vows; when Persia left for you T h e Realm of Candahar for Dow'r I brought: T h a t long contended Prize for which you fought. A ur. T h e name of Step-mother, your practis'd Art, By which you have estrang'd my Father's heart, 34« A l l you have done against me, or design, Shows your aversion, but begets not mine. Long may my Father India's Empire guide: And may no breach your Nuptial Vows divide. Emp. Since Love obliges not, I from this hour, Assume the right of Man's Despotic pow'r: Man is by Nature form'd your Sexes head: And is himself the Canon of his Bed. In Bands of Iron fetter'd you shall be: A n easier yoke than what you put on me. 350 A ur. Though much I fear my int'rest is not great, [Kneeling. Let me your Royal Clemency intreat. Secrets of Marriage still are Sacred held: Their sweet and bitter by the wise conceal'd. Errors of Wives reflect on Husbands still: And, when divulg'd, proclaim you've chosen ill. And the mysterious pow'r of Bed and Throne, Should always be maintain'd, but rarely shown. Emp. T o so perverse a Sex all Grace is vain: It gives 'em courage to offend again: 360 For with feign'd tears they penitence pretend: 330 pow'r.] Qs-5, F, D; QI. 353 Their] There Q1-5, F, D.

Aureng-Zebe

187

Again are pardon'd, and again offend: Fathom our pity when they seem to grieve; Onely to try how far we can forgive: Till lanching out into a Sea of strife, They scorn all pardon, and appear all Wife. But be it as you please: for your lov'd sake, This last and fruitless trial I will make. In all requests, your right of merit use: And know, There is but one I can refuse. [He signs to the Guards, and they remove from the Empress. 370 Nour. You've done enough, for you design'd my Chains: The Grace is vanish'd, but th' Aifront remains. Nor is't a Grace, or for his merit done; You durst no farther, for you fear'd my Son. This you have gain'd by the rough course you prove; I'm past Repentance, and you past my Love. [Exit. Emp. A Spirit so untam'd the world ne'r bore. Aur. And yet worse usage had incens'd her more. But since by no obligement she is ti'd, You must betimes for your defence provide. 380 I cannot idle in your danger stand; But beg once more I may your Arms command: Two Battels your auspicious Cause has wonn; } My Sword can perfect what it has begun, > And, from your Walls, dislodge that haughty Son. ; Emp. My Son, your valour has, this day, been such, None can enough admire, or praise too much. But now, with reason, your success I doubt: Her Faction's strong within, his Arms without. Aur. I left the City in a Panic fright: 390 Lions they are in Council, Lambs in Fight. But my own Troops, by Mirzah led, are near: I, by to morrow's dawn, expect 'em here. T o favour 'em, I'll Sally out ere day, And through our slaughter'd Foes enlarge their way. Emp. Age has not yet 361

offend:]

Q1-5, F, D.

363

forgive:] — Q1-5, F, D.

i88

Aureng-Zebe

So shrunk my Sinews, or so chill'd my Veins, But conscious Virtue in my breast remains. But had I now That strength, with which my boiling Youth was fraught; 400 When in the Vale of Balasor I fought, And from Bengale their Captive Monarch brought; When Elephant 'gainst Elephant did rear His Trunck, and Castles justl'd in the Air; My Sword thy way to Victory had shown: And ow'd the Conquest to it self alone. Aur. Those fair Idea's to my aid I'll call, And emulate my great Original. Or, if they fail, I will invoke in Arms, T h e pow'r of Love, and Indamora's Charms. 4io Emp. I doubt the happy influence of your Star: T ' invoke a Captives name bodes ill in War. A ur. Sir, give me leave to say, What ever now The Omen prove, it boded well to you. Your Royal Promise, when I went to fight, Oblig'd me to resign a Victor's right. Her liberty I fought for, and I wonn: And claim it as your General, and your Son. Emp. My ears still ring with noise, I'm vext to death: Tongue-kill'd, and have not yet recover'd breath. 420 Nor will I be prescrib'd my time by you: First end the War, and then your Claim renew. While to your Conduct I my Fortune trust, T o keep this pledge of duty is but just. Aur. Some hidden cause your jealousie does move, Or you could ne'r suspect my Loyal Love. Emp. What love soever by an Heir is shown, He waits but time to step into the Throne. You're neither justifi'd, nor yet accus'd: Mean while, the Pris'ner with respect is us'd. 430 Aur. I know the kindness of her Guardian such, I need not fear too little, but too much. But how, Sir, how have you from virtue swerv'd? Or what so ill return have I deserv'd?

Aureng-Zebe

II, i

189

You doubt not me, nor have I spent my bloud, T o have my faith no better understood: Your Soul's above the baseness of distrust: Nothing but Love could make you so unjust. Emp. You know your Rival then; and know 'tis fit, The Son's should to the Father's Claim submit. 440 Aur. Sons may have right, which they can never quit. ) Your self first made that Title which I claim: First bid me love, and authoris'd my flame. Emp. The value of my gift I did not know: If I could give, I can resume it too. Aur. Recal your gift, for I your power confess: But first, take back my life, a gift that's less. Long life would now but a long burthen prove: You're grown unkind, and I have lost your love. My grief let unbecoming speeches fall: 450 I should have di'd, and not complain'd at all. Emp. Witness ye Pow'rs, How much I suffer'd, and how long I strove Against th' assaults of this imperious Love! I represented to my self the shame Of perjur'd Faith, and violated Fame. Your great deserts, how ill they were repay'd; All arguments, in vain, I urg'd and weigh'd: For mighty Love, who Prudence does despise, For Reason, show'd me Indamora's Eyes. 460 What would you more, my crime I sadly view, Acknowledge, am asham'd, and yet pursue. Aur. Since you can love, and yet your error see, The same resistless pow'r may plead for me. With no less ardor I my claim pursue: I love, and cannot yield her even to you. Emp. Your elder Brothers, though o'rcome, have right: T h e youngest yet in Arms prepar'd to fight. But, yielding her, I firmly have decreed, That you alone to Empire shall succeed. 45 1

ye]Qa-5,F,D;yeeQi.

469 succeed] Q2-5, F, D; suceed Qi.

190

Aureng-Zebe

Aur. To after Ages let me stand a shame, When I exchange for Crowns my Love or Fame. You might have found a mercenary Son, To profit of the Battels he had won: Had I been such, what hinder'd me to take The Crown? nor had th' exchange been yours to make. While you are living, I no right pretend; Wear it, and let it where you please descend. But from my Love, 'tis Sacrilege to part: There, there's my Throne in Indamora's heart. 480 Emp. 'Tis in her heart alone that you must Reign: You'll find her person difficult to gain. Give willingly what I can take by force: And know, Obedience is your safest course. Aur. I'm taught, by Honour's precepts, to obey: Fear to Obedience is a slavish way. If ought my want of duty could beget; You take the most prevailing means, to threat. Pardon your Bloud that boils within my veins; It rises high, and menacing disdains. 490 Even death's become to me no dreadful name: I've often met him, and have made him tame: In fighting fields, where our acquaintance grew, I saw him, and contemn'd him first for you. Emp. Of formal duty make no more thy boast: Thou disobey'st where it concerns me most. Fool, with both hands thus to push back a Crown: And headlong cast thy self from Empire down. Though Nourmahal I hate, her Son shall Reign: Inglorious thou, by thy own fault remain, soo Thy younger Brother I'll admit this hour: So mine shall be thy Mistris, his thy Pow'r. Aur. How vain is Virtue which directs our ways Through certain danger to uncertain praise! Barren, and aery name! thee Fortune flies; With thy lean Train, the Pious and the Wise. Heav'n takes thee at thy word, without regard; And lets thee poorly be thy own reward.

II, i

470

[Exit.

Aureng-Zebe The World is made for the bold impious man; Who stops at nothing, seizes all he can. BIO Justice to merit does weak aid afford; She trusts her Ballance, and neglects her Sword. Virtue is nice to take what's not her own; And, while she long consults, the Prize is gone. To him, Dianet. Dia. Forgive the Bearer of unhappy news: Your alter'd Father openly pursues Your ruine; and, to compass his intent, For violent Morat in haste has sent. T h e Gates he order'd all to be unbarr'd: And from the Market-place to draw the Guard. 520 A ur. How look the People in this turn of State? Dia. They mourn your ruine as their proper Fate; Cursing the Empress: for they think it done By her procurement, to advance her Son. Him too, though aw'd, they scarcely can forbear: His pride they hate, his violence they fear: All bent to rise, would you appear their Chief, Till your own Troops come up to your relief. Aur. Ill treated, and forsaken, as I am, I'll not betray the glory of my name: 530 'Tis not for me, who have preserv'd a State, T o buy an Empire at so base a rate. Dia. The points of Honour Poets may produce; Trappings of life, for Ornament, not Use: Honour, which onely does the name advance, Is the meer raving madness of Romance. Pleas'd with a word, you may sit tamely down; And see your younger Brother force the Crown. Aur. I know my fortune in extremes does lie; T h e Sons of Indostan must Reign, or die: 540 That desperate hazard Courage does create; 581 Fate;] D; — Qi~5,F. 538 lie;] Q1-5, F , D .

525 f e a r : ] ~ . Q i - 5 , F , D . 539 die:] Q1-5, F, D.

192

Aureng-Zebe

As he plays frankly, who has least Estate: And that the World the Coward will despise, When Life's a Blank, who pulls not for a Prize. Dia. Of all your knowledge, this vain fruit you have, T o walk with eyes broad open to your Grave. Aur. From what I've said, conclude, without reply, I neither would Usurp, nor tamely die. T h ' attempt to flie, would guilt betray, or fear: Besides, 'twere vain; the Fort's our Prison here. Somewhat I have resolv'd Morat, perhaps, has Honour in his breast: And, in extremes, bold Counsels are the best. Like Emp'ric Remedies, they last are tri'd; And by th' event condemn'd, or justifi'd. Presence of mind and courage in distress, Are more than Armies to procure success. [Exeunt.

A C T III. SCENE I. Arimant, with a Letter in his hand: Indamora. Arim. And I the Messenger to him from you? Your Empire you to Tyranny pursue: You lay commands, both cruel and unjust, T o serve my Rival, and betray my trust. Ind. You first betray'd your trust in loving me, And should not I my own advantage see? Serving my Love, you may my Friendship gain, You know the rest of your pretences vain. You must, my Arimant, you must be kind: 'Tis in your Nature, and your Noble Mind. Arim. I'll to the King, and streight my trust resign. Ind. His trust you may, but you shall never mine. Heav'n made you love me for no other end, But to become my Confident and Friend: 541 E s t a t e : ] Q 1 - 4 , D ; , — Q5, F. A C T III. SCENE I.] D; A C T III. Q1-5, F.

556

Exeunt] Exit Q 1 - 5 , F, D.

Aureng-Zebe

193

As such, I keep no Secret from your sight, And therefore make you judge how ill I write: Read it, and tell me freely then your mind: If 'tis indited as I meant it, kind. Arim. (reading) I ask not Heav'n my freedom to restore, But onely for your sake I'll read no more: And yet I must (Reading) Less for my own, than for your sorrow, sad Another line, like this, would make me mad (As reading) Heav'n! she goes on—yet more—and yet more kind! Each Sentence is a Dagger to my mind. (Reading) See me this night. T h a n k Fortune, who did such a Friend provide, For faithful Arimant shall be your Guide. Not onely to be made an Instrument, But preingag'd without my own consent! Ind. Unknown t' ingage you still augments my score, And gives you scope of meriting the more. Arim. T h e best of men Some int'rest in their actions must confess; None merit but in hope they may possess. T h e fatal Paper rather let me tear, T h a n , like Bellerophon, my own Sentence bear. Ind. You may; but 'twill not be your best advice: ' T w i l l onely give me pains of writing twice. You know you must obey me, soon or late: W h y should you vainly struggle with your Fate? Arim. I thank thee, Heav'n, thou hast been wondrous kind! 1 W h y am I thus to slavery design'd, > A n d yet am cheated with a free-born mind? ' Or make thy Orders with my reason sute, Or let me live by Sense a glorious Brute [She frowns. Y o u frown, and I obey with speed, before T h a t dreadful Sentence comes, See me no more: See me no more! that sound, methinks, I hear Like the last Trumpet thund'ring in my ear. 26 s8

night.] Guide.

]

Q 1 _ 5 . F. Q1-2, D;

Q3-5, F.

194

Aureng-Zebe Enter Solyman.

Solym. T h e Princess Melesinda, bath'd in tears, And toss'd alternately with hopes and fears, If your affairs such leisure can afford, Would learn from you the fortunes of her Lord. Arim. Tell her, that I some certainty may bring; I go this minute to attend the King. Ind. This lonely Turtle I desire to see: Grief, though not cur'd, is eas'd by Company. Arim. (to Solym.) Say, if she please, she hither may repair, And breathe the freshness of the open Air. [Exit Solym. Ind. Poor Princess! how I pity her estate, Wrapt in the ruines of her Husbands Fate! She mourn'd Morat should in Rebellion rise; Yet he offends, and she's the Sacrifice. Arim. Not knowing his design, at Court she staid; Till, by command, close pris'ner she was made. Since when, Her Chains with Roman Constancy she bore; But that, perhaps, an Indian Wife's is more. Ind. Go, bring her comfort; leave me here alone. Arim. My love must still be in obedience shown. [Exit Arim. Enter Melesinda, led by Solyman, who retires

afterwards.

Ind. When graceful sorrow in her pomp appears, Sure she is dress'd in Melesinda's tears. Your head reclin'd, (as hiding grief from view,) Droops, like a Rose surcharg'd with morning Dew. Mel. Can Flow'rs but droop in absence of the Sun, Which wak'd their sweets? and mine, alas! is gone. But you the noblest Charity express: For they who shine in Courts still shun distress. Ind. Distress'd my self, like you, confin'd I live: And therefore can compassion take, and give. We're both Love's Captives, but with Fate so cross, One must be happy by the others loss.

Aureng-Zebe

195

Morat, or Aureng-Zebe must fall this day. } Mel. Too truly Tamerlain's Successors they, > Each thinks a World too little for his sway. ' Could you and I the same pretences bring, Mankind should with more ease receive a King: I would to you the narrow World resign, 90 And want no Empire while Morat was mine. Ind. Wish'd freedom I presage you soon will find; If Heav'n be just, and be to Virtue kind. Mel. Quite otherwise my mind foretels my Fate: Short is my life, and that unfortunate. Yet should I not complain, would Heav'n afford Some little time, ere death, to see my Lord. Ind. These thoughts are but your melancholy's food; Rais'd from a lonely life, and dark abode: But whatsoe'r our jarring fortunes prove, 100 Though our Lords hate, me-thinks we two may love. Mel. Such be our Loves as may not yield to Fate: I bring a heart more true than fortunate. [Giving their hands. To them Arimant. Arim. I come with haste surprising news to bring: In two hours time, since last I saw the King, T h ' affairs of Court have wholely chang'd their face: Unhappy Aureng-Zebe is in disgrace: And your Morat, (proclaim'd the Successor) Is call'd, to awe the City with his power. Those Trumpets his triumphant Entry tell. 110 And now the Shouts waft near the Cittadel. Ind. See, Madam, see th' event by me foreshown: I envy not your chance, but grieve my own. Mel. A change so unexpected must surprise: And more, because I am unus'd to joys. Ind. May all your wishes ever prosp'rous be, But I'm too much concern'd th' event to see. My eyes too tender are 103

surprising] Qa, D; suprising Qi; surprizing Q3-5, F.

196

Aureng-Zebe

To view my Lord become the publick scorn. I came to comfort, and I go to mourn. 120 Mel. Stay, I'll not see my Lord, Before I give your sorrow some relief; And pay the charity you lent my grief. Here he shall see me first with you confin'd: And, if your virtue fail to move his mind, I'll use my int'rest that he may be kind. Fear not, I never mov'd him yet in vain. Ind. So fair a Pleader any Cause may gain. Mel. I have no taste, me-thinks, of coming For black presages all my hopes destroy, lso Die, something whispers, Melesinda, die; Fulfil, fulfil thy mournful Destiny. Mine is a gleam of bliss, too hot to last, Watry it shines, and will be soon o'r-cast.

III, i [Taking her leave.

\ > ;

joy;

Indamora and Melesinda re-enter, as into the Chamber. Arim. Fortune seems weary grown of Aureng-Zebe, While to her new-made Favourite, Morat, Her lavish hand is wastefully profuse: With Fame and flowing Honours tided in, Born on a swelling Current smooth beneath him. The King and haughty Empress, to our wonder, MO If not atton'd, yet seemingly at peace; As Fate for him that Miracle reserv'd. Enter in Triumph, Emperor, Morat, and Train. Emp. I have confess'd I love. As I interpret fairly your design, So look not with severer eyes on mine. Your Fate has call'd you to th' Imperial Seat: In duty be, as you in Arms are, great. 123 Indented in Qi-2. 1 3 3 + s.d. Chamber.] Q4-5, F, D; Q1-3. 140 peace;] Q3-5. F; Qi-a; D. 1 4 1 + s.d. Emperor] D; Emperor Q1-5, F.

Aureng-Zebe For Aureng-Zebe a hated name is grown, And Love less bears a Rival than the Throne. Mor. T o me, the cries of fighting Fields are Charms: 150 Keen be my Sable, and of proof my Arms. I ask no other blessing of my Stars: No prize but Fame, nor Mistris but the Wars. I scarce am pleas'd I tamely mount the Throne: Would Aureng-Zebe had all their Souls in one: With all my elder Brothers I would fight, And so from partial Nature force my right. Emp. Had we but lasting Youth, and time to spare, Some might be thrown away on Fame and War: But Youth, the perishing good, runs on too fast: wo And unenjoy'd will spend it self to waste; > Few know the use of life before 'tis past. ; Had I once more thy vigour to command, I would not let it die upon my hand: No hour of pleasure should pass empty by, Youth should watch joys, and shoot 'em as they flie. Mor. Me-thinks all pleasure is in greatness found. Kings, like Heav'ns Eye, should spread their beams around: Pleas'd to be seen while Glory's race they run: Rest is not for the Chariot of the Sun. 170 Subjects are stiff-neck'd Animals, they soon Feel slacken'd Reins, and pitch their Rider down. Emp. T o thee that drudgery of Pow'r I give: Cares be thy lot: Reign thou, and let me live. T h e Fort I'll keep for my security, Bus'ness, and public State resign to thee. Mor. Luxurious Kings are to their People lost; They live, like Drones, upon the public cost. My Arms, from Pole to Pole, the World shall shake: And, with my self, keep all Mankind awake, wo Emp. Believe me, Son, and needless trouble spare; 'Tis a base World, and is not worth our care. T h e Vulgar, a scarce animated Clod, 167 around:]

QI-5, F, D.

197

III, i

Aureng-Zebe Ne'r pleas'd with ought above 'em, Prince or God. Were I a God, the drunken Globe should roul: The little Emmets with the humane Soul Care for themselves, while at my ease I sat, And second Causes did the work of Fate. Or, if I would take care, that care should be For Wit that scorn'd the World, and liv'd like me. To them, Nourmahal, Zayda, and

Attendants.

190

Nour. My dear Morat, [Embracing her Son. This day propitious to us all has been: You're now a Monarch's Heir, and I a Queen. Your youthful Father now may quit the State, And finds the ease he sought, indulg'd by Fate. Cares shall not keep him on the Throne awake, Nor break the golden Slumbers he would take. Emp. In vain I struggl'd to the Goal of Life, ] While Rebel-Sons, and an imperious Wife > Still dragg'd me backward into noise and strife. ) 200 Mor. Be that remembrance lost; and be't my pride T o be your pledge of peace on either side. To them, Aureng-Zebe. Aur. With all th' assurance Innocence can bring, Fearless without, because secure within, Arm'd with my courage, unconcern'd I see This pomp; a shame to you, a pride to me. Shame is but where with wickedness 'tis joyn'd; \ And, while no baseness in this breast I find, > I have not lost the birth-right of my mind. " Emp. Children (the blind effect of Love and Chance, 210 Form'd by their sportive Parents ignorance) Bear from their birth th' impressions of a Slave: Whom Heav'n for play-games first, and then for service gave. One then may be displac'd, and one may Reign: 183

above 'em,] D; 'em, above Q1-5, F.

Aureng-Zebe

J

99

And want of Merit, render Birth-right vain. Mor. Comes he t' upbraid us with his innocence? Seize him, and take the preaching Brachman hence. Aur. Stay, Sir; I, from my years, no merit plead: [To his Father. All my designs and acts to duty lead. Your Life and Glory are my onely end; 220 And for that Prize I with Morat contend. Mor. Not him alone; I all Mankind defie. Who dares adventure more for both than I? Aur. I know you brave, and take you at your word: That present service which you vaunt, afford. Our two Rebellious Brothers are not dead: Though vanquish'd, yet again they gather head. I dare you, as your Rival in renown, March out your Army from th' Imperial Town: Chuse whom you please, the other leave to me: 230 And set our Father absolutely free. This, if you do, to end all future strife, I am content to lead a private life: Disband my Army to secure the State, Nor aim at more, but leave the rest to Fate. Morat. I'll do't. Draw out my Army on the Plain: War is to me a pastime, Peace a pain. Emp. (to Mor.) Think better first. (To Aur.) You see your self inclos'd beyond escape, And therefore, Proteus-like, you change your shape: 240 Of promise prodigal, while pow'r you want, And preaching in the Self-denying Cant. Morat. Plot better; for these Arts too obvious are, Of gaining time, the Masterpiece of War: Is Aureng-Zebe so known? Aur. If Acts like mine, So far from int'rest, profit, or design, Can show my heart, by those I would be known: I wish you could as well defend your own. My absent Army for my Father fought: 239

shape:] — Q1-5, F, D.

200

Aureng-Zebe

Yours, in these Walls, is to inslave him brought. 250 If I come singly, you an armed guest, The World with ease may judge whose Cause is best. Mor. My Father saw you ill designs pursue: And my admission show'd his fear of you. Aur. Himself best knows why he his Love withdraws: I owe him more than to declare the cause. But still I press our duty may be shown By Arms. Mor.—I'll vanquish all his foes alone. Aur. You speak as if you could the Fates command, And had no need of any other hand. 260 But, since my Honour you so far suspect, 'Tis just I should on your designs reflect. T o prove your self a Loyal Son, declare You'll lay down Arms when you conclude the War. Mor. No present answer your demand requires; The War once done, I'll do what Heav'n inspires. And while the Sword this Monarchy secures, 'Tis manag'd by an abler Arm than yours. Emp. Moral's design a doubtful meaning bears: [Apart. In Aureng-Zebe true Loyalty appears. 270 He, for my safety, does his own despise; Still, with his wrongs, I find his duty rise. I feel my Virtue strugling in my Soul, But stronger Passion does its pow'r controul. Yet be advis'd your ruine to prevent. [To Aur. apart. You might be safe, if you would give consent. A ur. So to your welfare I of use may be, My life or death are equal both to me. Emp. The Peoples hearts are yours; the Fort yet mine: Be wise, and Indamora's love resign. 28o I am observ'd: remember that I give This my last proof of kindness, die, or live. Aur. Life, with my Indamora, I would chuse; But, losing her, the end of living lose. «54 Aur.] Qa-5,F, D; Aut. Qi.

Aureng-Zebe

201

I had consider'd all I ought before; And fear of death can make me change no more. The Peoples love so little I esteem, Condemn'd by you, I would not live by them. May he who must your favour now possess, Much better serve you, and not love you less. 290 Emp. I've heard you; and, to finish the debate, [Aloud. Commit that Rebel pris'ner to the State. Mor. The deadly draught he shall begin this day: And languish with insensible decay. Aur. I hate the lingring summons to attend, Death all at once would be the nobler end. Fate is unkind! me-thinks a General Should warm, and at the head of Armies fall. And my ambition did that hope pursue, That so I might have di'd in fight for you. [To his Father. 300 Mor. Would I had been disposer of thy Stars; Thou shouldst have had thy wish, and di'd in Wars. 'Tis I, not thou, have reason to repine, That thou shouldst fall by any hand, but mine. Aur. When thou wert form'd, Heav'n did a Man begin; But the brute Soul, by chance, was shuffl'd in. In Woods and Wilds thy Monarchy maintain: Where valiant Beasts, by force and rapine, reign. In Life's next Scene, if Transmigration be, Some Bear or Lion is reserv'd for thee, sio Mor. Take heed thou com'st not in that Lion's way: \ I prophecy thou wilt thy Soul convey > Into a Lamb, and be again my Prey. ) Hence with that dreaming Priest. [To his Train. Nour. Let me prepare T h e pois'nous draught: his death shall be my care. Near my Apartment let him pris'ner be: That I his hourly ebbs of life may see. Aur. My life I would not ransome with a pray'r: 'Tis vile, since 'tis not worth my Father's care. 313

Priest. [To his Train.] Priest. Q i - 5 , F, D.

202

Aureng-Zebe

I go not, Sir, indebted to my grave: 3zo You paid your self, and took the life you gave. [Exit. Emp. O that I had more sense of vertue left, [Aside. Or were of that, which yet remains, bereft. I've just enough to know how I offend, And, to my shame, have not enough to mend. Lead to the Mosque Mor. Love's pleasures why should dull devotion stay? Heav'n to my Melesinda's but the way. [Exeunt Emperor, Morat, and Train. Zayd. Sure Aureng-Zebe has somewhat of Divine, Whose virtue through so dark a clowd can shine. 330 Fortune has from Morat this day remov'd T h e greatest Rival, and the best belov'd. Nour. He is not yet remov'd. Zayd. He lives, 'tis true; But soon must die, and, what I mourn, by you. Nour. My Zayda, may thy words prophetic be: [Embracing her eagerly. I take the Omen, let him die by me. He stifl'd in my arms shall lose his breath: And Life it self shall envious be of Death. Zay. Bless me, you Pow'rs above! Nour. Why dost thou start? Is Love so strange? or have not I a heart? 340 Could Aureng-Zebe so lovely seem to thee, And I want eyes that noble worth to see? Thy little Soul was but to wonder mov'd: My sense of it was higher, and I lov'd. That Man, that God-like Man, so brave, so great; But these are thy small praises I repeat. I'm carri'd by a T i d e of Love away: He's somewhat more than I my self can say. Zay. Though all th' Idea's you can form be true, He must not, cannot be possess'd by you. 350 If contradicting int'rests could be mixt, 320 paid] Q3-5, F, D; pai'd Q1-2. 327+ s.d. Emperor] D; Emperor Q1-5, F.

Ill, i

Aureng-Zebe

203

Nature her self has cast a bar betwixt. And, ere you reach to this incestuous Love, You must Divine and Humane Rights remove. Nour. Count this among the Wonders Love has done: I had forgot he was my Husband's Son! Zay. Nay, more; you have forgot who is your own: For whom your care so long design'd the Throne. Morat must fall, if Aureng-Zebe should rise. Nour. 'Tis true; but who was ere in love, and wise? 380 Why was that fatal knot of Marriage ti'd, Which did, by making us too near, divide? Divides me from my Sex! for Heav'n, I find Excludes but me alone of Woman-kind. I stand with guilt confounded, lost with shame, A n d yet made wretched onely by a name. If names have such command on humane Life, Love sure's a name that's more Divine than Wife. That Sovereign power all guilt from action takes, A t least the stains are beautiful it makes, sro Zay. T h ' incroaching ill you early should oppose: Flatter'd 'tis worse, and by indulgence grows. Nour. Alas! and what have I not said or done? I fought it to the last: and Love has wonn: A bloudy Conquest; which destruction brought, And ruin'd all the Countrey where he fought: Whether this Passion from above was sent T h e Fate of him Heav'n favours to prevent, Or as the curse of Fortune in excess; That, stretching, would beyond its reach possess: 380 And, with a taste which plenty does deprave, Loaths lawful good, and lawless ill does crave. Zay. But yet consider Nour. No, 'tis loss of time: T h i n k how to farther, not divert my crime. 351 has] D; hast Q i ; hath Q2-5, F. 355 Son] Q2-5, F, D; Sone Q i . 373 wonn:] Q i - i , Q5, F, D; Q3-4. 375 fought:] Q1-5, F, D.

353

remove.] Q2-5, D;

381

crave.]

Q1-5, D;

Q i , F. F.

Aureng-Zebe

204

My artful Engines instantly I'll move: And chuse the soft and gentlest hour of Love. The Under-Provost of the Fort is mine. But see, Morat! I'll whisper my design. Enter Morat with Arimant, as talking:

Attendants.

Arim. And for that cause was not in public seen: But stays in Prison with the captive Queen. 890 Mor. Let my Attendants wait; I'll be alone: Where least of State, there most of Love is shown. Nour. My Son, your bus'ness is not hard to ghess; [To Mor. Long absence makes you eager to possess: I will not importune you by my stay; She merits all the Love which you can pay. [Exit with Zayda. Re-enter

Arimant, with Melesinda; then Exit. Morat runs to Melesinda, and embraces her.

Mor. Should I not chide you, that you chose to stay In gloomy shades, and lost a glorious day? Lost the first fruits of joy you should possess In my return, and made my Triumph less? 400 Mel. Should I not chide, that you could stay and see Those joys, preferring public Pomp to me? Through my dark Cell your shouts of Triumph rung: I heard with pleasure; but I thought 'em long. Mor. The Public will in Triumphs rudely share. And Kings the rudeness of their joys must bear: But I made haste to set my Captive free: And thought that work was onely worthy me. The Fame of antient Matrons you pursue; And stand a blameless pattern to the new. 410 I have not words to praise such Acts as these: But take my Heart, and mold it as you please. Mel. A trial of your kindness I must make, 395+ 395+

s.d. s.d.

Arimant] Q2-5, F, D; A r i m a u t Q i . to Melesinda] Q2-5, F, D ; to Melecinda Q i .

Aureng-Zebe

205

Though not for mine so much as Virtue's sake. T h e Queen of Cassimeer Mor. No more, my love; T h a t onely suit I beg you not to move. T h a t she's in Bonds for Aureng-Zebe I know, ) And should, by my consent, continue so. > T h e good old man, I fear, will pity show. ) My Father dotes, and let him still dote on; 420 He buys his Mistris dearly with his Throne. Mel. See her; and then be cruel if you can. Mor. 'Tis not with me as with a private Man. Such may be sway'd by Honour, or by Love; But Monarchs, onely by their int'rest move. Mel. Heav'n does a Tribute for your pow'r demand: He leaves th' opprest and poor upon your hand. And those who Stuards of his pity prove, H e blesses, in return, with public Love. In his distress, some Miracle is shown: 430 If exil'd, Heav'n restores him to his Throne. He needs no Guard while any Subject's near: Nor, like his Tyrant Neighbours, lives in fear: No Plots th' Alarm to his retirements give: 'Tis all Mankinds concern that he should live. Mor. You promis'd friendship in your low estate; And should forget it in your better Fate; Such Maxims are more plausible than true; But somewhat must be given to Love and you. I'll view this Captive Queen; to let her see, 440 Pray'rs and complaints are lost on such as me. Mel. I'll bear the news: Heav'n knows how much I'm pleas'd, That, by my care, th' afflicted may be eas'd. As she is going o f f , Enter Indamora. Ind. I'll spare your pains, and venture out alone, Since you, fair Princess, my protection own. 431

Subject's] Q2-5, F, D; Subjects Qi.

2o6

Aureng-Zebe

But you, brave Prince, a harder task must find; [To Morat kneeling, who takes her up. In saving me, you would but half be kind. An humble Suppliant at your feet I lie; You have condemn'd my better part to die. Without my Aureng-Zebe I cannot live; 450 Revoke his Doom, or else my Sentence give. Mel. If Melesinda in your love have part, Which, to suspect, would break my tender heart: If Love, like mine, may for a Lover plead, By the chaste pleasures of our Nuptial Bed, By all the int'rest my past suff'rings make, And all I yet would suffer for your sake; By you your self, the last and dearest tie Mor. You move in vain; for Aureng-Zebe must die. Ind. Could that Decree from any Brother come? 460 Nature her self is sentenc'd in your doom. Piety is no more, she sees her place Usurp'd by Monsters, and a savage Race. From her soft Eastern Climes you drive her forth, T o the cold Mansions of the utmost North. How can our Prophet suffer you to Reign, When he looks down, and sees your Brother slain? Avenging Furies will your life pursue: Think there's a Heav'n, Morat, though not for you. Mel. Her words imprint a terror on my mind. 470 What if this death, which is for him design'd, Had been your Doom, (far be that Augury!) And you, not Aureng-Zebe, condemn'd to die? Weigh well the various turns of Humane Fate, And seek, by Mercy, to secure your State. Ind. Had Heav'n the Crown for Aureng-Zebe design'd, Pity, for you, had pierc'd his generous mind. Pity does with a Noble Nature suit: A Brother's life had suffer'd no dispute. All things have right in life, our Prophet's care 480 Commands the beings eve'n of Brutes to spare. Though int'rest his restraint has justifi'd,

Aureng-Zebe

207

Can life, and to a Brother, be deni'd? Mor. All Reasons for his safety urg'd, are weak: And yet, me-thinks, 'tis Heav'n to hear you speak. Mel. 'Tis part of your own being to invade Mor. Nay, if she fail to move, would you perswade? My Brother does a glorious Fate pursue. [Turning to Inda. I envy him, that he must fall for you. He had been base had he releas'd his right: 490 For such an Empire none but Kings should fight. If with a Father, he disputes this prize, My wonder ceases when I see these Eyes. Mel. And can you then deny those Eyes you praise? Can Beauty wonder, and not pity raise? Mor. Your intercession now is needless grown: Retire, and let me speak with her alone. [Melesinda retires, weeping, to the side of the Theatre. Queen, that you may not fruitless tears employ, [Taking Indamora's hand. I bring you news to fill your heart with joy: Your Lover King of all the East shall Reign: 500 For Aureng-Zebe to morrow shall be slain. Ind. T h e hopes you rais'd y'ave blasted with a breath: [Starting back. With Triumphs you began, but end with Death. Did you not say, my Lover should be King? Mor. I, in Morat, the best of Lovers bring. For one forsaken both of Earth and Heav'n, Your kinder Stars a nobler choice have given: My Father, while I please, a King appears; His Pow'r is more declining than his Years, An Emperor and Lover, but in show: 510 But you, in me, have Youth and Fortune too. As Heav'n did to your eyes and form Divine, Submit the Fate of all th' Imperial Line; So was it order'd by its wise Decree, T h a t you should find 'em all compris'd in me. 504 bring.] D;

Qx-5, F.

508 Years,] — Q1-5, F, D.

2o8

Aureng-Zebe

Ind. If, Sir, I seem not discompos'd with rage, Feed not your fancy with a false presage. Farther to press your Courtship is but vain: A cold refusal carries more disdain. Unsetled Virtue stormy may appear; 520 Honour, like mine, serenely is severe. To scorn your person, and reject your Crown, Disorder not my face into a frown. [Turns from him. Mor. Your Fortune you should rev'rently have us'd: Such offers are not twice to be refus'd. I go to Aureng-Zebe, and am in haste: For your Commands, they're like to be the last. Ind. Tell him, With my own death I would his life redeem; But, less than Honour, both our Lives esteem. 530 Mor. Have you no more? Ind. What shall I do or say? [Aside. He must not in this fury go away. Tell him, I did in vain his Brother move; [To him. And yet he falsly said, he was in love. Falsly; for had he truly lov'd, at least, He would have giv'n one day to my request. Mor. A little yielding may my love advance: [Aside. She darted from her eyes a sidelong glance, Just as she spoke; and, like her words, it flew: Seem'd not to beg, what yet she bid me do. 540 A Brother, Madam, cannot give a day; [To her. A Servant, and who hopes to merit, may. Mel. If, Sir [Coming to him. Mor. No more set speeches, and a formal tale, With none but States-men and grave Fools prevail. Dry up your tears, and practice every Grace, That fits the Pageant of your Royal place. [Exit. Mel. Madam, the strange reverse of Fate you see: [To Ind. 518 53a 536 542

disdain.] Q3-5, F, D; Qi-s. move; [To him.] move; Q1-5, F, D. advance: [Aside.] advance: Q1-5. F, D. Coming] Q4-5, F, D; coming Q1-3.

209

Aureng-Zebe

I piti'd you, now you may pity me. [Exit after him. Ind. Poor Princess! thy hard Fate I could bemoan, 550 Had I not nearer sorrows of my own. Beauty is seldom fortunate, when great: A vast Estate, but overcharg'd with Debt. Like those whom want to baseness does betray: I'm forc'd to flatter him I cannot pay. 0 would he be content to seize the Throne: 1 beg the life of Aureng-Zebe alone. Whom Heav'n would bless, from Pomp it will remove, And make their wealth in privacy and Love. [Exit. ACT IV. SCENE I. Aureng-Zebe solus. Distrust, and darkness, of a future state, Make poor Mankind so fearful of their Fate. Death, in it self, is nothing; but we fear To be we know not what, we know not where. This is the Ceremony of my Fate: A parting Treat; and I'm to die in State. They lodge me, as I were the Persian King: And with luxurious Pomp my death they bring.

[So/i Music.

To him Nourmahal. Nour. I thought, before you drew your latest breath, 10 To smooth your passage, and to soften death; For I would have you, when you upward move, Speak kindly of me, to our Friends above: Nor name me there th' occasion of your Fate; Or what my Interest does, impute to Hate. Aur. I ask not for what end your Pomp's design'd; Whether t' insult, or to compose my mind: I mark'd it not; ACT IV. SCENE I.] D; ACT IV. Q1-2, Q4-5, F; Act VI. Q3.

2 lO

Aureng-Zebe

But, knowing Death would soon th' Assault begin, Stood firm collected in my Strength within: T o guard that breach did all my Forces guide, And left unmann'd the quiet Senses side. Nour. Because Morat from me his being took, All I can say will much suspected look: 'Tis little to confess your Fate I grieve; Yet more than you would easily believe. Aur. Since my inevitable death you know, \ You safely unavailing pity show: > 'Tis Popular to mourn a dying Foe. / Nour. You made my Liberty your late request: Is no return due from a grateful breast? I grow impatient, till I find some way Great Offices, with greater, to repay. Aur. When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat; Yet, fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think to morrow will repay: T o morrow's falser than the former day; Lies worse; and while it says, We shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. Strange couzenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And, from the dregs of Life, think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give. I'm tir'd with waiting for this Chymic Gold, Which fools us young, and beggars us when old. Nour. 'Tis not for nothing that we life pursue; It pays our hopes with something still that's new: Each day's a Mistris, unenjoy'd before; Like Travellers, we're pleas'd with seeing more. Did you but know what joys your way attend, You would not hurry to your journeys end. Aur. I need not haste the end of Life to meet; The precipice is just beneath my feet. Nour. Think not my sense of Virtue is so small: I'll rather leap down first, and break your fall.

Aureng-Zebe

211

My Aureng-Zebe, (may I not call you so?) [Taking him by the hand. Behold me now no longer as your Foe; I am not, cannot be your Enemy: Look, is there any malice in my eye? Pray sit [Both sit. T h a t distance shows too much respect, or fear: You'll find no danger in approaching near. Aur. Forgive th' amazement of my doubtful state: This kindness from the Mother of Morat! Or is 't some Angel, pitying what I bore, W h o takes that shape, to make my wonder more? Nour. T h i n k me your better Genius in disguise; Or any thing that more may charm your eyes. Your Guardian Angel never could excel In care, nor could he love his charge so well. Aur. Whence can proceed so wonderful a change? Nour. Can kindness to desert, like yours, be strange? Kindness by secret Sympathy is ty'd; For Noble Souls in Nature are alli'd. I saw with what a brow you brav'd your Fate; Yet with what mildness bore your Father's hate. My Virtue, like a String wound up by Art, \ T o the same sound, when yours was touch'd, took part, > A t distance shook, and trembled at my heart. ) Aur. I'll not complain my Father is unkind, Since so much pity from a Foe I find. Just Heav'n reward this act. Nour. 'Tis well the debt no payment does demand, You turn me over to another hand. But happy, happy she, And with the Bless'd above to be compar'd, W h o m you your self would, with your self, reward: T h e greatest, nay, the fairest of her kind, Would envy her that Bliss which you design'd. 66 Genius] Genius Q1-5, F, D.

212

Aureng-Zebe

Aur. Great Princes thus, when Favourites they raise, so To justifie their Grace, their Creatures praise. Nour. As Love the Noblest Passion we account, So to the highest Object it should mount. It shows you brave when mean desires you shun. An Eagle onely can behold the Sun: And so must you; if yet, presage Divine There be in Dreams, or was't a Vision mine? Aur. Of me? Nour. And who could else employ my thought? I dream'd, your Love was by Love's Goddess sought; Officious Cupids, hov'ring o'r your head, 100 Held Myrtle wreaths: beneath your feet were spread What Sweets soe'r Sabean Springs disclose, Our Indian Jasmine, or the Syrian Rose: The wanton Ministers around you strove For service, and inspir'd their Mother's Love: Close by your side, and languishing, she lies, With blushing cheeks, short breath, and wishing eyes; Upon your breast supinely lay her head, While, on your face, her famish'd sight she fed. Then, with a sigh, into these words she broke, no (And gather'd humid kisses as she spoke.) Dull, and ingrateful! must I offer love, Desir'd of Gods, and envi'd ev'n by Jove? And dost thou ignorance or fear pretend? Mean Soul! and dar'st not gloriously offend? Then, pressing thus his hand Aur. I'll hear no more, [.Rising up. 'Twas impious to have understood before; And I, till now, endeavour'd to mistake Th' incestuous meaning which too plain you make. Nour. And why this niceness to that pleasure shown, 120 Where Nature sums up all her joys in one; Gives all she can, and labouring still to give, 99 Cupids] Q4-5, F, D; Cupids Q1-3. 111 love,] Q1-5, F, D.

103 112

around] Q2-5, F, D; arround Qi. Jove?] Q1-5, F, D.

Aureng-Zebe

213

Makes it so great, we can but taste and live: So fills the Senses, that the Soul seems fled, And thought it self does, for the time, lie dead; Till, like a String scru'd up with eager haste, It breaks, and is too exquisite to last? Aur. Heav'ns! can you this, without just vengeance, hear? When will you thunder, if it now be clear? Yet her alone let not your Thunder seize: 130 I, too, deserve to die, because I please. Nour. Custom our Native Royalty does awe; Promiscuous Love is Nature's general Law: For whosoever the first Lovers were, Brother and Sister made the second Pair, And doubled, by their love, their piety. A ur. Hence, hence, and to some barbarous Climate fly, Which onely Brutes in humane form does yield, And Man grows wild in Nature's common Field. Who eat their Parents, piety pretend; uo Yet there no Sons their Sacred Bed ascend. To vail great Sins, a greater Crime you chuse; And, in your Incest, your Adult'ry lose. Nour. In vain this haughty fury you have shown. How I adore a Soul so like my ownl You must be mine, that you may learn to live: Know joys, which onely she who loves can give. Nor think that action you upbraid, so ill: I am not chang'd; I love my Husband still; But love him as he was, when youthful grace, iso And the first down began to shade his face: That Image does my Virgin-flames renew, And all your Father shines more bright in you. Aur. In me a horrour of my self you raise; Curs'd by your love, and blasted by your praise. You find new ways to prosecute my Fate; And your least-guilty passion was your Hate. Nour. I beg my death, if you can Love deny. [Offering him a Dagger.

214

Aureng-Zebe

Aur. I'll grant you nothing; no, not ev'n to die. Nour. Know then, you are not half so kind as I. [Stamps with her foot. Enter Mutes, some with Swords drawn, one with a Cup. i6o You've chosen, and may now repent too late. Behold th'effect of what you wish'd, my Hate. This Cup, a cure for both our ills has brought: [Taking the Cup to present him. You need not fear a Philtre in the Draught. Aur. All must be poison which can come from thee; [Receiving it from her. But this the least. T ' immortal Liberty This first I pour like dying Socrates; [Spilling a little of it. Grim though he be, Death pleases when he frees. As he is going to drink, Enter Morat

attended.

Mor. Make not such haste, you must my leisure stay: ['Taking the Cup from him. Your Fate's deferr'd, you shall not die to day. 170 Nour. What foolish pity has possess'd your mind, To alter what your prudence once design'd? Mor. What if I please to lengthen out his date A day, and take a pride to cozen Fate? Nour. 'Twill not be safe to let him live an hour. Mor. I'll do 't, to show my Arbitrary pow'r. Nour. Fortune may take him from your hands again, And you repent th' occasion lost in vain. Mor. I smile at what your Female fear foresees: I'm in Fate's place, and dictate her Decrees, wo Let Arimant be call'd. [Exit one of his Attendants. Aur. Give me the poison, and I'll end your strife: I hate to keep a poor precarious life. Would I my safety on base terms receive, Know, Sir, I could have liv'd without your leave. But those I could accuse, I can forgive: By my disdainful silence, let 'em live.

M O R A T T A K E S THE C U P FROM A U R E N G - Z E B E ( A C T I V , SCENE i)

FROM The Dramatic

Works of John Dryden, Esq. (1735)

Aureng-Zebe

215

Nour. What am I, that you dare to bind my hand? [To Mor. So low, I've not a Murder at command! Can you not one poor Life to her afford, 190 Her who gave up whole Nations to your Sword, And from th' abundance of whose Soul and Heat, Th' o'rflowing serv'd to make your mind so great? Mor. What did that greatness in a Woman's mind, 111 lodg'd, and weak to act what it design'd? Pleasure's your portion, and your slothful ease: When Man's at leisure, study how to please. Soften his angry hours with servile care, And when he calls, the ready Feast prepare. From Wars, and from affairs of State abstain: 200 Women Emasculate a Monarch's Reign; And murmuring Crouds, who see 'em shine with Gold, That pomp, as their own ravish'd Spoils behold. Nour. Rage choaks my words: 'tis Womanly to weep: \ [Aside. In my swoll'n breast my close revenge I'll keep; > I'll watch his tender'st part, and there strike deep. ) [Exit. Aur. Your strange proceeding does my wonder move; Yet seems not to express a Brother's love. Say to what Cause my rescu'd life I owe. Mor. If what you ask would please, you should not know. 210 But since that knowledge, more than Death, will grieve, Know, Indamora gain'd you this Reprieve. Aur. And whence had she the pow'r to work your change? Mor. The pow'r of Beauty is not new or strange. Should she command me more, I could obey; But her request was bounded with a day. Take that; and, if you'll spare my farther crime, Be kind, and grieve to death against your time. Enter Arimant. Remove this Pris'ner to some safer place: He has, for Indamora's sake, found grace: 190 Sword,] QI-5, F, D. 193 mind,] ~ ? Q1-5, F, D.

192 194

great?] Q1-5, F, D. design'd?] Q1-5, F, D.

Aureng-Zebe

2l6

220 And, from my Mother's rage must guarded be, Till you receive a new Command from me. Arim. Thus Love, and Fortune, persecute me still, And make me Slave to every Rivals will. [Aside. Aur. How I disdain a Life, which I must buy With your contempt, and her inconstancyl For a few hours, my whole content I pay: You shall not force on me another day. [Exit with Arimant. Enter Melesinda. Mel. I have been seeking you this hour's long space, And fear'd to find you in another place; 280 But, since you're here, my jealousie grows less: You will be kind to my unworthiness. What shall I say? I love to that degree, Each glance another way is robb'd from me. Absence, and Prisons, I could bear again; But sink, and die, beneath your least disdain. Mor. Why do you give your mind this needless care, And, for your self, and me, new pains prepare? I ne'r approv'd this passion in excess: If you would show your love, distrust me less. 240 I hate to be pursu'd from place to place: Meet, at each turn, a stale domestic face. T h ' approach of jealousie Love cannot bear, He's wild, and soon on wing, if watchful eyes come near. Mel. From your lov'd presence, how can I depart? My eyes pursue the object of my heart. Mor. You talk as if it were our Bridal night: Fondness is still th' effect of new delight; And Marriage but the pleasure of a day: The Metall's base, the Gilding worn away. 250 Mel. I fear I'm guilty of some great offence, And that has bred this cold indifference. 249

bas

eJ Q4-5. F> D; ~A Q1_3-

Aureng-Zebe

217

Mor. The greatest in the world to flesh and bloud: You fondly love much longer than you shou'd. Mel. If that be all which makes your discontent, Of such a crime I never can repent. Mor. Would you force Love upon me, which I shun? And bring course fare, when appetite is gone? Mel. Why did I not, in Prison, die before My fatal freedom made me suffer more? 260 I had been pleas'd to think I dy'd for you, And doubly pleas'd, because you then were true: Then I had hope; but now, alas, have none. Mor. You say you love me; let that love be shown. 'Tis in your power to make my happiness. Mel. Speak quickly: to command me is to bless. Mor. T o Indamora you my Suit must move: You'll sure speak kindly of the man you love. Mel. Oh! rather let me perish by your hand, Than break my heart, by this unkind command: 270 Think 'tis the onely one I could deny; And that 'tis harder to refuse than die. Try, if you please, my Rival's heart to win: I'll bear the pain, but not promote the sin. You own what e'r perfections man can boast, And if she view you with my eyes, she's lost. Mor. Here I renounce all love, all Nuptial ties: Henceforward live a stranger to my eyes: When I appear, see you avoid the place, And haunt me not with that unlucky face. 280 Mel. Hard, as it is, I this command obey, And haste, while I have life, to go away: In pity stay some hours, till I am dead, That blameless you may court my Rival's Bed. My hated face I'll not presume to show; Yet I may watch your steps where e'r you go. Unseen, I'll gaze; and with my latest breath, Bless, while I die, the Author of my death. [Weeping. Enter

Emperor.

2 l8

Aureng-Zebe

Emp. When your Triumphant Fortune high appears, What cause can draw these unbecoming tears? 290 Let cheerfulness on happy Fortune wait, And give not thus the Counter-time to Fate. Mel. Fortune long frown'd, and has but lately smil'd: I doubt a Foe so newly reconcil'd. You saw but sorrow in its waning form, A working Sea remaining from a Storm; When the now weary Waves roul o'r the Deep, And faintly murmur ere they fall asleep. Emp. Your inward griefs you smother in your mind; But Fame's loud voice proclaims your Lord unkind. 300 Mor. Let Fame be busie where she has to do: Tell of fought Fields, and every pompous Show. Those Tales are fit to fill the Peoples ears; Monarchs, unquestion'd, move in higher Spheres. Mel. Believe not Rumor, but your self; and see The kindness 'twixt my plighted Lord and me. [Kissing Morat. This is our State; thus happily we live; These are the quarrels which we take and give. (Aside to Mor.) I had no other way to force a Kiss. Forgive my last Farewel to you, and Bliss. [Exit. 310 Emp. Your haughty carriage shows too much of scorn, And love, like hers, deserves not that return. Mor. You'll please to leave me judge of what I do, And not examine by the outward show. Your usage of my Mother might be good: I judg'd it not. Emp. Nor was it fit you shou'd. Mor. Then, in as equal Ballance weigh my deeds. Emp. My Right, and my Authority, exceeds. Suppose (what I'll not grant) Injustice done; Is judging me the duty of a Son? 320 Mor. Not of a Son, but of an Emperor: You cancell'd Duty when you gave me pow'r. If your own Actions on your Will you ground, Mine shall hereafter know no other bound.

Aureng-Zebe

219

What meant you when you call'd me to a Throne? Was it to please me with a Name alone? Emp. 'Twas that I thought your gratitude would know What to my partial kindness you did owe: That what your Birth did to your Claim deny, Your merit of Obedience might supply. 330 Mor. T o your own thoughts such hopes you might propose; But I took Empire not on terms like those. Of business you complain'd; now take your ease: Enjoy what e're decrepid Age can please: Eat, Sleep, and tell long Tales of what you were In flow'r of Youth, if any one will hear. Emp. Pow'r like new Wine, does your weak Brain surprise, And its mad fumes, in hot discourses, rise; But time these giddy vapours will remove; Mean while I'll taste the sober joys of Love. 840 Mor. You cannot Love, nor pleasures take, or give; But life begin, when 'tis too late to live. On a tir'd Courser you pursue delight, Let slip your morning and set out at night. If you have liv'd, take thankfully the past: Make, as you can, the sweet remembrance last. If you have not enjoy'd what Youth could give, But life sunk through you like a leaky Sieve, Accuse yourself you liv'd not while you might; But, in the Captive Queen resign your right. 350 I've now resolv'd to fill your useless place; \ I'll take that Post to cover your disgrace, > And love her, for the honour of my Race. ' Emp. Thou dost but try how far I can forbear, Nor art that Monster which thou wouldst appear: But do not wantonly my passion move; I pardon nothing that relates to Love. My fury does, like jealous Forts, pursue With death, ev'n Strangers who but come to view. 335

hear.] Q4-5, F, D;

Q!-3.

Aureng-Zebe

220

Mor. I did not onely view, but will invade: 360 Could you shed venom from your reverend shade, Like Trees, beneath whose arms 'tis death to sleep; Did rouling Thunder your fenc'd Fortress keep, Thence would I snatch my Semele, like Jove, And midst the dreadful Rack enjoy my Love. Emp. Have I for this, ungrateful as thou art, When Right, when Nature, struggl'd in my heart; When Heav'n call'd on me for thy Brother's claim, Broke all, and sulli'd my unspotted Fame? Wert thou to Empire, by my baseness, brought, 370 And wouldst thou ravish what so dear I bought? Dear! for my Conscience and its peace I gave: Why was my Reason made my passion's slave? I see Heav'ns Justice; thus the Pow'rs Divine, Pay Crimes with Crimes and punish mine by thine. Mor. Crimes let them pay, and punish as they please: What Pow'r makes mine, by Pow'r I mean to seize. Since 'tis to that they their own greatness owe Above, why should they question mine below? [Exit. Emp. Prudence, thou vainly in our Youth art sought, 380 And with Age purchas'd art too dearly bought: We're past the use of Wit, for which we toil; Late Fruit, and planted in too cold a Soil. My Stock of Fame is lavish'd and decay'd; No profit of the vast profusion made. Too late my folly I repent; I know My Aureng-Zebe would ne'r have us'd me so. But, by his ruine I prepar'd my own; \ And, like a naked Tree, my shelter gone, / T o Winds and Winter-storms must stand expos'd alone.' [Exit. 389

[Exit] Q 2 - 5 , F, D;

Qi.

IV, ii

Aureng-Zebe

221

SCENE II. Aureng-Zebe, Arimant. Arim. Give me not thanks, which I will ne'r deserve; But know, 'tis for a Nobler Price I serve. By Indamora's will you're hither brought: All my reward, in her command I sought. The rest your Letter tells you. See, like Light, She comes; and I must vanish, like the Night.

[Exit.

Enter Indamora. Ind. 'Tis now that I begin to live again: Heav'ns, I forgive you all my fear and pain: Since I behold my Aureng-Zebe appear, I could not buy him at a Price too dear. His name alone afforded me relief, Repeated as a charm to cure my grief. I that lov'd name did, as some God, invoke, And printed kisses on it while I spoke. Aur. Short ease; but long, long pains from you I find: Health, to my eyes; but poison, to my mind. Why are you made so excellently fair? So much above what other Beauties are, That, ev'n in cursing, you new form my breath; And make me bless those Eyes which give me death? Ind. What reason for your curses can you find? ") My Eyes your conquest, not your death, design'd. > If they offend, 'tis that they are too kind. ) Aur. The ruines they have wrought, you will not see: T o o kind they are, indeed, but not to me. Ind. Think you base Interest Souls, like mine, can sway? SCENE II.] omitted by Q i F , D. s.d. Aureng-Zebe, Arimant] Q2-5, F; Aureng-Zebe, Arimant Q i ; Enter AurengZebe and Arimant D. 25 me.] Q5, F; Q1-4, D.

222

IV, ii

Aureng-Zebe

Or that, for Greatness, I can Love betray? No, Aureng-Zebe, you merit all my heart, And I'm too Noble but to give a part. Your Father, and an Empire! am I known 1 N o more? or have so weak a judgment shown, > In chusing you, to change you for a Throne? / Aur. How, with a Truth, you would a Falshood blind! \ 'Tis not my Father's love you have design'd; > Your choice is fix'd where Youth and Pow'r are joyn'd. ) Ind. Where Youth and Pow'r are joyn'd! has he a name? Aur. You would be told; you glory in your shame: There's Music in the Sound; and, to provoke Your pleasure more, by me it must be spoke. Then, then it ravishes, when your pleas'd ear T h e sound does from a wretched Rival hear. Morat's the name your heart leaps up to meet, While Aureng-Zebe lies dying at your feet. Ind. W h o told you this? Aur. Are you so lost to shame? Morat, Morat, Morat: You love the name So well, your ev'ry question ends in that; You force me still to answer you, Morat: Morat, who best could tell what you reveal'd; Morat, too proud to keep his joy conceal'd. Ind. Howe'r unjust your jealousie appear, It shows the loss, of what you love, you fear; And does my pity, not my anger move: I'll fond it, as the froward Child of Love. T o show the truth of my unalter'd breast, Know, that your life was given at my request: A t least Repriev'd. When Heav'n deni'd you aid, She brought it; she, whose falshood you upbraid. Aur. And 'tis by that you would your falshood hide; Had you not ask'd, how happy had I dy'd! Accurst Reprieve! not to prolong my breath, 39 46

pleasure] Q2-5, F, D; plea sure Q i . ev'ry] F, D; e'ryQ 1-5.

47

Morat:]

Q1-5, F, D.

IV. ii

Aureng-Zebe

It brought a ling'ring, and more painful death. I have not liv'd since first I heard the news; T h e gift the guilty giver does accuse. You knew the price, and the request did move, T h a t you might pay the Ransome with your love. Ind. Your accusation must, I see, take place; And I am guilty, infamous, and base! Aur. If you are false, those Epithets are small; You're then the things, the abstract of 'em all. And you are false: you promis'd him your love. No other price a heart so hard could move. Do not I know him? could his Brutal mind Be wrought upon? could he be just, or kind? Insultingly, he made your love his boast; Gave me my life, and told me what it cost. Speak; answer. I would fain yet think you true: Lie; and I'll not believe myself, but you. Tell me you love; I'll pardon the deceit, And, to be fool'd, my self assist the cheat. Ind. No; 'tis too late: I have no more to say. If you'll believe I have been false, you may. Aur. I would not; but your crimes too plain appear: Nay, even that I should think you true, you fear. Did I not tell you, I would be deceiv'd? Ind. I'm not concern'd to have my truth believ'd. You would be cozin'd! would assist the cheat! But I'm too plain to joyn in the deceit: I'm pleas'd you think me false And, whatsoe'r my Letter did pretend, I made this meeting for no other end. Aur. Kill me not quite, with this indifference: When you are guiltless, boast not an offence. I know you better than your self you know: Your heart was true, but did some frailty show: You promis'd him your Love, that I might live; ) But promis'd what you never meant to give. > Speak, was't not so? confess; I can forgive. /

224

IV, ii

Aureng-Zebe

Ind. Forgive! what dull excuses you prepare! As if your thoughts of me were worth my care. 100 Aur. Ah Traitress! Ah ingrate! Ah faithless mind! Ah Sex, invented first to damn Mankind! Nature took care to dress you up for sin: Adorn'd, without; unfinish'd left, within. Hence, by no judgment you your loves direct; T a l k much, ne'r think, and still the wrong affect. So much self-love in your composure's mix'd, T h a t love to others still remains unfix'd: Greatness, and Noise, and Show, are your delight; Yet wise men love you, in their own despight: no And, finding in their native W i t no ease, Are forc'd to put your folly on to please. Ind. Now you shall know what cause you have to rage; But to increase your fury, not asswage: I found the way your Brother's heart to move, Yet promis'd not the least return of Love. His Pride, and Brutal fierceness I abhor; But scorn your mean suspitions of me more. I ow'd my Honour and my Fame this care: Know what your folly lost you, and despair. [Turning from 120 Aur. T o o cruelly your innocence you tell; Show Heav'n, and damn me to the pit of Hell. Now I believe you; 'tis not yet too late: You may forgive, and put a stop to Fate: Save me, just sinking, and no more to rise. How can you look with such relentless eyes? Or let your mind by penitence be mov'd, Or I'm resolv'd to think you never lov'd. You are not clear'd, unless you mercy speak: I'll think you took th' occasion thus to break. 130 Ind. Small jealousies, 'tis true, inflame desire; T o o great, not Fan, but quite blow out the Fire: Yet I did love you, till such pains I bore, 98 Forgive!] D; ~ A Q 1 - 2 ; Q 3 - 5 , F. 106 composure's] D; composures Q 1 - 5 , F. n o ease,] Q 5 , F , D ; ~ . Q i - 4 .

122

[She

'tis] Q 2 ~ 5 , F , D ; tisQi.

him.

frowns.

IV, ii

Aureng-Zebe

225

That I dare trust my self and you no more. Let me not love you; but here end my pain: Distrust may make me wretched once again. Now, with full Sails, into the Port I move, And safely can unlade my breast of Love; Quiet, and calm: why should I then go back, T o tempt the second hazard of a Wrack? 140 Aur. Behold these dying eyes, see their submissive awe; These tears, which fear of death could never draw: Heard you that sigh? from my heav'd heart it past, And said, If you forgive not, 'tis my last. Love mounts, and rowls about my stormy mind, Like Fire, that's born by a tempestuous Wind. Oh, I could stifle you, with eager haste! Devour your kisses with my hungry taste! Rush on you! eat you! wander o'r each part, Raving with pleasure, snatch you to my heart! 150 Then hold you off, and gaze! then, with new rage, Invade you, till my conscious Limbs presage Torrents of joy, which all their banks o'rflow! So lost, so blest, as I but then could know! Ind. Be no more jealous. [Giving him her hand. Aur. Give me cause no more: The danger's greater after, than before, If I relapse; to cure my jealousie Let me (for that's the easiest parting) die. Ind. My life! Aur. My Soul! Ind. My all that Heav'n can give! Death's life with you; without you, death to live. To them Arimant hastily. i6o

Arim. Oh, we are lost, beyond all humane aid! The Citadel is to Morat betraid. The Traitor, and the Treason, known too late; The false A bas deliver'd up the Gate. Ev'n, while I speak, we're compass'd round with Fate.

Aureng-Zebe

226

T h e V a l i a n t c a n n o t fight, o r C o w a r d

IV, ii flie;

B u t both in undistinguish'd Crouds must die. Aur.

Morat

T h e n m y P r o p h e t i c fears are c o m e to pass: was always b l o u d y ; now, he's base:

A n d has so far i n U s u r p a t i o n g o n e , 170 H e w i l l b y P a r i c i d e s e c u r e t h e T h r o n e .

To them the Emp.

Emperor.

A m I forsaken, a n d betray'd, b y all?

N o t o n e b r a v e m a n dare, w i t h a M o n a r c h , fall? T h e n , welcome death, to cover my disgrace; I would not live to R e i g n o'r such a Race. My

A ureng-Zebe!

[Seeing

B u t thou no more art mine; my cruelty Has quite destroy'd the right I had in thee. I have b e e n base, B a s e ev'n to h i m f r o m w h o m I d i d receive i8o A l l t h a t a S o n c o u l d t o a P a r e n t g i v e : B e h o l d m e punish'd in the self-same k i n d , T h ' ungrateful does a m o r e ungrateful Aur.

find.

A c c u s e y o u r self n o m o r e ; y o u c o u l d n o t b e

Ungrateful: could c o m m i t n o c r i m e to m e : I onely m o u r n m y yet u n c a n c e l l ' d score: Y o u put m e past the pow'r of paying m o r e : T h a t , that's m y grief, that I can onely grieve, A n d b r i n g b u t pity, w h e r e I w o u l d relieve; F o r h a d I yet ten t h o u s a n d lives to pay, 190 T h e m i g h t y s u m s h o u l d g o n o o t h e r w a y . Emp.

C a n y o u f o r g i v e m e ? 'tis n o t fit y o u s h o u ' d .

W h y w i l l y o u b e so e x c e l l e n t l y g o o d ? ' T w i l l stick too black a b r a n d u p o n m y n a m e : T h e S w o r d is n e e d l e s s ; I s h a l l d i e w i t h s h a m e . W h a t h a d m y age to do with Love's delight, S h u t o u t f r o m all e n j o y m e n t s b u t the sight?

Arim.

Sir, you forget t h e danger's i m m i n e n t :

T h i s m i n u t e is n o t f o r e x c u s e s l e n t . Emp.

Disturb m e not

200 H o w c a n m y l a t e s t h o u r b e b e t t e r s p e n t ?

Aureng-Zebe.

v,i

Aureng-Zebe

To reconcile my self to him is more, Than to regain all I possess'd before. Empire, and Life are now not worth a pray'r: His love, alone, deserves my dying care. Aur. Fighting for you, my death will glorious be. Ind. Seek to preserve your self, and live for me. Arim. Lose then no farther time. Heav'n has inspir'd me with a sudden thought, \ Whence your uphop'd for safety may be wrought, > 210 Though with the hazard of my bloud 'tis bought. / But, since my life can ne'r be fortunate, 'Tis so much sorrow well redeem'd from Fate. You, Madam, must retire; Your Beauty is its own security, And leave the conduct of the rest to me. Glory will crown my life, if I succeed; If not, she may afford to love me dead. Aur. My Father's kind; and, Madam, you forgive: Were Heav'n so pleas'd, I now could wish to live. 220 And, I shall live. With Glory, and with Love, at once I burn: I feel th' inspiring heat, and absent God return.

A C T V. SCENE I. Indamora alone. The night seems doubled with the fear she brings, And, o'r the Cittadel, new spreads her wings. The Morning, as mistaken, turns about, And all her early fires again go out. Shouts, cries, and groans, first pierce my ears, and then A flash of Lightning draws the guilty Scene, And shows me Arms, and Wounds, and Dying men. A C T V. SCENE I.] D; ACT V. Q1-5, F.

227

[Aside.

[Exeunt.

228

Aureng-Zebe

V,i

Ah, should my Aureng-Zebe be fighting there, And envious Winds distinguish'd to my ear, His dying groans, and his last accents bearl To her Morat,

attended.

Mor. The bloudy bus'ness of the Night is done, And, in the Cittadel, an Empire wonn. Our Swords so wholly did the Fates employ, That they, at length, grew weary to destroy: Refus'd the work we brought; and, out of breath, Made Sorrow and Despair attend for Death. But what of all my Conquest can I boast? My haughty pride, before your eyes, is lost: And Victory but gains me to present That Homage, which our Eastern World has sent. Ind. Your Victory, alas, begets my fears: Can you not then triumph without my tears? Resolve me; (for you know my Destiny In Aureng-Zebe's) say, do I live, or die? Mor. Urg'd by my Love, by hope of Empire fir'd; 'Tis true, I have perform'd what both requir'd: What Fate decreed; for when great Souls are giv'n, They bear the marks of Sov'reignty from Heav'n. My Elder Brothers my fore-runners came; Rough-draughts of Nature, ill design'd, and lame: Blown off, like Blossoms, never made to bear; Till I came, finish'd; her last labour'd care. Ind. This Prologue leads to your succeeding sin: Bloud ended what Ambition did begin. Mor. 'Twas rumor'd, but by whom I cannot tell, My Father scap'd from out the Cittadel: My Brother too may live. Ind. He may. Mor. He must: I kill'd him not: and a less Fate's unjust. Heav'n owes it me, that I may fill his room;

v,i

229

Aureng-Zebe

A Phoenix-Lover, rising from his Tomb: In whom you'll lose your sorrows for the dead; More warm, more fierce, and fitter for your Bed. Ind. Should I from Aureng-Zebe my heart divide, \ T o love a Monster, and a Paricide? / These names your swelling Titles cannot hide. / Severe Decrees may keep our Tongues in awe; But to our thoughts, what Edict can give Law? Ev'n you your self, to your own breast, shall tell Your crimes; and your own Conscience be your Hell. Mor. What bus'ness has my Conscience with a Crown? She sinks in Pleasures, and in Bowls will drown. If mirth should fail, I'll busie her with cares; Silence her clamorous voice with louder Wars: Trumpets and Drums shall fright her from the Throne, As sounding Cymbals aid the lab'ring Moon. Ind. Repell'd by these, more eager she will grow; Spring back more strongly than a Scythian Bowe: Amidst your Train, this unseen Judge will wait; Examine how you came by all your State; Upbraid your impious Pomp; and, in your ear, Will hallow, Rebel, Tyrant, Murderer. Your ill-got Pow'r wan looks and care shall bring: Known but by discontent to be a King. Of Crouds afraid, yet anxious when alone; You'l sit and brood your sorrows on a Throne. Mor. Birthright's a vulgar road to Kingly sway; 'Tis ev'ry dull-got Elder Brother's way. Dropt from above, he lights into a Throne; ) Grows of a piece with that he sits upon, V Heav'ns choice, a low, inglorious, rightful Drone. ' But who by force a Scepter does obtain, Shows he can govern that which he could gain. Right comes of course, what e'r he was before; Murder and Usurpation are no more. 40 Tomb:] — Q1-5, F, D.

53

Silence] Q2-5, F, D;

Qi.

230

Aureng-Zebe

Ind. By your own Laws you such Dominion make, As ev'ry stronger Pow'r has right to take: And Paricide will so deform your name, That dispossessing you will give a claim. Who next Usurps, will a just Prince appear; so So much your ruine will his Reign endear. Mor. I without guilt, would mount the Royal Seat; But yet 'tis necessary to be great. Ind. All Greatness is in Virtue understood: 'Tis onely necessary to be good. Tell me, what is't at which great Spirits aim, What most your self desire? Mor. Renown, and Fame, And Pow'r, as uncontrol'd as is my will. Ind. How you confound desires of good and ill! For true renown is still with Virtue joyn'd; 90 But lust of Pow'r lets loose th' unbridl'd mind. Yours is a Soul irregularly great, ) Which wanting temper, yet abounds with heat: / So strong, yet so unequal pulses beat. / A Sun which does, through vapours dimnly shine: What pity 'tis you are not all Divine! New molded, thorow lighten'd, and a breast So pure, to bear the last severest test; Fit to command an Empire you should gain By Virtue, and without a blush to Reign. ioo Mor. You show me somewhat I ne'r learnt before; But 'tis the distant prospect of a Shore, Doubtful in mists; which, like inchanted ground, Flies from my sight, before 'tis fully found. Ind. Dare to be great, without a guilty Crown; View it, and lay the bright temptation down: 'Tis base to seize on all, because you may; That's Empire, that which I can give away: There's joy when to wild Will you Laws prescribe, When you bid Fortune carry back her Bribe: 110 A joy, which none but greatest minds can taste; A Fame, which will to endless Ages last.

V,i

Aureng-Zebe

v,i

Mor. Renown, and Fame, in vain, I courted long; And still pursu'd 'em, though directed wrong. In hazard, and in toils, I heard they lay; Sail'd farther than the Coast, but miss'd my way: Now you have giv'n me Virtue for my guide; And, with true Honour, ballasted my Pride. Unjust Dominion I no more pursue; I quit all other claims but those to you. Ind. Oh be not just to halves! pay all you owe: Think there's a debt to Melesinda too. T o leave no blemish on your after life; Reward the virtue of a Suff'ring Wife. Mor. T o love once past, I cannot backward move; Call yesterday again, and I may love. 'Twas not for nothing I the Crown resign'd; I still must own a Mercenary mind: I, in this venture, double gains pursue, And laid out all my Stock to purchase you. To them Asaph Chan. Now, what success? does Aureng-Zebe yet live? Asaph. Fortune has giv'n you all that she can give, Your Brother Mor. Hold; thou show'st an impious joy, And think'st I still take pleasure to destroy: Know, I am chang'd, and would not have him slain. Asaph. 'Tis past; and you desire his life in vain. He prodigal of Soul, rush'd on the stroke Of lifted Weapons, and did wounds provoke: In scorn of Night, he would not be conceal'd; His Souldiers, where he fought, his name reveal'd: In thickest crouds, still Aureng-Zebe did sound: \ The vaulted Roofs did Aureng-Zebe rebound, > T i l l late, and in his fall, the name was drown'd. / Ind. Wither that hand which brought him to his fate, And blasted be the tongue which did relate. 123

Wife.] Q 5 , F, D;

Q1-4.

231

Aureng-Zebe

V,i

Asaph. His Body Mor. Cease to inhanse her misery: Pity the Queen, and show respect to me. 'Tis ev'ry Painters Art to hide from sight, And cast in shades, what seen would not delight. Your grief, in me such sympathy has bred, [To her. 150 I mourn; and wish I could recall the dead. Love softens me; and blows up fires, which pass Through my tough heart, and melt the stubborn Mass. Ind. Break, heart; or choak, with sobs, my hated breath; Do thy own work: admit no forreign death. Alas I why do I make this useless moan? I'm dead already, for my Soul is gone. To them, Mir Baba. Mir. What tongue the terror of this night can tell, Within, without, and round the Citadel? A new-form'd Faction does your pow'r oppose; 160 The Fight's confus'd, and all who meet are foes: A second clamour, from the Town, we hear; And the far noise so loud, it drowns the near. A bas, who seem'd our Friend, is either fled; Or, what we fear, our Enemies does head: Your frighted Soldiers scarce their ground maintain. Mor. I thank their fury; we shall fight again: They rouse my rage; I'm eager to subdue: 'Tis fatal to with-hold my eyes from you. [Exit with the two Omrahs. Enter Melesinda. Mel. Can misery no place of safety know? 170 The noise pursues me wheresoe'r I go, As Fate sought onely me, and where I fled, Aim'd all its Darts at my devoted head. And let it; I am now past care of life; 158

Citadel?]

Q1-5, F, D.

Aureng-Zebe

v,i

233

T h e last of Women; an abandon'd Wife. Ind. Whether Design or Chance has brought you here, ) I stand oblig'd to Fortune, or to Fear: V Weak Women should, in danger, herd like Deer. ) But say, from whence this new combustion springs? Are there yet more Morats? more fighting Kings? wo Mel. Him from his Mother's love your eyes divide, And now her Arms the cruel strife decide. Ind. What strange misfortunes my vext life attendl Death will be kind, and all my sorrows end. If Nourmahal prevail, I know my fate. Mel. I pity, as my own, your hard estate; But what can my weak charity afford? I have no longer int'rest in my Lord: Nor in his Mother, He: she owns her hate Aloud, and would her self Usurp the State. 190 Ind. I'm stupifi'd with sorrow, past relief Of tears: parch'd up, and wither'd with my grief. Mel. Dry mourning will decays more deadly bring, As a North Wind burns a too forward Spring. Give sorrow vent, and let the sluces go. Ind. My tears are all congeal'd, and will not flow. Mel. Have comfort; yield not to the blows of Fate. Ind. Comfort, like Cordials after death, comes late. Name not so vain a word; my hopes are fled: Think your Morat were kind, and think him dead. 200 Mel. I can no more Can no more arguments, for comfort, find: Your boding words have quite o'r-whelm'd my mind. [Clattering of weapons within. Ind. The noise increases, as the Billows rore, When rowling from afar they threat the Shore. She comes; and feeble Nature now I find Shrinks back in danger, and forsakes my mind. I wish to die, yet dare not death endure; Detest the Med'cine, yet desire the Cure. 182

attendl]

Q1-5, F, D.

Aureng-Zebe

234

V,i

I would have death; b u t mild, a n d at c o m m a n d : 210 I d a r e n o t t r u s t h i m i n a n o t h e r ' s h a n d . In

Nourmahal's,

he would not mine appear;

B u t a r m ' d with terror, a n d disguis'd with fear. Mel.

B e y o n d this place you can have n o retreat:

Stay here, a n d I the danger will repeat. I fear not death, because my life I hate: A n d envious death will shun th' unfortunate. Ind.

Y o u must not venture.

Mel.

L e t me: I may do

M y self a kindness, i n o b l i g i n g you. I n your lov'd n a m e , I'll seek m y angry L o r d ; 220 A n d b e g y o u r s a f e t y f r o m h i s c o n q u ' r i n g S w o r d : S o h i s p r o t e c t i o n a l l y o u r f e a r s w i l l ease,

[Exit.

A n d I s h a l l see h i m o n c e , a n d n o t d i s p l e a s e . Ind.

O h w r e t c h e d Q u e e n ! w h a t p o w ' r t h y l i f e c a n save?

A stranger, a n d u n f r i e n d e d , a n d a slave!

Enter

N o u r m a h a l , Zayda,

and

Abas,

with Souldiers.

Alas, she's herel

Nour.

[Indamora

withdraws to the inner part of the Scene.

Heartless they fought, and quitted soon their ground,

W h i l e ours with easie victory were crown'd. T o y o u , A bos, m y L i f e a n d E m p i r e t o o , A n d , what's yet dearer, m y R e v e n g e , I owe. 230

A bas.

T h e vain

Morat,

by his own rashness wrought,

T o o soon discover'd his a m b i t i o u s thought; B e l i e v ' d m e his, because I spoke h i m fair, A n d p i t c h ' d his h e a d i n t o the ready snare: H e n c e 'twas I d i d h i s T r o o p s a t first a d m i t ; B u t such, whose n u m b e r s c o u l d n o fears b e g e t ; B y t h e m t h ' E m p e r o r ' s P a r t y first I s l e w , T h e n t u r n ' d m y A r m s t h e V i c t o r s to s u b d u e .

Nour.

N o w let the head-strong Boy my will controul:

V i r t u e ' s n o slave o f M a n ; n o S e x c o n f i n e s t h e S o u l : 240 I , f o r m y self, t h ' I m p e r i a l S e a t w i l l g a i n , A n d h e shall wait m y leisure for his R e i g n .

v,i

Aureng-Zebe

«35

But Aureng-Zebe is no where to be found. And now perhaps in Death's cold arms he lies: I fought, and conquer'd, yet have lost the prize. Zayd. The chance of War determin'd well the strife, That rack'd you, 'twixt the Lover and the Wife. He's dead, whose love had sulli'd all your Reign, And made you Empress of the World in vain. Nour. No; I my pow'r and pleasure would divide: 250 The Drudge had quench'd my flames, and then had di'd. I rage, to think without that Bliss I live; That I could wish what Fortune would not give: But, what Love cannot, Vengeance must supply; She, who bereav'd me of his heart, shall die. Zayd. I'll search: far distant hence she cannot be. [Goes in. Nour. This wondrous Master-piece I fain would see; This fatal Helen, who can Wars inspire, Make Kings her Slaves, and set the World on fire. My Husband lock'd his Jewel from my view; 260 Or durst not set the false one by the true. Re-enter Zayda, leading Indamora. Zay. Your frighted Captive, ere she dies, receive; Her Soul's just going else, without your leave. Nour. A fairer Creature did my eyes ne'r see! Sure she was form'd by Heav'n in spite to me! Some Angel copi'd, while I slept, each grace, And molded ev'ry feature from my face. Such Majesty does from her forehead rise, Her cheeks such blushes cast, such rays her eyes,

[To her. Speak, if thou hast a Soul, that I may see, If Heav'n can make throughout another Me. Ind. My tears and miseries must plead my cause; My words, the terror of your presence awes: Mortals, in sight of Angels, mute become;

[Kneeling.

2g6

Aureng-Zebe

V,i

The Nobler Nature strikes th' Inferiour dumb. Nour. The Palm is, by the Foes confession, mine; But I disdain what basely you resign. 280 Heav'n did, by me, the outward model build: Its inward work, the Soul, with rubbish fill'd. Yet, Oh! th' imperfect Piece moves more delight; 'Tis gilded o'r with Youth, to catch the sight. The Gods have poorly robb'd my Virgin bloom, And what I am, by what I was, o'rcome. Traitress, restore my Beauty and my Charms, Nor steal my Conquests with my proper Arms. Ind. What have I done, thus to inflame your hate? I am not guilty, but unfortunate. 29o Nour. Not guilty, when thy looks my pow'r betray, \ Seduce Mankind, my Subject, from my Sway, > Take all my Hearts, and all my Eyes away? / My Husband first; but that I could forgive: He onely mov'd, and talk'd, but did not live. My Aureng-Zebe, for I dare own the name, The glorious sin, and the more glorious flame; Him, from my beauty, have thy eyes misled, \ And starv'd the joys of my expected Bed. > Ind. His love, so sought, he's happy that he's dead. / 8oo O had I courage but to meet my Fate; That short dark passage to a future state; That melancholly Riddle of a breath. Nour. That something, or that nothing, after death: Take this, and teach thy self. [Giving a Dagger. Ind. AlasI Nour. Why dost thou shake? Dishonour not the vengeance I design'd: A Queen, and own a base Plebeian mind! Let it drink deep in thy most vital part: 8io Strike home, and do me reason in thy heart. Ind. I dare not. Nour. Do't, while I stand by and see, 2gg sought] some copies of Qi have fought. 301 future] Q2-5, F, D; future Qi. 304 Dagger.] Q2-5, F, D; D Qi.

v , i

Aureng-Zebe

237

At my full gust, without the drudgery. I love a Foe, who dares my stroke prevent, Who gives me the full Scene of my content, Shows me the flying Soul's convulsive strife, And all the anguish of departing life: Disdain my mercy, and my rage defie; | Curse me with thy last breath; and make me see / A Spirit worthy to have Rival'd me. ) 320 Ind. Oh, I desire to die; but dare not yet: Give me some respite, I'll discharge the debt. Without my A ureng-Zebe I would not live. Nour. Thine, Traitress! thine! that word has wing'd thy fate, And put me past the tedious forms of hate. I'll kill thee with such eagerness and haste, As Fiends, let loose, would lay all Nature waste. [Indamora runs back: as Nourmahal is running to her. Clashing of Swords is heard within. Sold. Yield, y' are o'rpow'r'd: resistance is in vain. [Within. Mor. Then death's my choice: submission I disdain. [Within. Nour. Retire, you Slaves: Ah whether does he run [At the door. 830 On pointed Swords? Disarm, but save my Son. Enter Morat staggering, and upheld by Souldiers. Mor. She lives! and I shall see her once again! I have not thrown away my life in vain. [Catches hold of Indamora's Gown, and falls by her: she sits. I can no more; yet, ev'n in death, I find My fainting body byass'd by my mind: I fall toward you; still my contending Soul Points to your breast, and trembles to its Pole. To them Melesinda, hastily, casting her self on the other side of Morat. Mel. Ah wo, wo, wo! the worst of woes I find! Live still: Oh live; live ev'n to be unkind.

238

Aureng-Zebe

V, i

With half-shut eyes he seeks the doubtful day; 340 But, Ah! he bends his sight another way. He faints! and in that sigh his Soul is gone; Yet Heaven's unmov'd, yet Heav'n looks careless on. Nour. Where are those Pow'rs which Monarchs should defend? Or do they vain Authority pretend, O'r humane Fates, and their weak Empire show, Which cannot guard their Images below? If, as their Image, he was not Divine, They ought to have respected him as mine. I'll waken them with my revenge; and she \ 350 Their Indamora shall my Victim be, > And Helpless Heav'n shall mourn in vain, like me. / [As she is going to stab Indamora, Morat raises himself, and holds her hand. Mor. Ah, what are we, Who dare maintain with Heav'n this wretched strife, Puft with the pride of Heav'ns own gift, frail life? T h a t blast which my ambitious Spirit swell'd, See by how weak a Tenure it was held! I onely stay to save the Innocent: Oh envy not my Soul its last content. Ind. No, let me die; I'm doubly summon'd now; 360 First, by my Aureng-Zebe; and, since, by you. My Soul grows hardy, and can death endure: Your Convoy makes the dang'rous way secure. Mel. Let me, at least, a Funeral Marriage crave; Nor grudge my cold embraces in the Grave. I have too just a Title in the strife: By me, unhappy me, he lost his life: I call'd him hither; 'twas my fatal breath; And I the Screech-Owl that proclaim'd his death. [Shout within. A bas. What new Alarms are these? I'll haste and see. [Exit. 370 Nour. Look up, and live: an Empire shall be thine. Mor. T h a t I contemn'd, ev'n when I thought it mine. Oh, I must yield to my hard Destinies, [To Indamora. And must for ever cease to see your eyes. Mel. Ah turn your sight to me, my dearest Lord!

Aureng-Zebe

V,i

239

Can you not one, one parting look afford? Ev'n so unkind in death? but 'tis in vain; I lose my breath, and to the Winds complain: Yet 'tis as much in vain your cruel scorn; Still I can love, without this last return. 380 Nor Fate, nor You, can my vow'd faith controul; Dying, I'll follow your disdainful Soul: A Ghost, I'll haunt your Ghost; and, where you go, With mournful murmurs fill the Plains below. Mor. Be happy, Melesinda, cease to grieve, And, for a more deserving Husband, live: Can you forgive me? Mel. Can I? Oh my heart! Have I heard one kind word before I part? I can, I can forgive: is that a task T o love, like mine? Are you so good to ask? 3» One kiss Oh 'tis too great a blessing this; I would not live to violate the bliss. Re-enter

[Kisses him.

Abas.

Abas. Some envious Devil has ruin'd us yet more: The Fort's revolted to the Emperor; The Gates are open'd, the Portcullis drawn; And deluges of Armies, from the Town, Come pow'ring in: I heard the mighty flaw, When first it broke; the crowding Ensigns saw, Which choak'd the passage; and, (what least I fear'd,) The waving Arms of Aureng-Zebe appear'd, 400 Display'd with your Morat's: In either's Flag the golden Serpents bear \ Erected Crests alike, like Volumes rear, > And mingle friendly hissings in the Air. ) Their Troops are joyn'd, and our destruction nigh. Nour. 'Tis vain to fight, and I disdain to flie. I'll mock the Triumphs which our Foes intend; 386

I?]

Q1-5, F, D.

401

bear]

Q1-5, F, D.

240

Aureng-Zebe

And, spite of Fortune, make a glorious end. In pois'nous draughts my liberty I'll find: And from the nauseous World set free my mind.

V,i

[Exit.

At the other end of the Stage, Enter Aureng-Zebe, Dianet, and Attendants. Aureng-Zebe turns back, and speaks, entring. 410

Aur. The lives of all, who cease from combat, spare; My Brother's be your most peculiar care: Our impious use no longer shall obtain; Brothers no more, by Brothers, shall be slain. [Seeing Indamora and Morat. Ha! do I dream? is this my hop'd success? I grow a Statue, stiff, and motionless. Look, Dianet; for I dare not trust these eyes; They dance in mists, and dazle with surprise. Dia. Sir, 'tis Morat; dying he seems, or dead: And Indamora's hand Aur. Supports his head. [Sighing. 420 Thou shalt not break yet heart, nor shall she know My inward torments, by my outward show; T o let her see my weakness were too base; Dissembled Quiet sit upon my face: My sorrow to my eyes no passage find, But let it inward sink, and drown my mind. Falshood shall want its Triumph: I begin T o stagger; but I'll prop my self within. T h e specious Tow'r no ruine shall disclose, Till down, at once, the mighty Fabrick goes. 430 Mor. In sign that I die yours, reward my love, [To Ind. And seal my Pasport to the Bless'd above. [Kissing her hand. Ind. Oh stay; or take me with you when you go: There's nothing now worth living for below. Mor. I leave you not; for my expanded mind Grows up to Heav'n, while it to you is joyn'd: Not quitting, but enlarg'd! A blazing Fire, Fed from the Brand. [Dies. Mel. Ah mel he's gonel I die! [Swoons.

v,i

241

Aureng-Zebe

Ind. Oh dismal day! Fate, thou hast ravish'd my last hope away. 440 O Heav'n! my Aureng-Zebe [She turns, and sees Aureng-Zebe standing by her, and starts. What strange surprise! Or does my willing mind delude my eyes, And show the Figure always present there? Or liv'st thou? am I bless'd, and see thee here? Aur. My Brother's body see convey'd with care, [Turning from her, to his Attendants. Where we may Royal Sepulture prepare. With speed to Melesinda bring relief; Recal her spirits, and moderate her grief. [Half turning to Ind. I go, to take for ever from your view Both the lov'd Object, and the hated too. [Going away after the Bodies, which are carried o f f . 450 Ind. Hear me; yet think not that I beg your stay: [Laying hold of him. I will be heard, and after take your way. Go; but your late repentance shall be vain: [He struggles still: She lets him go. I'll never, never see your face again. [Turning away. Aur. Madam, I know what ever you can say: You might be pleas'd not to command my stay. All things are yet disorder'd in the Fort; I must crave leave your audience may be short. Ind. You need not fear I shall detain you long; Yet you may tell me your pretended wrong. 460 Aur. Is that the bus'ness? then my stay is vain. Ind. How are you injur'd? Aur. When did I complain? Ind. Leave off your forc'd respect And show your rage in its most furious form: I'm arm'd with innocence to brave the Storm. You heard, perhaps, your Brother's last desire; 448

show] shows Q1-5, F, D.

457

short.] Q3-5, F, D;

Q1-2.

242

Aureng-Zebe

And after saw him in my arms expire: Saw me, with tears, so great a loss bemoan: Heard me complaining my last hopes were gone. Aur. "Oh stay, or take me with you when you go. 470 There's nothing now worth living for below." Unhappy Sex! whose Beauty is your snare; Expos'd to trials; made too frail to bear. I grow a fool, and show my rage again: 'Tis Nature's fault; and why should I complain? Ind. Will you yet hear me? A ur. Yes, till you relate What pow'rful Motives did your change create. You thought me dead, and prudently did weigh Tears were but vain, and brought but Youths decay. Then, in Morat, your hopes a Crown design'd; 480 And all the Woman work'd within your mind. I rave again, and to my rage return, T o be again subjected to your scorn. Ind. I wait till this long storm be over-blown. Aur. I'm conscious of my folly: I have done. I cannot rail; but silently I'll grieve. How did I trust! and how did you deceive! Oh, Arimant, would I had di'd for thee! ^ I dearly buy thy generosity. I Ind. Alas, is he then dead? { Aur. Unknown to me, J 490 He took my Arms; and while I forc'd my way, Through Troops of Foes, which did our passage stay, My Buckler o'r my aged Father cast, Still fighting, still defending as I past, The noble Arimant usurp'd my name; Fought, and took from me, while he gave me, fame. To A ureng-Zebe, he made his Souldiers cry, \ And seeing not, where he heard danger nigh, / Shot, like a Star, through the benighted Sky. ' 469-470 F marks the quotation ('Oh . . . / 'There's); Qi-;, D do not. 469 or] and Q1-5, F, D. 496 To] To Q1-5, F, D.

V,i

v,i

Aureng-Zebe

A short, but mighty aid: at length he fell. 500 My own adventures 'twere lost time to tell; Or how my Army, entring in the night, Surpris'd our Foes: the dark disorder'd fight: How my appearance, and my Father shown, Made peace; and all the rightful Monarch own. I've summ'd it briefly, since it did relate T h ' unwelcome safety of the man you hate. Ind. As briefly will I clear my innocence: Your alter'd Brother di'd in my defence. Those tears you saw, that tenderness I show'd, sio Were just effects of grief and gratitude. He di'd my Convert. Aur. But your Lover too: I heard his words, and did your actions view; You seem'd to mourn another Lover dead: My sighs you gave him, and my tears you shed. But worst of all, Your gratitude for his defence was shown: It prov'd you valu'd life when I was gone. Ind. Not that I valu'd life; but fear'd to die: Think that my weakness, not inconstancy. 5zo A ur. Fear show'd you doubted of your own intent: And she who doubts becomes less innocent. Tell me not you could fear; Fear's a large promiser, who subject live T o that base passion, know not what they give. No circumstance of grief you did deny; And what could she give more who durst not die? Ind. My love, my faith. Aur. Both so adult'rate grown, When mix'd with fear, they never could be known. I wish no ill might her I love befall; 530 But she ne'r lov'd who durst not venture all. Her life and fame should my concernment be; But she should onely be afraid for me. Ind. My heart was yours; but, Oh! you left it here,

243

Aureng-Zebe

244

V,i

Abandon'd to those Tyrants, Hope and Fear: If they forc'd from me one kind look or word, Could you not that, not that small part afford? Aur. If you had lov'd, you nothing yours could call: Giving the least of mine, you gave him all. True love's a Miser; so tenacious grown, 540 He weighs to the least grain of what's his own: More delicate than Honour's nicest sense: Neither to give nor take the least offence. With, or without you, I can have no rest: What shall I do? y' are lodg'd within my breast: Your Image never will be thence displac'd; But there it lies, stabb'd, mangled, and defac'd. Ind. Yet, to restore the quiet of your heart, There's one way left. Aur. Oh name it. Ind. 'Tis to part. Since perfect bliss with me you cannot prove, 550 I scorn to bliss by halves the man I love. Aur. Now you distract me more: shall then the day, Which views my Triumph, see our loves decay? Must I new bars to my own joy create? Refuse, my self, what I had forc'd from Fate? What though I am not lov'd? Reason's nice taste does our delights destroy: Brutes are more bless'd, who grosly feed on joy. Ind. Such endless jealousies your love pursue, I can no more be fully bless'd than you. 560 I therefore go, to free us both from pain: I pris'd your Person, but your Crown disdain. Nay, ev'n my own I give it you; for since I cannot call Your heart my Subject, I'll not Reign at all. Aur. Go: though thou leav'st me tortur'd on the Rack, 'Twixt Shame and Pride, I cannot call thee back. 539

grown,] D;

Q1-5, F.

540

own:]

Q1-5, F, D.

[Exit.

Aureng-Zebe

v,i

245

She's guiltless, and I should submit; but Oh! ^ When she exacts it, can I stoop so low? / Yes; for she's guiltless; but she's haughty too.' 570 Great Souls long struggle ere they own a crime: She's gone; and leaves me no repenting time. I'll call her now; sure, if she loves, she'll stay; Linger at least, or not go far away. [Looks to the door, and For ever lost, and I repent too late. 1 My foolish pride, would set my whole Estate, > Till, at one throw, I lost all back to Fate. ) To him the Emperor,

drawing in Indamora:

returns.

Attendants.

Emp. It must not be, that he, by whom we live, Should no advantage of his gift receive. Should he be wholly wretched? he alone, 580 In this bless'd day, a day so much his own? [To Indamora. I have not quitted yet a Victor's right: I'll make you happy in your own despight. I love you still; and if I struggle hard T o give, it shows the worth of the reward. Ind. Suppose he has o'rcome; must I find place Among his conquer'd Foes, and sue for grace? Be pardon'd, and confess I lov'd not well? What though none live my innocence to tell? I know it: Truth may own a gen'rous pride: 590 I clear my self, and care for none beside. Aur. Oh, Indamora, you would break my heartl Could you resolve, on any terms, to part? I thought your love eternal: was it ti'd So loosly, that a quarrel could divide? I grant that my suspitions were unjust; But would you leave me for a small distrust? Forgive those foolish words [Kneeling to her. They were the froth my raging folly mov'd, 569

too.] Q 5 , F , D ;

Qi;

Q2-4.

573

away.] Q a - 5 , F ;

Qi,D.

Aureng-Zebe

246

V,i

When it boil'd up: I knew not then I lov'd; 600 Yet then lov'd most. Ind. (to Aur.) You would but half be blestl [Giving her hand, smiling. Aur. Oh do but try My eager love: I'll give my self the lie. The very hope is a full happiness; Yet scantly measures what I shall possess. Fancy it self, ev'n in enjoyment, is But a dumb Judge, and cannot tell its bliss. Emp. Her eyes a secret yielding do confess, And promise to partake your happiness. May all the joys I did my self pursue, eio Be rais'd by her, and multipli'd on you. A Procession

of Priests, Slaves following, Melesinda in white.

and last

Ind. Alas! what means this Pomp? A ur. 'Tis the Procession of a Funeral Vow, Which cruel Laws to Indian Wives allow, When fatally their Virtue they approve; Chearful in flames, and Martyrs of their Love. Ind. Oh my foreboding heart! th' event I fear; And see! sad Melesinda does appear. Mel. You wrong my love; what grief do I betray? This is the Triumph of my Nuptial day. 620 My better Nuptials; which, in spight of Fate, For ever joyn me to my dear Morat. Now I am pleas'd; my jealousies are o'r: He's mine; and I can lose him now no more. Emp. Let no false show of Fame your reason blind. Ind. You have no right to die; he was not kind. Mel. Had he been kind, I could no love have shown: Each vulgar Virtue would as much have done. My love was such, it needed no return; 607 Emp.] Q2-5, F, D;

Qi.

V, i

Aureng-Zebe

But could, though he suppli'd no fuel, burn: 630 Rich in it self, like Elemental fire, Whose pureness does no Aliment require. In vain you would bereave me of my Lord; For I will die: die is too base a word; I'll seek his breast, and kindling by his side, Adorn'd with flames, I'll mount a glorious Bride.

247

[Exit.

Enter Nourmahal distracted, with Zayda. Zay. She's lost, she's lost! but why do I complain For her, who generously did life disdain! Poison'd, she raves T h ' invenom'd Body does the Soul attack; a« T h ' invenom'd Soul works its own poison back. Nour. I burn, I more than burn; I am all fire: See how my mouth and nostrils flame expire. I'll not come near my self Now I'm a burning Lake, it rowls and flows; I'll rush, and pour it all upon my Foes. Pull, pull that reverend piece of Timber near: T h r o w ' t on—'tis dry—'twill burn Ha, ha! how my old Husband crackles there! Keep him down, keep him down, turn him about: 65o I know him; he'll but whiz, and strait go out. Fan me, you Winds: what, not one breath of Air? I burn 'em all, and yet have flames to spare. Quench me: pour on whole Rivers. 'Tis in vain: Morat stands there to drive 'em back again: With those huge Bellows in his hands, he blows New fire into my head: my Brain-pan glows. See, see! there's Aureng-Zebe too takes his part; But he blows all his fire into my heart. Aur. Alas, what fury's this? Nour. That's he, that's he! [Staring upon him, and catching at him. 689 burn:] — Q1-5, F, D.

248

Aureng-Zebe

V,i

«60 I know the dear man's voice: A n d this my Rival, this the cursed she. They kiss; into each others arms they run: Close, close, close! must I see, and must have none? T h o u art not hers: give me that eager kiss. Ingrateful! have I lost Morat for this? W i l l you?—before my face?—poor helpless I See all; and have my Hell before I die! [Sinks down. Emp. With thy last breath thou hast thy crimes confest: Farewel; and take, what thou ne'r gav'st me, rest. 670 But you, my Son, receive it better here: [Giving him Indamora's hand. T h e just rewards of Love and Honour wear. Receive the Mistris you so long have serv'd; Receive the Crown your Loialty preserv'd. T a k e you the Reins, while I from cares remove, A n d sleep within the Chariot which I drove. [Exeunt. 675 drove. [Exeunt] Q5, F; drove. Q1-4, D.

Aureng-Zebe

Epilogue.

A

Pretty task! and so I told the Fool,

Who needs would undertake to please by Rule: • He thought that, if his Characters were good, The Scenes entire, and freed from noise and bloud; The Action great, yet circumscrib'd by Time, The Words not forc'd, but sliding into Rhime, The Passions rais'd and calm'd by just Degrees, As Tides are swell'd, and then retire to Seas; He thought, in hitting these, his bus'ness done, Though he, perhaps, has fail'd in ev'ry one: But, after all, a Poet must confess, His Art's like Physick, but a happy ghess. Your Pleasure on your Fancy must depend: The Lady's pleas'd, just as she likes her Friend. N o Song! no Dance! no Show! he fears you'l say, You love all naked Beauties, but a Play. He much mistakes your methods to delight; \ And, like the French, abhors our Target-fight: > But those damn'd Dogs can never be i' th' right. ) True English hate your Monsieur's paltry Arts; For you are all Silk-weavers, in your hearts. Bold Brittons, at a brave Bear-garden Fray, Are rouz'd: and, clatt'ring Sticks, cry, Play, play, play. Mean time, your filthy Forreigner will stare, And mutter to himself, Ha! gens Barbare! And, Gad, 'tis well he mutters; well for him; Our Butchers else would tear him limb from limb. 'Tis true, the time may come, your Sons may be Infected French civility; 15 No Songl no with Dance!this no Showl] italics in Q1-5, F, D.

18 ao 82 85 29

French] Q4-5, F, D; French Q1-3. English] Q4-5, F, D; English Q1-3. Brittons] D; Brittons Q1-3; Britans Q4-5; Britains F. Ha!]~AQi-5,F,D. French] Q4-5, F, D; French Q1-3.

249

25°

Aureng-Zebe But this in After-ages will be done: Our Poet writes a hundred years too soon. This Age comes on too slow, or he too fast: And early Springs are subject to a blast! Who would excel, when few can make a Test Betwixt indiff'rent Writing and the best? For Favours cheap and common, who wou'd strive, Which, like abandon'd Prostitutes, you give? Yet scattered here and there I some behold, Who can discern the Tinsel from the Gold: To these he writes; and, if by them allow'd, 'Tis their Prerogative to rule the Crowd. For he more fears (like a presuming Man) Their Votes who cannot judge, than theirs who can.

COMMENTARY

Abbreviated

List of Abbreviated

References

253

References

Acts: An Authentick Copy of the Acts of the Processe Against the English at Amboyna, 1632. Part of Remonstrance Answer: The Answer unto the Dutch Pamphlet, 1624. Part of True Declaration Beaurline: John Dryden: Four Tragedies, ed. L. A. Beaurline and Fredson Bowers, Chicago, 1967 Bernier: François Bernier, The History of the Late Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogol, 1671, and A Continuation of the Memoires . . . Tome III and IV, 1672 Boxer: C. R. Boxer, The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the iyth Century 1652-1674, 1 974 Christie: The Poetical Works of John Dryden, ed. W . D. Christie, 1886 Day: The Songs of John Dryden, ed. Cyrus Lawrence Day, Cambridge, MA, 1932- >967 Dennis: John Dennis, The Critical Works of John Dennis, ed. Edward Niles Hooker, Baltimore, 1939-1943 DNB: Dictionary of National Biography EIC: Essays in Criticism ELH: Journal of English Literary History ELN: English Language Notes Enc. Br.: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1961 ed. Evelyn: The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer, Oxford, 1955 Gautruche: Pierre Gautruche, The Poetical Histories, trans. Marius d'Assigny, 1671, facs. repr., 1976 GEC: George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of .. . the United Kingdom, rev. ed., 1910-1959 Geyl: Pieter Geyl, Orange and Stuart 1641-72, trans. Arnold Pomerans, 1969 Haley: K. H. D. Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury, Oxford, 1968 Highfill: Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800, Carbondale, IL, 1973HLB: Harvard Library Bulletin HLQ: Huntington Library Quarterly Hughes: John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes, 1935 JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology Ker: Essays of John Dryden, ed. W. P. Ker, 2d imp., Oxford, 1926 Kinsley: The Poems of John Dryden, ed. James Kinsley, Oxford, 1958 Kirsch: Arthur C. Kirsch, Dryden's Heroic Drama, Princeton, 1965; 1972 Langbaine: Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, Oxford, 1691, facs. repr., Los Angeles, 1971 Link: John Dryden, Aureng-Zebe, ed. Frederick M. Link, Lincoln, NE, 1971 London Stage: The London Stage, 1660-1800, Carbondale, IL, 1960-1968

254

Abbreviated

References

Luttrell: Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from, September z6j8 to April 1J14, O x f o r d , 1857 Macaulay: T h o m a s B a b i n g t o n Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, ed. Charles H a r d i n g Firth, 1 9 1 3 - 1 9 1 5 Macdonald: H u g h Macdonald, John Dryden: A Bibliography of Early Editions and of Drydeniana, O x f o r d , 1939 McFadden: George McFadden, Dryden: The Public Writer, 1660-1685, Princeton, 1978 Malone: The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, ed. E d m o n d Malone, 1800 Milton: John Milton, The History of Britain, 1671 ( C o m p l e t e Prose Works, Vol. V, Pt. I, N e w H a v e n , C T , 1971) MiltonQ: Milton Quarterly MLQ: Modern Language Quarterly MP: Modern Philology M u n : T h o m a s M u n , England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, 1664, facs. repr. O x f o r d , 1967, N e w York, 1968 NirQ: Notes and Queries Nicoll: Allardyce Nicoll, Restoration Drama, 4th rev. ed., 1952, reissued 1961 as Vol. I of A History of English Drama 1660-1900 Noyes: The Poetical Works of Dryden, ed. George R . Noyes, rev. ed., Cambridge, M A , 1950 OCD: Oxford Classical Dictionary ODP: Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, 3d ed., O x f o r d , i g 7 o OED: Oxford English Dictionary Osborn: James M. Osborn, John Dryden: Some Biographical Facts and Problems, rev. ed., Gainesville, F L , 1965 Oxford History of Britain, ed. Kenneth O . Morgan, O x f o r d , 1988 POAS: Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660-1714, ed. George DeF. L o r d et al., N e w Haven, C T , 1963-1975 RECTR: Restoration and 18th Century Theatre Research Remonstrance: A Remonstrance of the Directors of the Netherlands East India Company, 1632 Rogers: P. G. Rogers, The Dutch in the Medway, 1970 Rosenberg: A l b e r t Rosenberg, Sir Richard Blackmore, Lincoln, N E , 1953 SCD: A Smaller Classical Dictionary, ed. E. H. Blakeney, ad ed., 1910 Sea-mans Grammar: see Smith SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 Smith: J o h n Smith, A Sea Grammar, 1627; an enlarged edition of An Accidence or The Path-way to Experience, 1626; later editions titled respectively The Sea-mans Grammar and An Accidence for the Sea SP: Studies in Philology S-S: The Works of John Dryden, ed. Sir W a l t e r Scott and George Saintsbury, 1882-1893 STC: A Short-Title Catalogue of Books .. . 1475-1640, 2d ed. rev., 1976-1991 Strype: John Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, rev. and enl. by John Strype, 1720 Summers: Dryden: The Dramatic Works, ed. M o n t a g u e Summers, 1 9 3 1 1932, 1968

Abbreviated

References

255

Tavernier: Jean Baptice Tavernier, Travels in India, trans, and ed. V. Ball, 1889; repr. Lahore, 1976 Tilley: Morris Palmer Tilley, A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Ann Arbor, 1950 TLS: Times Literary Supplement True Declaration: A Trve Declaration of the News that came out of the EastIndies, 1624. Part of True Relation True Relation: A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruell, and Barbarous Proceedings against the English at Amboyna, 1624, f a c s - repr., Amsterdam, J97i Van der Welle: Jojakim Adriaan van der Welle, Dryden and Holland, Groningen, ig62 Ward, Letters: The Letters of John Dryden, ed. Charles E. Ward, Durham, NC, 1942 Ward, Life: Charles E. Ward, The Life of John Dryden, Chapel Hill, NC, 1961 Watson: John Dryden, Of Dramatic Poesy and Other Critical Essays, ed. George Watson, 1962, 1964 Wilson: Charles Wilson, Profit and Power: A Study of England and the Dutch Wars, 1957 Wing: Donald Wing, Short-Title Catalogue of Books . . . 1641-1'joo, 1945, 2d rev. ed., 1972-1988 Winn: James Anderson Winn, John Dryden and His World, New Haven, 1987 Works: Dryden's works in the present edition

Amboyna

251

Amboyna Written as an indictment of the Dutch, Amboyna may still be read with profit as an indictment of rape and torture and of the thinking that would excuse them. At one time, it is true, it was argued that the play was not an indictment, only an outburst of sensationalism. 1 T h e facts indicate, however, that Dryden wrote in support of the English in their third war with the Dutch, which lasted from 1672 to 1674. T h e king's councellors wished to pass off the Third Dutch War, political at root, as commercial in essence, and Dryden's references in Amboyna to the herring fishery, the sovereignty of the seas, and the Guinea and the Smyrna trade, make it clear that he was following the official line. He was, after all, poet laureate and historiographer royal, and Thomas Clifford, the Lord Treasurer, who had conceived the idea of suspending treasury payments except for the war effort, saw to it that Dryden got his full salary in 1672 and 1673. 2 It may be that the play was another of Clifford's ideas, as it was later said to be. 3 At any rate, Clifford accepted the dedication. Dryden said that he wrote the play in haste, in a month, and that he did not "labour" the scenes. 4 Exactly when he wrote it we do not know.® He took only a month to complete his opera. The State of Innocence, which is not only "laboured" so as to be a fit companion to its source, Paradise Lost, but is also written in rhyme. 6 There are, however, some signs that Dryden released Amboyna before he had given it his usual finish. A number of repetitions in it might have been revised away, and he decided to print it as prose instead of the blank verse in which he had written most of it and which he might otherwise have polished to some extent. 7 In the dedication Dryden says the play was a success.8 We cannot date any of the seventeenth-century performances, but estimates for the premiere 1 Louis I. Bredvold, "Political Aspects of Dryden's Amboyna and The Spanish Fryar," University of Michigan Publications in Language and Literature, VIII (1932), 120-123. 2 Winn, pp. 232,529. . 3 Bredvold, "Political Aspects," p. 120, cites a statement made in 1728 by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury, that "Mr. Dryden was employed to compose the tragedy of Amboyna." He adds in a footnote: "In 1672 Ailesbury was only a youth, and his information could have been only the current rumor." I am not sure that youth and truth are opposites. 4 See p. 5 above. 5 Works, XI, 518, says spring 1673 o r earlier; see note 9 below. « See p. 86 above. 1 When Congreve edited the play in his edition of The Dramatick Works of John Dryden (1717) he printed parts of Acts IV and V as blank verse, but with some adjustments in rhythm (see textual collation below). For Dryden's small distinction between prose and blank verse, which makes an editor's distinction between them difficult, see Works, IX, 336-337. 8 See p. 5 above.

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range from June 1672 to May 1673.8 T h e play was advertised as published in the Term Catalogue for 24 November 1673. T h e second edition is dated 1691. In 1704, when William III was safely dead, the editor of Poems on Affairs of State welded most of the prologue to most of the epilogue under the title Satyr upon the Dutch. Written by Mr. Dryden in the Year 1662.19 No eighteenth-century performances are recorded. i W T ) Relations between England and Holland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were driven by varying tides of politics, religion, and commerce, to which Dryden alludes often in the play. T h e Dutch republic had its origin in 1567, when the Netherlands, which had become a Spanish dominion, rebelled against Philip II. Philip, it will be recalled, had also been king of England as the husband of Queen Mary. Like England, the Netherlands had become predominantly Protestant, and like England, they had suffered under rulers determined to stamp out any deviation from Rome—England under Mary and Philip and the Netherlands under Philip and his father Charles V. In addition, Charles, who ruled the Holy Roman Empire, began to tax his 9 Van Lennep says the date is probably May 1673 or earlier, because the play was entered in the Stationers' Register on 26 June (London Stage, Part I, p. 205). T h e r e is no necessary connection between performance and entry in the Register, as Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume have pointed out ("Dating Play Premières from Publication Data, 1660-1700," HLB, X X I I [1974], 374-405). W i n n (p. 239) supposes that the premiere might have coincided more or less with the opening of parliament on 4 February 1673, where the next day Shaftesbury gave the delenda est Carthago speech Dryden may refer to in the last lines of his epilogue (p. 77 above). Anne Barbeau Gardiner arrives at about the same date ("Dating Dryden's Amboyna: Allusions in the T e x t to 1672-1673 Politics," RECTR, 2d ser„ V : 1 [Summer 1990], 18-27). Noyes (p. 70) saw "an unmistable reference" to the play in a prologue he found in Covent Garden Drollery. T h i s prologue had already been printed in Westminster Drollery, Part II of which was advertised in the Term Catalogue for 24 June 1672 (Macdonald, pp. 112-113, 78). T o this piece of evidence Charles E. Ward ("The Dates of T w o Dryden Plays," PMLA, LI [1936], 786-792) added two more. First and more generally, he asserted that lines in the prologue and epilogue to Amboyna referred to the war as having only recently begun. Second and more specifically, he deduced that the play had been produced by 11 November 1672, from the facts that on that day Anthony Devo or Antonio di Voto advertised a play about Amboyna and that on the same day the Lord Chamberlain forbade Devo to act plays or parts of plays performed in the patent houses. Milhous and Hume, "Dating Play Premières" (p. 385), find Ward's argument plausible. But the "unmistakable reference" Noyes cites may be to history rather than to Dryden's play and is inaccurate in either case: it speaks of critics dislocating the scenes of plays the way the Dutch at Amboyna dislocated "the limbs of men," but in history and Dryden's play the torture was not on the rack. It will be a bold interpreter who will insist that Dryden's prologue and epilogue show that the war was relatively new. A n d the information about Devo has no necessary connection with Dryden's play. T h e most we can say is that the earlier date would come shortly after the Dutch flooded their country in June and July 1672, an action "prophesied" at the end of Act V of the play (p. 76 above). Works, XI, 518, citing Van Lennep and Macdonald, wisely refuses to set a precise date. 10 See Macdonald, p. 320. No other evidence for so early a date is known.

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people heavily—for those times11—to pay for his many wars. When local rebellions at the policies of Charles and Philip were succeeded by a general revolt, Philip sent the Spanish Duke of Alva 1 2 to the Netherlands with a firstrate army of about 10,000 men. There were wholesale executions when Alva took over as governor, but resistance continued. In 1572 there were three days of butchery at Malines, and Alva's son massacred the whole population of Naarden. In that year Queen Elizabeth began to allow Dutch privateers to operate against the Spanish from English bases. T h e next year, at the surrender of Haarlem, the Spanish killed everyone in the garrison except the German mercenaries. The Netherlanders had flooded parts of their country in 1572 to drive Alva's son from Alkmaar, and in 1574 they did so again to break the Spanish siege of Leyden, a victory they commemorated by founding a university there that soon became world famous. Alva had been recalled before the second flooding, his mission unaccomplished, but Dutch independence still lay far in the future. In 1576 unpaid Spanish soldiers who had mutinied against their officers sacked Antwerp in what came to be called the Spanish Fury. That day Don Juan of Austria arrived at Luxembourg, commissioned to be governor of the Netherlands and to continue the work Alva had begun, but those he was to govern held him off until 1577 and rebelled against him the next year. All this time the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands were anything but united, and in 1579 the ten that are now Belgium went their own way, eventually making peace with Spain as the Spanish Netherlands. The seven northern provinces continued to fend off the Spaniards and fight among themselves for thirty years. Each province had a legislature, called its states, which chose an executive officer called its stadholder. The same person might be stadholder of more than one province. There was also a national legislature, "Their High Mightinesses the States-General," 13 which chose a national stadholder, the nation's chief executive officer, who might also be stadholder of one or more of the provinces. Officially the political power was divided between the States party, drawing its membership from the leading citizens in the towns, and the Orange party, 14 that is, the princes of Orange-Nassau, who were the largest landholders, and their supporters. The common people had no official representatives, but made their views known when necessary by rioting. They tended to side with the Orange party. One province might refuse to cooperate with another or with the prince, or when cooperating in war it might insist on sending its own directives to the ships or battalions it had contributed. The very towns, which had developed independent governments controlled by their burgher elites, might put their own interests above those of other towns and refuse to cooperate with them. Arriving at a national consensus could be a cumbrous process, even in times of great national danger. Also, when the States party was in the ascendant someone other than the titular head of government might wield supreme executive power. From 1586 to 1618, for example, Johann van 11 12 13 14

See note to II, i, 402 (p. 298 below). See I, i, 232, and V, i, 310 (pp. 17, 71 above). See II, i, 373-378 (p. 31 above). See I, i, 8 (p. 10 above).

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Olden Barnevelt, 15 in the office of advocate of the province of Holland, effectively headed the government during the nominal leadership of Maurice of Orange-Nassau. A n d until his death in 1672 Jan de Witt, grand pensionary of Holland, kept William III from the office of stadholder. By 1585 the Spanish had succeeded enough in their attempt to regain the seven northern provinces that the Dutch appealed to Queen Elizabeth for more help, and she responded by sending them an army of 6,000 men. 1 6 T h e army was to be paid for by the Dutch, however, and they accordingly mortgaged the towns of Brielle and Flushing and the fort of Rammekens to the queen. James I relinquished these holdings in 1616 when the Dutch paid off their debt. 17 T h e English failed entirely in their efforts to help the Dutch by land, but their defeat of the Armada in 1588 relieved some of the Spanish pressure, and thereafter Spain diverted some of its forces to intervene in the civil war that had broken out in France. By 1596, when the Dutch formed a triple alliance with England and France against Spain, they had nearly driven the Spanish from their territories. France made peace with Spain in 1598 and England did so in 1604, leaving the Dutch once more alone, but Spain continued to weaken and in 1609 concluded a truce of twelve years' duration. Meanwhile the Dutch had come into commercial conflict with both Spain and England throughout the world. In 1595-1598 the Dutch had made their first voyage to the East Indies, in 1602 they had chartered their East India Company, and in 1609 they won the right from Spain, in a secret treaty, to supersede the Portuguese in the African and the East Indian trade. (The Portuguese, who had founded and essentially monopolized this trade pursuant to a treaty with Spain made in 1494, had been ruled by Spain since 1580 and continued to be so until 1640.) T h e English, who had chartered their East India Company on the last day of 1600, refused to admit the Dutch claim to a monopoly. Both companies, under their several charters for trade with and occupation of native territories, appointed governors-general, and established a common negotiating council, called the Council of Defence, at Djakarta in Java, and the Dutch had subordinate governors at other places in Indonesia. T h e English, whose subordinate officers were only agents set over groups of trading posts, could do business only as the Dutch would allow. T h e two companies' mutual suspicions, rivalries, and occasional acts of undeclared war led to a series of negotiations and treaties between their governments. A treaty of 1619 allowed the Dutch to have two-thirds of the trade in the east, and the English one third, 18 both companies agreeing to fight as equal partners in declared and undeclared war on the Spanish and Portuguese. A t home, however, Dutch politics and religion were once more in disarray. In 1618 there was a civil war. Maurice of Orange-Nassau with four Calvinist provinces overcame Barnevelt and the three Arminian provinces (Barnevelt was executed as a rebel and a heretic in 1619), and assumed in fact the powers that had been nominally his all along. 19 15 See I, i, 9 (p. 10 above). is See I, i, 48-50, 231-234, and II, i, 345-348 (pp. 11-12, 17, 30 above). 1 7 See II, i, 345-348 (p. 30 above). 18 See I, i, 62-65; n . i. 281-284 (pp. 12, 28 above). !9 See I, i, 8-9 (p. 10 above).

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W a r with Spain was resumed in 1621, but with small success on either side and no interruption in the growth of Dutch prosperity and trade-based financial power. "Whilst they were fighting for their existence as a separate State, they were able to make that State the leading commercial and colonial Power of the . . . century. . . . There was . . . hardly a sphere of human activity of which the Dutch, at this time, were not the leading exponents." 20 In 1641, also, William II of Orange-Nassau married Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I of England. Independence from Spain came at last in 1648. Meanwhile, the atrocity at Amboyna had occurred in February 1623, very much as Dryden describes it. Amboyna was far from the only cause of Anglo-Dutch friction. It was not even the major one. In the late fourteenth century a Dutchman, Willem Beukelesz, had discovered how to preserve herrings with salt, and the Dutch had then made the catching, pickling, and export of herrings a major source of wealth. T h e fishing grounds, as it happened, were along the east coast of England and Scotland and many of the thousands of people in the industry worked ashore in Britain, but the business remained an entirely Dutch operation, carefully regulated by state edicts enforced by the "College of the Great Fishery" at Delft. Thomas Mun reckoned the operation the "principal Gold Mine of the United Provinces." 21 In 1609 the English began to demand that herring fishers be licensed, but the Dutch successfully resisted the idea. T h e English had a proverb, "Of all the fish in the sea, herring is the king," 2 2 but all English efforts to develop a competing industry, efforts ranging in time from 1618 to 1664, were failures. 23 In 1608 Hugo Grotius (Huigh de Groot) published Mare Liberum, which argued for freedom of the seas. T o this John Selden replied in 1635 with Mare Clausum, arguing instead for English sovereignty of the seas, including the right to demand that foreign ships meeting English vessels should furl their topsails, lower their flags,24 and accept search of their cargoes. In practice the extent of English sovereignty depended on the strength of the English fleet, but in theory it always included the "narrow seas," defined as the English and Irish channels but in effect meaning also the North Sea, or the "British Ocean," as Dryden called it in Annus Mirabilis,25 Both the first and the third Dutch wars had as one of their alleged causes the failure of Dutch fleets to salute English vessels.26 T h e real cause of the first war, which began in 1652, was commercial rivalry. Cromwell, however, believed that it was wrong for Protestant nations to fight each other, and so when he came to power he made peace. By the Treaty of Westminster, 1654, the Dutch agreed to honor the claims of the English East India Company against their own, and to make formal acknowledgment of English sovereignty of the narrow seas by striking sail when their Rogers, pp. 4-5. Mun, p. 75. 22 Tilley F320, first citation 1583. 23 Wilson, pp. 32-40, 121-122. 24 See V, i, 268-270 (p. 70 above). 2® LI- 124, 1206 (Works, I, 64, 104); see also III, ii, 144-145 (p. 44 above). 26 Wilson, p. 59; Boxer, pp. 4, 42. 20

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ships encountered English vessels. Dryden counted the war as a British success, and praised Cromwell for it in his Heroique Stanzas (1659). 27 Between 1638 and 1642 the Dutch West Indies Company wrested from the Portuguese the West African or Guinea trade, 28 which was principally in gold for home use and slaves for the West Indies. In this trade the English Royal African Company, chartered in 1660 and rechartered in 1663, contested with the Dutch in an undeclared war. Sir Robert Holmes captured, lost, and recaptured various forts on the African coast. T h e Dutch company reported that he had tortured some of its people by fire. 29 Complaints and threats of reprisal for losses suffered by both sides in their trading conflicts led to a formal declaration of war again in 1665. T h e English had their successes, celebrated by Dryden in Annus Mirabilis, the Year of Wonders, 1666 (1667) and An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668), 30 but so did the Dutch. In 1667 the Dutch sailed up the Thames Estuary and burned many ships of the English navy at anchor at Chatham. Even before this disaster the English had opened negotiations for peace, which in 1667 gave the Dutch effective control of the East Indies and two-thirds of the trade there, as before. Both sides claimed victory, the Dutch striking medals and publishing political cartoons that the English found offensive, 31 but not so offensive as to prevent their entering a triple alliance with Holland and Sweden against France in 1668. In the Mediterranean, the Dutch had at first traded more with Italy, the English more with Turkey, but during the English Civil War the Dutch had shifted their principal activities to Turkey also, thus coming into conflict with the English Levant Company. 3 2 T h e principal entrepot in Turkey was Smyrna, on the Aegean Sea. T h e trading ships of both nations had to be heavily armed because of pirates, Turkish in the east and Algerian at the Strait of Gibraltar. 33 In 1672 Sir Robert Holmes was ordered to attack the Dutch convoy from Smyrna as it came up the Channel, and he did so on 1 2 - 1 3 March. This was in effect the opening battle of the Third Dutch War, though a formal declaration did not come until later. 34 This third war was not, however, over commerce, although, as we have said, the king's councellors sought to give it a commercial veneer once it had begun. Clifford, the dedicatee of Amboyna, demanded in parliament half the East Indian trade. T h e Earl of Shaftesbury quoted Cato's famous call for the destruction of Carthage, Rome's great commercial rival, 3 5 and said to his audience, "This is your war." T o do Shaftesbury justice, he derived 27 LI. 81-84 {Works, I, 14). 28

29

See prologue, 1. 9 (p. 7 above). Wilson, pp. 45, 58, 112-114, 131.

30 Annus, 11. 1-832 (Works, I, 59-91); Essay (Works, XVII, 8-9, 80-81).

31

See prologue, 1. 27 (p. 7 above). Wilson, pp. 42-43. 33 But the Turkish pirates mentioned in the play, III, i, 3 and III, iii, 43 (pp. 32, 41 above) seem to have been sailing from Arabian ports. For the Algerian pirates, 32

see prologue, 1. 9 (p. 7 above); also The Kind Keeper, III, i, 60-61 (Works, XIV, 40), and The Hind and the Panther, III, 345-348 (Works, III, 171). 34

DNB; Boxer, p. 45. 35 See epilogue, 1. 22 (p. 77 above).

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a considerable part of his income from trade and was unaware of the war's political purpose. Clifford knew better. He and the Earl of Arlington were the only councellors to whom the king had disclosed the secret Treaty of Dover, made with Louis X I V in 1670, which withdrew England from the T r i p l e Alliance and was intended to prepare the way for its Catholicization and for French seizure of the Spanish Netherlands. T h e secret treaty was followed by a public treaty that also, in Dryden's words, "broke the triple bond," the blame for which he laid at Shaftesbury's door ten years later. 36 In March 1672 Louis X I V declared war on the Dutch, who had opposed his attempt to seize the Spanish Netherlands. When England then also declared war on the Dutch, Charles I I alleged that among his provocations were the Dutch medals and pictures that had followed the previous conflict. Once again the Dutch had to flood their country, this time to keep out the French. 3 7 T h e dikes were breached in June and J u l y 1672. T h e "prophecy" of this event, which closes Dryden's play, gives us a terminus post quern for its completion. 38 In the meantime the Dutch had found allies in Spain and Austria, and, although the French gained ground in the Spanish Netherlands, the war went badly for the English. William I I I of Orange put down all Dutch opposition to himself in 1672. 39 In England, contrariwise, public dissatisfaction 40 forced the government to make a separate peace with the Dutch at the beginning of 1674 and, in 1677, to concur in the marriage of William I I I with Mary, eldest daughter of the future James II. When James I I fled the country in 1688, William and Mary became the rulers of a determinedly Protestant England. England then joined Holland's war with France, which continued until 1697. Dryden, who had become a Catholic, never reconciled himself to the new monarchs. In 1701 an English pamphleteer wrote: " I t has been the craft of Ministers to cajole the People, to make their Court the better with their Masters: T h e Flag, Amboyna, and the British Herrings have been their most persuasive Arguments. Amboyna and the Flag are antient Stories; I do not know whether it be fit to rake into them: But by this time, 'tis very plain, T h e y do not keep the Fishing-Trade from us by violence or injustice, or by any other than the most honest methods of selling better pennyworths [bargains]. When we can be able to do this, 'twill then be time to think of Fishing, till then we are disabled." 4 1 Dryden would presumably have disagreed with this Williamite 36 Absalom and Achitophel, 1. 175 (Works, II, 10). The inundations were carried out piecemeal over about a month, the towns delaying and the peasants actively opposing them. Flooding was not simply a matter of cutting dikes. Water from the sea was admitted as little as possible, and peasants had to be forcibly restrained from draining off river water as soon as it was let into their fields. See Mary Trevelyan [Moorman], William the Third and the Defence of Holland, 1672-4 (1930), pp. 183, 187-196. 33 See V, i, 453-461 (p. 76 above). 39 Geyl, pp. 398-400. 40 A minor note: Dryden, a supporter of the war, began the prologue to Marriage A-la-Mode (1673) by humorous reference to the absence of many of the usual patrons of the theater, who had joined the army or navy (Works, XI, 225). 4 1 Considerations of the East India Trade, quoted by Wilson, pp. 157-158. 37

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apologist, except in that he too had acknowledged Dutch industry. 42 He would have agreed rather with his cousin Jonathan Swift, who was to give the events at Amboyna an immortality he himself had been unable to give them. In the closing pages of Book III of Gulliver's travels, Gulliver, pretending to be Dutch, sails from Japan to Holland in "the Amboyna of Amsterdam, a stout Ship of 450 Tuns," whose rascally captain first seeks to have the Japanese test, by asking Gulliver to trample on a crucifix, whether he is "a real Hollander or . . . a Christian." T h e nations of England and Holland did not go to war again until the American Revolution, but the armed forces of the two East India companies fought each other once more in 1757, this time in India. T h e English, who were victorious, regarded themselves as having avenged their compatriots' sufferings at Amboyna. 5 W 5 Reading of the rifts on both sides in the Anglo-Dutch wars one wonders how either country managed to fight the other. We have already spoken of political divisions among the Dutch that might result in battles where ships from different provinces went their own ways. We should also note that soldiers and sailors drawn from the common people might seek to avoid service or might mutiny. Nevertheless, the Dutch never had to depend on press-gangs to man their navy. T h e English were not much more unified than the Dutch. They began each of the three Dutch wars and each time they were forced by their own countrymen to end them. Nor were the English much more, if at all, in advance of the Dutch in the peaceful transference of political power. There was always danger of open rebellion by the opposition and of riots by the poor. T h e navy could be supplied with men only by press-gangs,43 and when soldiers and sailors were not paid they might refuse to fight. They were seldom paid on time by Charles II, whose finances were regularly in arrears and who in 1672 had to suspend all payments to his civil service in order to fight at all. As spies and traitors were everywhere, each side was constantly well informed of the plans and movements of the other. Traitors or mercenaries would pilot English ships in Dutch waters and Dutch ships in English waters. T h e Dutch employed four English and two Scottish regiments in their army at the same time their navy was fighting the English. 44 In the second and third wars the English king and the Dutch prince were uncle and nephew, and each sought to divide the other's nation by secret correspondence with those in opposition. It was an underlying sense of national identity that made the wars possible. Each nation could inflame its fighting men against the other, particularly by circulating stories of atrocities. Jan de Witt ordered that the narrative, "Dutchmen fried at Guinea" (i.e., by Holmes on the African Coast between Sierra Leone and Benin), was to be posted in all ships; Dryden wrote Amboyna, a combination of satire, horror, and examples of 42 Annus Mirabilis, 1.1; The Hind and the Panther, II, 571 (Works, I, 59; III, 156). See epilogue to The Wild Gallant as revived, 1. 22 (Works, VIII, go). Rogers, p. 4. One such mercenary was Burr in The Wild Gallant. See I, i, 4647 (Works, VIII, 9). 43

44

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English heroism calculated to rouse the people to derision, outrage, national pride, and resolution and to scorn the enemy and destroy him. 4 5 Dryden was not the only contributor of Amboyna memories. His principal and almost sole source, A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruell, and Barbarous Proceedings Against the English at Amboyna (1624; two editions) had been printed again in 1651, just before the First Dutch War and in 1672, just before the third. 46 In 1664, at the start of the Second Dutch War, English and Dutch Affairs Displayed to the Life had appeared. 47 In 1672 again William Lily the astrologer published The Dangerous Condition of the United Provinces Prognosticated, and Plainly Demonstrated, and an anonymous author sometimes identified as William Winstanly published Poor Robins Character of a Dutch-man, to name only a few additional examples. 48 T W ^ S Dryden's attitude toward the Dutch was one of almost unmitigated dislike. He was proud of his family's connection with Erasmus, the great Dutch humanist. He read the Latin works of other Dutch scholars and poets with profit if not with pleasure. For the rest, he could see nothing good in the Dutch at all. How much of his dislike was personal prejudice is hard to say, for as a loyal Englishman he would in any event have written against the Dutch in time of war and of intense commercial rivalry short of war, and in later life as a Catholic and crypto-Jacobite he would have disliked the policies of William I I I and the rewards William gave to his Dutch courtiers. 49 Dryden looked back on Erasmus as a family friend who, on one of his several visits to England in the years 1499 through 1517, had become acquainted with David Dryden, the poet's great-grandfather's father, and had stood godfather to one of David's sons. T h e poet's grandfather and father were both named Erasmus; he had a brother, two cousins, and a nephew with the same name; and he named his third son Erasmus-Henry. He told John Aubrey that the first Erasmus Dryden had been named after Erasmus. 50 In his writings, Dryden noted that Erasmus's Praise of Folly was the kind of satire he himself had written in Absalom and Achitophel and MacFlecknoe. He also said that Erasmus's Latin best imitated Lucian's. 51 In other respects, Dryden's attitude toward Dutch scholarship was like his attitude toward women. He could praise individuals, but he always conVan der Welle, p. 22; epilogue, 11. 3-4 (p. 77 above). 48 Van der Welle, pp. 57-58. 4 7 Rogers, p. 22. 48 For a fuller list see W. P. C. Knuttel, Catalogus van de Pamfletten-verzameling berustende in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek ('s-Gravenhage, 1889-1920), Vols. I and II. 4 9 Dryden might have been opposed to a standing army on general principles, but his known remarks on the subject all support reduction of William's forces. We have no record of any opposition on Dryden's part to James II's attempt to Catholicize the army. 5 0 John Aubrey, Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Oliver Lawson Dick (1949), p. 103. Dryden's modern biographers trace the name instead to Erasmus Cope, whose sister married the poet's great-grandfather (see Ward, Life, p. 4; Winn, p. 516 n. 7). For genealogies of the Dryden and Cope families, see Winn, pp. i2ff. 51 Works, IV, 48; XX, 221. 45

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d e m n e d the g r o u p . H e praised Franciscus D o u s a as " j u d i c i o u s " 5 2 a n d Isaac Vossius as " l e a r n e d " a n d as the best l i v i n g j u d g e of the historical backg r o u n d of Italian o p e r a . 5 3 H e q u o t e d D a n i e l Heinsius, t h o u g h d i f f e r i n g f r o m some of his opinions. 8 4 H e a p p r o v e d a c o m m e n t o n O v i d b y N i c h o l a a s Heinsius, 5 5 used B o r c h a r d C n i p p i n g ' s edition of O v i d f o r his earlier translations, a n d cited J o h a n n G e o r g G r a e v i u s with a p p r o v a l . 5 6 B u t in his Life of Plutarch he w r o t e of " t h e usual vanity of Dutch P r e f a c e r s . " 5 7 I n the preface to Sylvee h e called D u t c h commentators pedants 5 8 a n d p u r s u e d the m a t t e r i n the dedication of Examen Poeticum, w h e r e he said that h e t h o u g h t t h e m " i n the general, h e a v y gross-witted Fellows; fit o n l y to gloss o n their o w n d u l l P o e t s . " 5 9 I n the d e d i c a t i o n of the Aeneis he wrote: " I shall c o n t i n u e still to speak my T h o u g h t s like a free-born S u b j e c t as I am; t h o u g h such things, perhaps, as n o Dutch C o m m e n t a t o r cou'd, a n d I a m sure n o Frenchman durst."60 D r y d e n translated f r o m an erotic p o e m by J o a n n e s Secundus (Jan Everaerts) in Amboyna,61 but, as we have just seen, h e t h o u g h t D u t c h poets dull, a n d h e also said that Brusl£, in his translation of L u c i a n , was "as insipid as a Dutch P o e t . " 6 2 I n the p r e f a c e to Albion and Albanius (1685) he w r o t e that Italian, even w h e n o n l y spoken, " h a s m o r e of M u s i c k in it, t h a n Dutch Poetry and Song."63 D r y d e n ' s a c k n o w l e d g e d a c q u a i n t a n c e w i t h D u t c h art is l i m i t e d to g e n r e p a i n t i n g , m e d a l casting, a n d caricature, all of w h i c h h e h e l d in l o w esteem. 6 4 B u r r , in The Wild Gallant (1663, b u t n o t p u b l i s h e d u n t i l 1667), says h e has b e e n a mercenary f o r ten years in the army of the " d u l l Dutchmen."65 " D u l l as a D u t c h m a n " was a p r o v e r b 6 6 that D r y d e n m a d e use of again i n lines 33-34 of the p r o l o g u e to Amboyna a n d i n I V , iv, 19. 67 I n Notes and 52 Discourse of Satire (Works, IV, 45). Postscript to preface to Albion and Albanius (Works, XV, 12). 54 Discourse of Satire (Works, IV, 50, 69, 77); d e d i c a t i o n of t h e Aeneid (Works, V, 275); p r e f a c e to An Evening's Love (Works, X , 209). 55 Preface to Ovid's Epistles (Works, I, 113). 56 D r y d e n used J o h n F r e i n d ' s e d i t i o n of Ovid's Metamorphoses w h e n t r a n s l a t i n g t h e p o e m s in t h e Fables (1700). F o r G r a e v i u s see The Life of Lucian (Works, X X , 224); for C r i p p i n g ' s e d i t i o n of Ovid see Works, IV, 705. V a n d e r W e l l e (pp. 106130) gives a n u m b e r of o t h e r instances in w h i c h D r y d e n m a y h a v e b e e n i n f l u e n c e d by various of these scholars. 57 Works, X V I I , 287. 58 Works, III, 4, 16. 5 9 Works, IV, 371. 60 Works, V, 283. 61 See p p . 39-40 above. 62 Life of Lucian (Works, X X , 219). 63 Works, XV, 6. 64 I n A Parallel betwixt Painting and Poetry (Works, X X , 55), D r y d e n e q u a t e d " t h e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n of a Dutch Kermis [carnival]" w i t h comedy, w h i c h r e p r e s e n t s " i n f e r i o u r persons, a n d low Subjects," a n d t h e grotesque w i t h farce. F o r D u t c h medals a n d political cartoons, see p r o l o g u e , 1. 27 (p. 7 above). 65 I, j, 46-47 (Works, V I I I , 9). 66 T i l l e y D654, first citation 1639. 67 P p . 8, 51 above. 56

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Observations on The Empress of Morocco (1674), in a passage commonly accepted as Dryden's, there is a reference to "a dull Dutchwomans Sooterk i n . " 6 8 In the epilogue to Oedipus (1679) Dryden wrote that those w h o criticized the play would find their children disowning them and wishing that they had been "born Dutch" (i.e., only as dull as a Dutchman). 6 9 Subconscious association of the Dutch with dullness may have led to a passage in The Kind Keeper (1680), II, i, 21-23, where the hero says marriage is as natural to " d u l l p l o d d i n g Fellows . . . as Crimp [a card game] is to a Dutchman."70 In the prologue to The Spanish Fryar (1681) Dryden wrote that the "heavy Hollanders" have no new vices; they cheat and drink, b u t they aways have. 7 1 Other references to Dutch drinking appear in various side remarks. In The Wild Gallant, Burr's fellow drunkard Bibber speaks of "Hogen-Mogen bloody A l e , " 7 2 H o g e n Mogen being the English form of the Dutch for High Mightinesses. In The Tempest (1670), IV, ii, 74, the drunken Stephano drinks to T r i n c a l o "Up se Dutch" (i.e., in the Dutch manner). 7 3 I n the Letter to Etherege (1691), line 51, Dryden refers to the "dutch delights" of heavy drinking. 7 4 In calling Hollanders "heavy," Dryden probably had a double meaning: dull and fat. In The Wild Gallant, Loveby says " a n Hollander with Butter will fry rarely in H e l l . " 7 5 In The Tempest, III, ii, 37-38, Gonzalo likens fat devils to Dutch burgomasters. 7 6 T h e villainous Dutch governor in Amboyna is fat. 7 7 T i l l e y gives no proverb about Dutch corpulency, but every rank of Englishman associated the Dutch with butter boxes. 7 8 Loveby in The Wild Gallant refers to the " B a n c k at Amsterdam" as the devil's own. 7 9 A n d in 1693, in the last line of Dryden's translation of Persius's Satire V, he chose a Dutch shilling as an example of worthlessness. 80 In Annus Mirabilis and Secret Love (both 1667) Dryden casts an additional sidelight on the Dutch wars when he mentions that Dutch ships stood higher out of the water than English vessels, which made them hard to board. 8 1 In the same year, in the epilogue to The Indian Emperour, he says that the

88 Works, XVII, 181. 69 LI. 15-16 {Works, XIII, 214). TO Works, XIV, 25. 71 LI. 22-26, ibid., p. 105. In An Evening's Love, II, i, 90-92 (Works, X, 232), however, Dryden had made Wildblood say of the English, "we are content with our old vices, partly because we want wit to invent more new."

I, i, 69 (Works, VIII, 10). Works, X, 79. 74 Ibid., Ill, 225. 1SV, ii, 18-19 (ibid., VIII, 79). 76 Works, X, 52. 72

73

See I, i, 25, 146 and V, i, 151, 201 (pp. 11, 14, 66, 68 above). See note to II, i, 396 (p. 298 below), and Richard Flecknoe, The Diarium (1656), p. 10, "Hans is corpulent and fat," and Flecknoe, Heroick Portraits (1660), sig. G3, where " T h e Picture of a Dutch Frow" begins "Behold here a Kitchenpiece, with a plump Holland Frow in it." 77

78

rem, ii, 17-18 (Works, VIII, 47). 8» L. 281 (Works, IV, 343). si Annus, 1. 233; Secret Love, IV, i, 77-78 (Works, I, 68; IX, 165).

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proper business of coffeehouse wits, who are only a cut above writers of farce, is "to Damn the Dutch."*2 In 1676 Dryden, sore at the loss of the Third Dutch W a r and remembering what he had learned in his research for Amboyna, wrote in the dedication of Aureng-Zebe that witlings "treat Wit like the common Enemy, and give it no more quarter, than a Dutch-man would to an English Vessel in the Indies; they strike Sail where they know they shall be master'd, and murder where they can with safety." 83 In The State of Innocence (published in 1677 but written earlier) he made Satan address his assembled devils as "Most high and mighty Lords" of the "States-General of Hell." 8 4 In 1678 his lingering dislike of the Dutch may have contributed to the feeling with which he wrote in the dedication of All for Love: "Both my Nature, as I am an Englishman, and my Reason, as I am a Man, have bred in me a loathing to that specious Name of a Republick." 85 And in The Hind and the Panther (1687) he called attention to Dutch willingness to conceal their religion when trading with Japan, as he had in Amboyna with respect to trading with Pegu. 86 In the prologue to King Arthur (1691) and in the epilogue to Cleomenes (1692) Dryden ridiculed those who had not volunteered to fight under William III. 87 But he delayed the publication of his translation of Virgil (1697) as long as he could because he had some hopes that James was about to return in triumph and could receive the dedication. (His publisher Jacob Tonson, on the contrary, had the plates for the volume altered to give Aeneas a nose like King William's.) 88 When finally Dryden had to dedicate the Aeneid instead to his old friend and patron the Earl of Mulgrave, he referred to William's entourage as "Dutch Boors," a term he had used in Amboyna.89 He wrote privately that William had "enriched Holland w t h the wealth of England." 9 0 He would have included "a Satire against the Dutch valour, in the late Warr" in one of his last poems, To My Honour"d Kinsman, published in 1700 a few months before he died, had not his kinsman asked him to cancel the lines. 91 Dryden's war against the Dutch, one might say, was as stubborn and almost as long as theirs against Spain.

During the time when we may suppose Dryden was writing and arranging for the production of Amboyna, other events besides the war were to have some connection with him. In an attempt to secure dissenting support for

82 LI. 19-20 (Works, IX, 112). 83 See p. 150 above. 84 See I, i, 85-86 (p. 101 above). 85 Works, XIII, 6. 86 The Hind and the Panther, II, 568-575 (Works, III, 156); cf. Amboyna, II, i, 385-390 (P- 3 l above). 87 Prologue, II. 46-49, epilogue, II. 19-20 (Works, XVI). 88 Ward, Letters, pp. 85-86, 93. 89 Dedication of Aeneis (Works, V, 326-327); cf. Amboyna, II, i, 393, and epilogue, 1.6 (pp. 31,77 above). 80 Ward, Letters, p. 107. 91 Ibid., p. 120.

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his plans anent Catholics, Charles II issued the Declaration of Indulgence in March 1672, suspending all laws against nonconformists and recusants. A year later parliament forced the king to cancel the declaration and passed the Test Act instead. Clifford, like his king a crypto-Catholic, spoke unrestrainedly in parliament in opposition to the bill, and when it passed he resigned his offices and retired to the country. In his dedication to Clifford, Dryden refers to this retirement but veils its cause. As it turned out, both Charles and James violated the Test Act, James for instance continuing the now Catholic Dryden in his offices as poet laureate and historiographer royal, but after the accession of William III Dryden suffered from the provisions of the act for the rest of his life. Charles did manage to circumvent parliamentary opposition to the marriage of James and Mary Beatrice of Modena, which took place secretly and by proxy abroad in September 1673 and publicly in England in November. In 1677 Dryden dedicated The State of Innocence to her. Finally, it was about the time Dryden was writing Amboyna that Sir George Mackenzie urged him to read Denham and Waller more closely. 92 5 W 5 Dryden was a shareholder in the King's Company, and in any event he as author chose the original cast.93 For the nine male and three female parts for which we know the actors, he had his choice among seventeen men and nine women. 94 Not unnaturally, he chose actors who had performed in his plays before, usually often before, five of the men and two of the women having in fact acted in his unsuccessful comedy The Assignation earlier in the season. 95 We see then that most of the cast were adept both in comedy, usually but not exclusively in the more genteel roles, and in tragedy. There is, be it observed, a long scene in Act II of Amboyna in which the Englishman Beamont and the Dutch governor's legal adviser entertain their common mistress, the Amboyner Julia, by laughing at each other's nations and Spain, the nation of Julia's husband. For the principal parts of his hero Towerson and Towerson's friend Beamont, Dryden chose Charles Hart and Michael Mohun, the company's leading actors.96 W e know almost nothing about their way of developing roles, but The Life of ... Jo. Hayns (1701) says that Hart was "a man of . . . Exactness and Grandeur on the Stage." Mohun, who suffers the exquisite pangs of torture on stage as Beamont, had been tortured on the rack on stage in the title role of Dryden's The Indian Emperour. Richard Steele had this to say of both men: "My old Friends, Hart and Mohun, the one by his natural and proper force, the other by his great skill and art, never failed to send me home full of such ideas as affected my behaviour, and made me insensibly more courteous and humane to my friends and acquaintances." No more

92 See Discourse of Satire (Works, I V , 84), noted by M a l o n e , I , i, 139. 93 See q u o t a t i o n from Cibber's Apology, I , 269-270, in London Stage, P a r t I , p. 528, a n d W a r d , Letters, pp. 23-24. 94 London Stage, P a r t I , p. 198. 95 Ibid., p. 200. 96 T h e i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t the cast, including t h e q u o t a t i o n s f r o m contemporaries, has been drawn f r o m the relevant entries i n Highfill a n d DNB.

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apt description could be given of their characters in this play in respect to its original purpose and its enduring message (of which more is said below). For the other two friends of Towerson, Collins and Middleton, Dryden chose Edward Lydall and Marmaduke Watson. Nothing is known of how they might have developed their roles, but we may notice that in The Conquest of Granada Lydall had played the reasonably important part of Prince Abdalla, who suffers the tortures of unrequited love for faithless Lyndaraxa and dies bravely in hopeless combat with her name on his lips. We do not see Collins suffering but as he is led off to execution (see p. 75 above) he says: "Now Devils; you have done your worst with tortures, Death's a privation of pain; but they were a continual dying." Lydall, we may assume, was sufficiently able in the expression of both pain and fortitude. Watson, who has a single scene in Amboyna in which he accuses the Dutch of breaking the treaty of 1619, had had a similar role in the first part of The Conquest of Granada, in which, as Hamet, he accused Almahide and Abdelmelech of adultery. W e observe Hamet plotting his falsehood and dying at the hands of Almanzor in the ensuing trial by combat, whereas Middleton simply appears, speaks his lines, and disappears, a less demanding role. For the complex character of the Spaniard Perez, a soldier in the service of the Dutch who knows his wife is unfaithful and who can sell his services as a murderer, but whose innate bravery and sense of honor lead him instead to heroic action and bring about his death, Dryden chose Nicholas Burt, of whom we know, as an actor, only that he "strutted" in tragic roles. He had played both Othello and Prince Hal, from which we conclude that he had some ability in both tragedy and high comedy, but he usually took lesser parts, perhaps because of ill health. There are obvious similarities between die parts of Othello and Perez, both soldiers of fortune, both jealous of their wives, and Burt may have played both roles in much the same way. For the four villainous Dutchmen—Harman Junior, his father the governor of Amboyna, the governor's legal adviser or "fiscal," and a piratical merchant—Dryden chose Edward Kynaston, William Cartwright, William Wintersel or Wintershall, and George Beeston. We have a good deal of information about Kynaston's qualities as an actor: he was extremely handsome; he "had something of a formal Gravity in his Mien," a "stately Step," perhaps somewhat feminine, "a determin'd Manliness and honest Authority," "a piercing Eye," and "a quick imperious Vivacity in his T o n e of Voice." No doubt he muted his air of honest authority in his role as rapist and as challenger of Towerson to a duel in a community where his father has the executive power. We happen to have a portrait of Cartwright, a portly figure well suited physically for the part of the fat governor. Pepys praised his Falstaff on one occasion, damned it on another. Dryden inserted a reference to it in V, i, 203-204 (p. 68 above). Highfill says "he seems to have been one of Dryden's favorites." He was extremely adept in financial matters, which may have carried over on stage as an air of astuteness and authority that one would expect in a chief executive. Of Beeston we know nothing except that he was young and had played a quite different role in The Conquest of Granada, that of Ozmyn, the juvenile heroic and romantic lead. T h e part of Van Herring is a much smaller one and may have been experimental for him. T h e Key to the

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Rehearsal praised Wintersel or Wintershall both as an actor and as a superior teacher. In The Conquest of Granada he had played Selin, Ozmyn's rival and eventual father-in-law. H o w he handled his roles we cannot say, but he was adept in both comedy and tragedy and so was presumably able to portray the Fiscal's sinister laughter and false heartiness to good effect. For Ysabinda, the heroine, Dryden chose Rebecca Marshall, of whose acti n g Pepys had a high opinion. H e described her role of the queen in Secret Love as "very good and passionate" and said he thought it impossible for anyone to act it better. She looked, he said once, "mighty fine, and pretty, and noble." T h e notice of her in Highfill concludes: "Everything points to her having been a handsome woman (perhaps with the long black hair and dark eyes that Lee describes for her role in Nero) and a woman of spirit." T h e s e notices give interesting suggestions as to how she would have handled her part in Amboyna, especially those scenes in which she sought to f e n d off her rapist on her wedding night and in which she struggled with her subsequent sense of degradation and determined not l o n g to survive the execution of her husband. W e know from a remark Dryden made about a character in The Twelfth Book of Ovid his Metamorphoses that he thought women who took their own lives for love were heroic. 9 7 Very likely, then, he thought Mrs. Marshall ideally suited for her part. T h e remaining female parts—Julia the wife of Perez, and an Englishw o m a n castaway—Dryden gave to Elizabeth James and Katherine Cory. Highfill remarks of Mrs. James, " I t is perhaps significant that in the early part of her career she appeared in a number of Dryden's works," but he does not define the nature of that possible significance. She took the part of Alleria in J o h n Corey's Generous Enemies, described in the play as " Y o u n g , Fair, witty, modest, tall, slender, and a thousand other things." W e must qualify "modest" for her part in Amboyna, where she is an early example of the good-hearted woman of ill repute. Of Mrs. Cory, who may have been the wife of the playwright, Highfill says: " H e r flair was for comedy [she had been Frances in The Wild Gallant, for instance], though she made occasional appearances in tragedies." T h a t she was capable of h a n d l i n g her brief scene as a bereaved widow with the dignity and force it required is seen from Dryden's choosing her shortly afterward for the part of Octavia, the wife of A n t o n y , in All for Love. W e may conclude, then, that the play's success was as much dependent upon its actors as upon its author. S W i 1 Before describing what happened at Amboyna, or A m b o n , as it is now called, we should explain its location. It is the only city on the small island of the same name, which lies at the center of the Moluccas or Spice Islands. T o d a y these islands comprise the easternmost province of Indonesia, of which A m b o n is the provincial capital. T h e Moluccas are due south of Korea, south of the Philippines, south of the equator, north of Australia, east of Sulawesi, and west of Papua-New Guinea. T h e islands specifically 97 See the last sentence of the "Connection" at the head of the poem (Works, VII).

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mentioned by Dryden in the play are, from north to south, Ternate, T i d o r e , Ceram, 9 8 Amboyna, and B a n d a , " the latter strictly a group of islands, of which Pulo Lantore or Great Banda and Pularum are specifically mentioned. 1 0 0 Only Ceram is of any size, being about 200 miles east to west and 35 miles north to south. Still, the sultan of Ternate was powerful enough to force the Dutch to concentrate their trading in Amboyna and Banda until 1685. 101 T h e True Declaration, defending the Dutch suspicions and proceedings at Amboyna, said the English on Ceram failed to keep the Ternatans there under control and thereby encouraged the king (sultan) of T e r n a t e to attack the Dutch. T h e Answer said the fact was that the king had allied himself with the Dutch against the Spanish. 102 Dryden can hardly be expected to have kept straight which spices came from which places. T h e True Declaration speaks of the Anglo-Dutch trade treaty of 1619 as regulating trade in "Nutmegs, Mace, Cloues, and Pepper." 1 0 3 Cloves, nutmegs, and mace were native to the Moluccas. 1 0 4 T h e pepper that was exported to Europe came from India; that which came from Indonesia was kept in Asia. 1 0 5 T o these spices Dryden adds cinnamon, which in his day came only from Sri Lanka. 1 0 6 Pepys visited a captured Dutch East Indiaman: ". . . the greatest wealth . . . in confusion that a man can see in the world. Pepper scattered through every chink. Y o u trod upon it, and in cloves and nutmegs I walked above the knees, whole rooms full."1" T h e events at Amboyna are soon told. A b o u t 11 February 1623, one of the Japanese sometimes employed by the Dutch as soldiers fell into conversation with a Dutch sentry at the castle that guarded the port, asking him various questions about the defenses. T h e Dutchman, beginning to suspect that the Japanese was a spy, reported him to the Dutch authorities, who examined him under torture. As they asked him leading questions, well knowing who constituted the principal danger to their trade in the Indies, he confessed to having joined with the English in a plot to overpower them. Others of these Japanese were then similarly examined and they similarly confessed. T h e r e u p o n the Dutch rounded up the English merchants at their headquarters in Amboyna, and at the places under its jurisdiction, and from 15 through 26 February examined them. A l l those who were tortured confessed to sharing in a plot to seize the castle, and so did some who were only threatened with torture. O n e went so far as to say that the plot had been laid on New Year's Day at their Amboyna headquarters. Four Englishmen were able to prove that they had been elsewhere on that day and were released without harm. O f the other fourteen, four were pardoned and sent 98 See I, i, 117 (p. 14 above). 99 See V, i, 124 (p. 65 above). 100 See III, iii, 80, 85 (p. 42 above). 101 Eric. Br., "Moluccas." 102 True Declaration, pp. 1-3; Answer, pp. 2-9. IMP. 13. IM See I, i, 75; II, i, 286; V, i, 146, 360 (pp. 12, 28, 66, 73 above); Tavernier, II, 14. 105 Tavernier, II, 13-14. 10« See V, i, 360 (p. 73 above); Tavernier, II, 18. 107 Quoted by Wilson, p. 134.

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to D j a k a r t a , b u t the rest w e r e decapitated o n 27 F e b r u a r y 1623, a l o n g w i t h n i n e J a p a n e s e (two h a d b e e n pardoned) a n d the P o r t u g u e s e c a p t a i n of the slaves b e l o n g i n g to the D u t c h . T h e E n g l i s h m e n w h o escaped death reported that they h a d b e e n t o r t u r e d b y fire a n d water. T h e D u t c h East I n d i a C o m p a n y r e s p o n d e d o n l y to the c h a r g e of torture by w a t e r (i.e., b y slow drowning), m a i n t a i n i n g that it was n o t h a r m f u l to the body, a n d that they h a d always used it i n the Indies. T h e c o m p a n y accused the E n g l i s h m e n of e x a g g e r a t i n g their sufferings a n d justified their o w n people's actions b y the confessions the E n g l i s h m e n h a d signed. T h e E n g l i s h East I n d i a C o m p a n y r e j e c t e d the confessions as havi n g b e e n m a d e a f t e r o r i n fear of torture a n d as b e i n g inconsistent. T h e c o m p a n y also m a i n t a i n e d that n o such p l o t c o u l d h a v e b e e n c o n c e i v e d because the E n g l i s h m e n i n A m b o y n a were so few a n d so ill s u p p l i e d w i t h w e a p o n s , c o m p a r e d w i t h the D u t c h m e n . T h e D u t c h c o m p a n y r e p l i e d that t h e plotters i n t e n d e d to w a i t u n t i l r e i n f o r c e m e n t s h a d come f r o m D j a k a r t a a n d u n t i l the D u t c h g o v e r n o r of A m b o y n a h a d l e f t o n a m i l i t a r y e x p e d i t i o n . I t is n o t surprising that E n g l i s h a n d D u t c h historians h a v e d i f f e r e d as to w h i c h side was telling m o r e of the truth. 1 0 8 A s already noted, D r y d e n took almost the w h o l e of his p l a y f r o m A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruell, and Barbarous Proceedings Against the English at Amboyna, p u b l i s h e d b y the E n g l i s h East I n d i a C o m p a n y i n 1624. 1 0 9 I t w o u l d seem that the third impression, w i t h cancel title p a g e , is w h a t L a n g b a i n e calls "Stubb's R e l a t i o n of the Dutch Cruelties to the English at Amboyna, p r i n t e d in q u a r t o Lond. 1 6 3 2 . " 1 1 0 It has also b e e n m e n t i o n e d that for t h e first song i n A c t I I I D r y d e n drew u p o n a L a t i n Epithalamium by the D u t c h p o e t Joannes Secundus. F o r the second song, h e d r e w u p o n A Sea Grammar (1627), i n l a t e r editions c a l l e d The Seamans Grammar, by J o h n Smith, the f o u n d i n g g o v e r n o r of V i r g i n i a . L a n g b a i n e traced the r a p e i n A c t I V to G i r a l d i C i n t h i o ' s Hecatommithi, V , x, b u t as D r y d e n h a d already said specifically that h e h a d n o t used C i n t h i o , a n d as O v i d ' s Art of Love a n d Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece w o u l d h a v e p r o v i d e d w h a t e v e r h e c o u l d n o t h a v e i m a g i n e d f o r himself, w e m a y b e l i e v e h i m r a t h e r than L a n g b a i n e in this respect. 1 1 1 If we accept a d a t e i n 1673 f o r the play, w e may wish to suppose that D r y d e n was inspired to p r o d u c e some of the b r a v e j o k i n g i n A c t V by a p e r f o r m a n c e h e h a d seen i n the p r e c e d i n g year at a b o o t h i n C h a r i n g Cross, where, as n o t e d a b o v e , A n t h o n y D e v o o r A n t o n i o di V o t o presented The Dutch Cruelties at Amboyna, with the Humours of the Valiant Welch-Man, k n o w n to us o n l y t h r o u g h a p l a y b i l l . 1 1 2 108 Van der Welle, pp. 55-56, gives a more thorough account of the matter. 109 STC 7451-7454. A l l quotations below are from the 1971 facsimile reprint of the first impression, which is made up from four different copies. 1 1 0 Langbaine, p. 154. 111 Idem. See The Vindication of The Duke of Guise: " T h e Sicilian Vespers I have had Plotted by me above these seven years: T h e Story of it, I found under borrow'd Names in Giraldo Cinthio; but the Rape in my Tragedy of Amboyna, was so like it, that I forbore the Writing" (Works, XIV, 343-344). Dryden refers to Tarquin, who raped Lucrece, in IV, v, 84 (p. 56 above). 112 London Stage, Part I, p. 201. See note 9 above for the possibility that Devo drew on Dryden instead.

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A few other details may have come to Dryden from his miscellaneous reading or conversation, as pointed out in the notes to lines. 113 5 W 5

It is clear that Dryden intended his Englishmen and their wives to be heroic and his play, especially in its last acts, to be a dignified and affecting tragedy, for which blank verse would have been the normal medium. He gave room in the play, as he had in Tyrannick Love and was to do in The State of Innocence, for a theological topic—in this play a passionate analysis of suicide. 114 As we have said, we know also that Dryden regarded Ysabinda's determination not long to outlive her husband as "wonderfully moving" and used the same motif in other plays, Aureng-Zebe for example. 1 1 5 And we know that he saw nothing wrong in giving way under torture, though none of his characters does so. 118 His statements in the dedication that "the Persons [are] low" and the play is "mean" completely misrepresent them. 117 Amboyna belongs to a minor genre, domestic tragedy, which has been called "one of the most vital Elizabethan types" and whose roots have been traced to the medieval morality plays. 118 In A New Tragicall Comedie of Appius and Virginia, by R. B. (1575, acted c. 1564), Virginia and her father, who murdered her to save her from Appius, are treated as members of the middle class. The Life and Death of Jacke Straw, a Notable Rebell (1593, 1594, acted c. 1591), The Lamentable and True Tragedie of M. Arden of Feversham (1592 and other editions to 1633), A Warning for Faire Women. Containing the Most Tragicall. . . Murther of Master George Sanders (1599, acted c. 1599), Robert Yarington's Two Lamentable Tragedies. The One, of the Murther of Maister Beech.... The other of a Young Child Murthered in a Wood (1601, acted c. 1594), A Yorkshire Tragedy, attributed to Shakespeare on the title page (1608, 1619, acted c. 1606), and Robert Daborne's A Christian Turn'd Turke: Or, The Tragicall Lives and Deaths of the Two Famous Pyrates, Ward and Dansiker (1612, acted 1610) are based on inciLangbaine (p. 154) lists some of the histories Dryden might have read. Colin Visser, RECTR, X V : i (May 1976), 1 - 1 1 , who accepts a date of 1673 for the play, when the King's Company was acting in what had formerly been the Duke's Company's theater, supposes that Dryden was inspired or influenced by scenery for some Davenant operas left there by the former occupants, specifically for the scenes of Ysabinda tied to a tree in Act IV and of torture in Act V (pp. 54, 71 above). 114 See Works, X , 131-134, and pp. 54-56 and 123-126 above. u s See n. 97 and pp. 246-247 above. 116 See Tyrannick Love, IV, i, 564, and n (Works, X , 164, 428). 1 1 7 See pp. 5, 6 above. T h e characters come from the same social class and have the same occupations as those in Othello, which is not to say that the plays are of equal merit. See also n. 119. 1 1 8 Albert C. Baugh, A Literary History of England (1948), p. 468; Henry Hitch Adams, English Domestic or, Homiletic Tragedy (1943), pp. viii-ix. See also Andrew Clark, Domestic Drama: A Survey of the Origins, Antecedents and Nature of the Domestic Play in England (1975), which treats comedies and tragicomedies as well as tragedies.

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dents in which the tragic figures came from the middle or the lower class. Other tragedies in which the protagonists came f r o m the middle class include Marlowe's The Tragicall History of D. Faustus (1604, acted 1601) and Shakespeare's Othello (1622, acted c. 1604), 119 and if John Marston's A n t o n i o may be counted a member of that class, his father having lost his dukedom, then Antonio's Revenge (1602). T h o m a s H e y w o o d contributed to the genre The First and Second Partes of King Edward the Fourth (1599 and other editions to 1626, acted c. 1592-1599), which tells the story of J a n e Shore, and A Woman Kilde with Kindnesse (1607, 1617, acted 1603). J o h n Ford contributed 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1633, acted c. 1627). Ford, W i l l i a m R o w l e y , and T h o m a s Dekker joined in The Witch of Edmonton (1658, acted 1621), and Ford, Rowley, Dekker, and John Webster collaborated in a lost play, The Late Murder in Whitechapel (1624). T o these may be added William Sampson's The Vow Breaker. Or, the Faire Maide of Clifton (1636, acted c. 1625), a n d T h o m a s Middleton's The Changeling (1653, 1658), written with Rowley, and Women beware Women (1657, acted c. 1621). W e see that no plays in the genre were written after about 1627, the year of Middleton's death, but the fact that some were printed later shows a continuing interest. A f t e r the Interregnum, Pepys saw Othello on 11 October 1660, The Changeling on 23 February 1661, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore on 9 September 1661, and Dr. Faustus on 26 May 1662. 120 Othello, of course, went immediately into the repertory. Dr. Faustus had an edition come out in 1663, and The Changeling was performed on 30 N o v e m b e r 1668. 121 Amboyna was the first play in the genre to be written after 1627. Following Amboyna in 1672 came recorded performances of Dr. Faustus on 24 and 28 September 1675, 1 2 2 Otway's The Orphan; or, The Unhappy Marriage (1680 and other editions to 1696), Southerne's The Disappointment; or, The Mother in Fashion (1684), and R o b e r t Gould's The Rival Sisters; or, The Violence of Love (1696, acted 1695). T h e s e plays vary widely in subject matter, and those set in foreign parts challenge us to decide whether the characters truly belong to the middle class, which included, be it remembered, knights and gentlemen, 1 2 3 but Amboyna, besides having a tragic conclusion and middleclass characters, the marks of the genre, represents an actual event, like the earlier murder and pirate dramas. 1 2 4

1 1 9 Shakespeare mutes the facts that Venice was a trading republic much smaller than England, that its senators were merchants, and that its military employees were at the service of its commerce. 120 London Stage, Part I, pp. 18, 25, 39, 51. 121 Ibid., p. j 48. 122 Ibid., p. 239. 1 2 3 Strype notes that gentlemen did not lose that status when they became apprentices (Bk. V, p. 332). 124 Adams, English Domestic . . . Tragedy, p. viii, says the hero in domestic tragedy "is always someone below the ranks of the nobility." With Dryden's statement that the characters in Amboyna are "low" (p. 5 above) compare his definition of comedy as "a representation of Humane Life, in inferiour persons" in A Parallel Betwixt Painting and Poetry (Works, XX, 55) and the title of his comedy Sir Martin Mar-All.

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Returning to Dryden's own estimate of the play, we note that, like many another person, he found his efforts fall short of his expectations on the one hand, and on the other he no sooner finished a complex task than he could see how it could have been done better. He differed from most people, however, first, in being able to write down these feelings of dissatisfaction, and second, in publishing what he had written, which he did repeatedly. 1 2 5 In the present instance he allowed himself to be carried away also by a feeling current in his age and in the next two ages, when, says Goldsmith in his Essay On the Theatre, one might find such objections as the following to plays like Amboyna: "As the hero is but a tradesman, it is indifferent to me whether he be turned out of his counting-house on Fish Street Hill, since he will still have enough left to open shop in St. Giles's." Or, to adopt the language of Dryden's dedication, "they . . . continue their Stations o n the T h e a t e r of Business: . . . change with the Scene, and shift the Vizard for another part." 1 2 6 B u t objections of this sort with respect to Amboyna are, to use Goldsmith's words again, "ill grounded," and Dryden would have done more service to the cause of fortitude under injustice and the defense of women if he had let the play speak for itself. Instead, critics have been too prone to take Dryden at his word. In fact, the play arouses pity and terror without any dilution or dispersion of its emotional effect. A l l its humor is black. Its semihistorical elements of piracy and wholly imagined elements of infidelity and rape are also intensifying metaphors for the events that actually occurred at Amboyna and that are directly represented. Dryden displays great sensitivity to physical and mental sufferings and great power in expressing them. T h e man and the poet stand forth in full humanity, and call upon us to give up our indifference to sorrowful events that still take place around us.

TITLE PAGE Manet alta mente repostum. Aeneid, I, 26, "deep in [our] heart lie stored." In Virgil, Juno is " m i n d f u l of the old war which erstwhile she had fought at T r o y for her beloved Argos [i.e., Greece]—not yet, too, had the cause of her wrath and her bitter sorrows faded from her mind: deep in her heart lie stored the judgment of Paris and her slighted beauty's wrong, her hatred of the [Trojan] race and the honours paid to ravished Ganymede [the most beautiful of all youths, whom Jove carried off to be his lover and cupbearer]" (Loeb). W h i l e Dryden certainly means by his epigraph that the English have never forgotten the atrocity at Amboyna, it is also possible that the rapes of H e l e n and Ganymede may have had some connection in his mind with the rape of Ysabinda in Act IV. 125 E.g., in dedication o£ The State of Innocence and in The Authors Apology, pp. 85, 86 above. There is some possibility that Dryden was following in a literary tradition as old as Catullus's self-depreciation (XLJX, 5), which he quoted in dedication of The Kind Keeper (Works, XIV, 3). 126 See p. 5 above.

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DEDICATION

P. 3 Thomas Clifford, a year older than Dryden, was graduated from Oxford (Exeter College) in 1650 and became a barrister in the Middle Temple. A t the restoration he was elected MP for Totnes, in his native Devon, a position he held until 1672. Pepys says that Clifford's valiant service at sea in the Second Dutch War made him a favorite at court, but it was for his financial abilities that he was rewarded with the offices of comptroller and then treasurer of the household (1666-1672). In 1667-1672 he was also one of the commissioners of the Treasury. He never reconciled himself to peace with the Dutch, intriguing against the treaty of 1667 and working in the French interest. As the Third Dutch War approached, he proposed financing it by suspending all payments from the Treasury that were not related to the armed services. T h e policy was put into effect in January 1672, in February he was rewarded with the post of Lord High Treasurer, and in April he was made a baron. As we said above, he and the Earl of Arlington were the only advisers of the king who were privy to the secret Treaty of Dover in 1670. With the passage of the Test Act in March 1673, which Clifford had violently opposed but without disclosing that he had become a Catholic, he felt it incumbent upon him to retire from government in June, and such were his feelings in retirement that he committed suicide in August. His death came before publication of the play, but Dryden chose to make no reference to it. Another of his patrons, the fourth Earl of Salisbury, who like Dryden became a Catholic in 1685, died before publication of Love Triumphant, which Dryden had dedicated to him, and once again Dryden let the dedication stand. Winn (p. 473) speculates that Dryden was ashamed to withdraw the dedication or had already been paid for it. T h e same may be true of Amboyna. Dryden dedicated his translation of Virgil's Pastorals to Clifford's son. For more information about the Cliffords see Works, VI, 889-891; XI, 521-522. 3:2-5 After . . . Goodness. When Dryden married in 1663 the Crown was in debt to his father-in-law, and in 1666 the king stipulated that payment was to be made first to Dryden's wife and then to her father (Winn, pp. 525526). T h e initial payment came in 1667, for which Dryden thanked Sir Robert Long, one of the lesser treasury officials, for his help in getting a higher-up to act (Winn, p. 527; Ward, Letters, pp. 6-7). Payments continued in 1667, the year Clifford joined the Treasury, and in 1668 Dryden began to draw his salary as poet laureate, joined by an additional salary as historiographer royal in 1670 (Winn, p. 528). As treasury payments were not exactly automatic, Dryden may have owed something to Clifford's friendship by 1667, if not before. Winn also notes (p. 203) that in 1669 Clifford and Elizabeth Dryden's father and brother were guests at a dinner given by Arlington, who was one of the privy council. Winn supposes, no doubt correctly, that this was a political dinner, and we may suppose that it was followed or even preceded by other "favors" from Clifford. Dryden had recently received his full salary during a time of government retrenchment (see headnote, p. 257 above), for which he once again had Clifford to thank. 3:7-8 bear a Face of. Are commonly treated as (OED, face, sense 8 of the noun).

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3:20-21 mute Wonder. On none of the occasions when the Jews received the Law of Moses (Exod. 20 = Deut. 4; Exod. 24, 34; Deut. 31, Josh. 8; 2 Kings 23 = 2 Chron. 34; Neh. 8) are they said to have remained silent. Dryden or someone he heard or read may have inferred silence from the fact that the biblical authors are sometimes silent on the matter (e.g., Exod. 20). 3:26 so Universal. See the next paragraph. 4:1-2 Elements. The moon and the stars (OED, senses 10 and 11 of the noun). 4:3 much in. The emendation makes the phrasing parallel to "more in" in 1. 4, but may be incorrect. 4:5-13 If any . . . sufficient. "We may hear the voice of a man who had probably spent many a fruitless morning at the Treasury during the past decade, first about his wife's dowry, then about his own loans and pensions, and who knew that his brother-in-law was increasing his already substantial fortune by receiving 'bribfes] for Expedition' " (Winn, p. 241). "In the heartfelt praise heaped on Clifford [here and below] . . . Dryden seems to be looking back on a departed Golden Age" (McFadden, p. 128). 4:19 abroad. At sea in the Second Dutch War. The only time a fleet was abroad in the sense of being in another country was when Sir Robert Holmes sailed into the Waldensee and burned the town of West-Terschelling in August 1666. "Not a very glorious operation," says Boxer (p. 36), "as it was ungarrisoned and its inhabitants were pacifist Mennonites." Dryden had represented the event otherwise in Annus Mirabilis, 11. 813-832 (Works, I, 90-9 1 )4:23-33 Fortune may . .. Tryal. Winn (p. 241) takes these lines to express a genuine feeling, saying Dryden's decision to remain a Catholic after 1689 "owed much to the example of Clifford." 5:2 Dioclesian, and Charles the Fifth. Diocletian (245-313) abdicated in 305 and retired to his native place, Salonae, now Solin, in Croatia, where he cultivated his garden; Charles V (1500-1558) abdicated formally in the year of his death but had retired the year before to a small house in Yuste in southwestern Spain, where he too tended his garden. Dryden conveniently forgot Diocletian's persecution of Christians and Charles's persecution of heretics, among whom he included Protestants. Charles's policies in the Netherlands led ten years after his death to the seventy-year struggle for Dutch independence described in the headnote (pp. 258-261 above). Summers cites Sextus Aurelianus Victor's Epitome de Caesaribus; see also W. Stirling-Maxwell, The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V (1852), and Works, XIV, 563. 5:6 Seneca. As Nero's adviser, the philosopher Seneca (d. 65) amassed an enormous fortune, but sometime after 60, sensing that both his advice and his wealth had become unpleasing to the emperor, he asked to be allowed to retire and offered to turn over his money. Nero refused the money, but he later demanded Seneca's life for his part in Piso's revolt. The story of Seneca's stoic and painful death, initiated but not completed by his own hand, is told by Tacitus (Annals, XV, 60-64). Many of Dryden's readers would have recognized a parallel, intended or not, between Seneca's death and Clifford's. 5 : 1 1 - 1 3 You .. . King. See biographical sketch above.

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5:26 Historian said of a Roman Emperour. As Summers notes (III, 561), the historian is Tacitus in his Histories (II, 47), the e m p e r o r is Otho, a n d Tacitus in fact quotes Otho. Dryden's "said of" adjusts the Latin to his panegyric purposes. His quotation, which differs slightly f r o m the original, means "Many have held the principiate longer; no o n e has more bravely relinquished it." 5:30-32 contriv'd and written . . . Scenes. See h e a d n o t e (p. 257 above). 6:2-3 meanness. See h e a d n o t e (pp. 274, 276 above).

PROLOGUE Lines 1-24 and 29-30, followed by lines 5-22 of the epilogue were published in Poems on Affairs of State, I I I (1704), 35-36, as Satyr upon the Dutch. Written by Mr. Dryden in the Year 1662. Samuel Derrick knew the source of the lines b u t supposed the date given was correct a n d that Dryden m a d e prologue a n d epilogue by dividing and e x p a n d i n g an earlier poem (see Dryden's Miscellaneous Works [1760], I, xiv). From Christie (p. 419) to the present, opinion inclines rather to see the Satyr as a bookseller's f r a u d (or mistake) a n d we have supposed as much in our h e a d n o t e (p. 258 above), b u t so that readers may decide we give the substantive differences here. T h e lemmas are f r o m the u n e m e n d e d text of Q i . Prologue. 2 Knave . . . gripes] Knaves . . . gripe POAS. 12 loves him . . . does] love them . . . do POAS. 15 you] us POAS. 25-28 Omitted by POAS. 29 View then . . . Falshoods, Rapine] T h i n k o n . . . R a p i n e , Falshood POAS. 30 think] that POAS. Epilogue. 1-4 Omitted by POAS. 6 Bore] Boar POAS. 20 So we . . . your] Let u s . . . our POAS. T h e omissions a n d other changes remove the evidence that the words were spoken in the theater. Alternatively, the additions a n d other changes fit the words to the theater. Some of the readings in POAS are to be f o u n d in manuscripts of the prologue a n d epilogue (see textual notes below). 1 Scriv'ners. A scrivener in this sense was also called a money scrivener. H e "received money to place out at interest, a n d . . . supplied those who wanted to raise money o n security" (Sir T h o m a s E. Tomlins, [Giles] Jacob's Law-dictionary [1st ed., 1729] greatly enlarged and improved [1797], q u o t e d in OED, with first citation u n d e r this meaning in 1607). 4 Keeper. T h e gamekeeper, apparently, who has been instructed not to accept a tip u p o n delivery of the present. 5-8, 1 5 - 1 8 W i n n (p. 240) says that in these lines a n d 11. 19-23 of the epilogue Dryden "specifically refutes the arguments of those reluctant to attack the Dutch on the grounds of a common religion. . . . [The] argument . . . parallels the speech on behalf of the government's policy delivered at the o p e n i n g of Parliament by Shaftesbury. . . . Echoing Cato's speech [should b e speeches] to the R o m a n Senate on the Punic Wars, Shaftesbury used the phrase 'Delenda est C a r t h a g o . ' " (For the speech, W i n n ' s footnote cites Haley, pp. 316-317.) 7 - 1 0 [These Englishmen] rather than make a war with those who are of

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the same religion will allow the Dutch to have all, control of the Strait of Gibraltar, the West African trade, a n d the herring fishery, nay, to keep friendship will allow the Dutch to take you over completely. 7-8 rather then . . . Religion are. T h i s had been Cromwell's feeling (see h e a d n o t e a n d I, i, 182-183, p p . 261, 16 above). 9 The Streights, the Guiney Trade, the Herrings too. Dutch a n d English fleets trading to Smyrna h a d to pass through the Strait of Gibraltar. Guinea was the "European n a m e of a portion of the West Coast of Africa, extending f r o m Sierra Leone to Benin," that is, the south coast just above the equator (OED, which cites the present passage u n d e r " G u i n e a trade"). For the AngloD u t c h struggles over these places a n d the herring fishery see h e a d n o t e (pp. 261-262 above). 10 keep friendship. Christie reads "preserve t h e m " without citing his reason. 10 pickle. Alluding to pickled (i.e., salted) h e r r i n g (see h e a d n o t e a n d II, i, 397» PP- 261, 31 above). 18 no more Religion. See II, i, 385-388 a n d notes thereto (pp. 31 above, 297 below), a n d The Hind and the Panther (1687), II, 567: "Religion is the least of all our [English] trade" {Works, III, 156). I n II, 560-563, of the Hind Dryden wrote, " T h e draughts of Dungeons, a n d the stench of stews . . . W e disembogue on some far Indian coast: Thieves, Pandars, Palliards," somewhat overstating the evidence in True Relation, the source of his play, as to the character of the English at Amboyna a n d completely contradicting the picture of English heroism, male a n d female, he h a d painted in his fifth act. O n the other hand, we may note that in I, i, 182-183 (p. 16 above) the Dutch governor speaks to Towerson of " T h e common ties of o u r Religion" a n d in 11. 2 1 2 - 2 1 3 (p. 17 above) says, " I have receiv'd the Sacrament, never to be false-hearted" to Towerson, b u t in the event ignores those common ties a n d proves indeed to be false-hearted. T h e prologue may be said then to alert our attention to his acts of irreligion. 19 Interest's the God. See The Hind and the Panther, II, 569: "For they o n gain, their onely God, rely" (Works, III, 156). Such charges h a d been m a d e for years. See, e.g., The Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson, ed. M. O p p e n h e i m , Vol. V (Publications of the Navy Records Society, Vol. XLVII, 1914), p p . 303-318; also I, i, 6, 89-90, a n d II, i, 384, 386 (pp. 10, 13, 31 above). 19, 22 State . . . States. T h e Dutch form of government (see headnote, p. 259 above). 27 Their Pictures and Inscriptions well we know. T h e s e were celebrations by the Dutch of what they regarded as their victory in the war of 1665-1667. " J u d g i n g f r o m what is extant in the Dutch museums of prints a n d numismatic collections, this accusation seems rather exaggerated. O n e or two engravings and only one medal in the period between 1667 and 1672 may b e called abusive" (van der Welle, p. 137). Van der Welle (pp. 137-138) gives a full account. O n e of the pictures illustrated the Dutch belief that the fire of L o n d o n was God's p u n i s h m e n t for "Holmes's bonfire" (see note to 4:19, p. 278 above); it suggested also that the king was a b o u t to lose his crown. A n o t h e r h a d been reproduced by H e n r y Stubbs in his A Further Justification of the Present War Against the United Netherlands (1673, b u t advertised in the Term Catalogue of 21 November 1672, a year before Amboyna was ad-

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vertised there), facing p. 134 (missing in some copies). T h e English master of the mint showed Charles II a medal the States General had commissioned to commemorate the Treaty of Breda in 1667. It bore the words "Procul hinc mala bestia regnis," which might be translated "far hence be the evil beast of the kingdoms [of England, Scotland and Ireland]" instead of "from the provinces [of the Netherlands]," and thus to reflect on the king. If Dryden's audience had not seen the pictures and medals, they had heard about them because the king had mentioned them in his declaration of war: "there being scarce a T o w n within their Territories that is not filled with abusive Pictures, and false Historical Medals and Pillars; some of which have been exposed to the publick view by command of the States themselves" (His Majesties Declaration against the States Generall [1671/2], p. 6). Also, as Kinsley notes (IV, 1858, citing English Historical Documents 16601J14, ed. Andrew Browning [1953], p. 854), Shaftesbury brought up the matter of the "pictures and medals" again in a speech in the Commons on 5 February 1673. T h e States General had long since explained that the Latin inscription on the medal did not refer to Charles but to "war, envy, and discord" and had ordered the dies destroyed, compensating the engraver for his resulting loss of income. In any event, Charles would have found some pretext, as he was deferring to Louis's wishes and had in fact ordered an attack on the Dutch Smyrna fleet as it passed in convoy up the Channel before he declared war (see headnote, p. 262 above). For a reproduction and discussion of the "mala bestia" medal see Anne Barbeau Gardiner, " T h e Medal T h a t Provoked a War: Charles II's Lasting Indignation over Adolfzoon's Breda Medal," The Medal, no. 17 (1990), pp. 10-15. Summers (III, 564) quotes from William Sanderson's History a statement that when Robert Greenbury painted the tortures at Amboyna, the government would not allow the picture to be reproduced because it might arouse the people against a treaty then being made, and that when it was shown to Towerson's wife it caused her to faint. T h e problem here is that True Relation has a picture of the tortures and executions (facing p. 30 in the 1971 facsimile). Van der Welle shows that Sanderson is also unreliable about the later life of the governor of Amboyna (p. 136). 28 one Medal. I.e., the present play. 31-32 Dryden here repeats the disclaimer in the dedication (p. 5 above); see also headnote (pp. 257, 274, 276 above). 33 lest. Least. For the reverse spelling see IV, v, 229 (p. 61 above). 33-34 in Dutchmen . . . Honesty. As Summers notes (III, 562), the reference is to the proverb, "Dull as a Dutchman" (Tilley D654, first citation 1639). See headnote (pp. 266-267 above).

PERSONS

REPRESENTED

Gabriel Towerson, (John) Beamont (Beomont), (Edward) Collins, (Augustine) Perez, Harman Senior (Harman van Speult), and the Fiscal (Isaak de Brune) were real people. Their full names appear in True Relation (1624), in Answer, issued as part of True Relation, and in Acts, issued as part of Remonstrance (1632).

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Harman Junior describes Towerson as "part Captain, and part Merchant" (II, i, 22, p. 20 above, and see n, p. 292 below). In True Relation, where he is called either Master (i.e., Mister) or Captain Towerson, his title is given as agent of the English East India Company (pp. 2, 28). As such, he headed the English "factory" (trading post) at Amboyna and supervised four "underfactories" on that island and in the neighboring part of the island of Ceram. Hence one of the Dutchmen calls him "their General" (V, i, 50-51, p. 63 above). Beamont also calls him "General of the Voyage" (I, i, 109, p. 13 above), that is, he was not himself the skipper of the vessel in which he arrived but had final authority as to its course. Remonstrance (p. 5) calls the historical Towerson a "Cape Merchant," defined in Smith's Sea-mans Grammar (1653 ed., p. 34) as a purser: " T h e Cape-Merchant or Purser hath the charge of all the Carragasoune or merchandize, and doth keep an account of all that is received, or delivered." Beamont represents the English who were pardoned by the Dutch after they had confessed; Collins represents those who were executed. T h e historical Collins was also pardoned. T h e historical Perez was Portuguese, born in the province of Bengal in India. T h e nature of his commission, which is historically correct, is made clear at II, i, 181 (p. 25 above), where the Fiscal calls him the "Captain, who commands our Slaves" (see True Declaration, pp. 8, 11; Answer, p. 22). Dryden also makes Perez Towerson's lieutenant (III, i, 3, p. 32 above) in a sea fight with the Turks, where he twice cleared the decks of boarders (III, i, 4). On Amboyna he has Japanese soldiers under his command (V, i, 29, p. 62 above) and a lieutenant of his own (IV, i, 2+ s.d., and 1. 20, p. 45 above). As regards his having been Towerson's lieutenant in a sea battle, The Seamans Grammar (1653 ed., pp. 36-37) says " T h e Lieutenant is to associate the Captaine, and in his absence to execute his place, he is to see the Marshall and Corporall do their duties, and assist them in instructing the souldiers, and in a fight the forecastle is his place to make good, as the Captain doth the halfe decke, and the Quarter-Masters, or Masters Mate the midships, and in a States man of war, he is allowed as necessary as a Lieutenant on shore." According to True Relation Perez "had, by the perswasion of the Dutch Gouernour, taken [a wife] in that countrey [i.e., Amboyna]" (p. 28); Acts (p. 35) says she was one of the slaves, given to him by the Dutch to engage his loyalty and repossessed by them after his death. Portugal having been part of Spain from 1580 to 1640, Dryden found it reasonable, and useful for his plot, to give Perez what were conventionally regarded as Spanish characteristics; he also found it useful for propaganda purposes to make him a cuckold whose wife would listen to her lovers deride the Spaniards, with whom England was also at war in 1673 (see note to I, i, 53, pp. 286-287 below). True Relation says " T h e Gouernor and Fiscall went to worke with the prisoners" (p. 6) on Saturday, 15 February, and that after Beomont was prepared for torture, "the Gouernor bad loose him, hee would spare him a day or two, because hee was an old man" (p. 7). Mohun, who created the part of Beamont, was about fifteen years older than Dryden, that is, he was in his late fifties. True Relation also indicates that the Fiscal did the questioning and that he asked leading questions: "they soone made [Abel Price, the first English-

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m a n to be tortured] confesse what euer they asked h i m " (p. 5); "[Robert Browne] confessed all in order as the Fiscall asked h i m " (p. 8); " o n e that stood by, said to the Fiscall, Do not tell [Collins] what he should say, b u t let h i m speake of himselfe" (p. 9). Dryden could then with reason make his Fiscal the instigator of the plot against the English a n d the governor his willing accomplice. " W h e n they saw [John Clarke] could of himselfe make n o handsome confession, then they ledde h i m along with questions of particular circumstances, by themselues framed" (p. 11). T h e Answer says that "excepting the G o u e r n o u r himselfe, who is well stept in yeares, of the rest of the Councell there, as well the Fiscall as others, there was scarce anie that had haire on their faces" (p. 31). Summers (III, 563) notes that Wintersel, who created the part of the Fiscal, was a n older m a n . T h e Fiscal says to H a r m a n Junior, "you young M e n are so violently h o t " (II, i, 1 3 2 - 1 3 3 , p. 23 above), replies to his desire to duel with Towerson, "I, a right young Man's bravery" (1. 167, p. 24 above), a n d remarks in soliloquy that the authorities will need "stronger reasons then a young Man's Passion" to excuse killing the Englishman (11. 176-177). I n making his Fiscal "an ignorant Advocate in Rotterdam" (I, i, 152, p. 15 above), Dryden decided not to take advantage of a passage in Answer (p. 30) where "Nootwendich discourse, printed a n n . 1622. vnder the n a m e of Ymant van Waarm o n d " is reported as having said that the Dutch "prefer such to be Fiscals there [in the "Indies"], as neuer saw studie nor law." As van der Welle points out, a "fiskaal" was a public prosecutor (p. 136, citing Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal). Van H e r r i n g gets his name f r o m Anglo-Dutch quarrels over the h e r r i n g fishery, a matter not relevant to Amboyna b u t a contributing a n d much more important cause of the Dutch wars a n d therefore introduced at more length in Act I I (see headnote, p. 261 above). Summers points out (III, 563) that Ysabinda gets her n a m e f r o m that of a Japanese soldier, T s a b i n d a ( T r u e Relation, p. 29). H e r e called a n " I n d i a n Lady," we find later that she is more precisely a n Amboyner (I, i, 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 ; IV, iv, 54-55, p p . 14, 52 above). T h e scene is the Dutch castle at Amboyna in 1623. I, i Opening stage direction. T h e castle is described in detail in True Relation a n d so could have been represented realistically in the scenery: "[It] is verie strong, hauing foure Points or Bulwarkes with their Curtaines, a n d v p o n each of these Points sixe great peeces of O r d n a n c e mounted, most of t h e m of brasse. T h e one side of this Castle is washed by the Sea, a n d the other is diuided f r o m the land with a Ditch of foure or fiue f a t h o m e broad, very deepe, a n d euer filled with the Sea. . . . T h e r e lye also in the roade (for the most part) diuerse good Ships of the Hollanders, aswell for the guard of the place by Sea, as for the occasions of traffique" (p. 3). 3 Holland. T h r o u g h o u t the whole history of the seven U n i t e d Provinces (see II, i, 377, p. 31 above, a n d n., p. 297 below) H o l l a n d was p r e d o m i n a n t a n d so gave its n a m e to the entire country. Its m a j o r towns were Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft, Dordrecht, a n d Leyden, a n d it included the nation's cap-

284

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ital, T h e Hague. It is now divided into North Holland and South Holland. 7-9 While the capitalization of " T h e " may simply mark the beginning of a quotation, it seems likely that it is a carryover from Dryden's manuscript, in which the speech was set in verse: Harm. I wonder much my Letters then, Gave me so short accounts; they only said, The Orange Party was grown strong again, Since Barnevelt had suffer'd. 8 Orange Party. Supporters of the house of Orange-Nassau. "In the early sixteenth century . . . the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V rewarded Philibert, Prince of Orange, a small principality in the South of France, with extensive possessions in the Low Countries. Philibert died without issue, and his possessions and titles came ultimately to the House of Nassau in Germany, into which his sister had married" (Rogers, pp. 1-2). T h e princes of Orange were normally chosen as the nation's chief executive officers, stadholders of the United Provinces, but their policies were not always to the liking of the States party or Republicans, made up of the burgher elites. Neither the Orange nor the States party represented the common people, but the latter was likely to side with the princes. As the headnote explains (p. 260 above), a civil war in 1618 had resulted in the triumph of Prince Maurice. 9 Barnevelt. Johann van Olden Barnevelt, a leader of the States party, was executed in 1619 for treason and heresy. Dryden knew of him from some account of Dutch history, such as Henry Stubbs's A Further Justification of the Present War, " T o the Reader," pp. [viii-xiv], 10 the price of Pepper. As remarked in the headnote (p. 272 above), the Dutch in Amboyna would not have been trading in pepper. Dryden knew, however, that the Dutch, when they seized control of the pepper trade from the Portuguese, raised the price of pepper in Europe from 3 to 8 shillings per pound (Enc. Br., "East India Company"). 13 Factories. Trading stations, headed by "factors." On the islands of Amboyna and Ceram, "the English [East India] Companie . . . had planted fiue seuerall Factories: the head and Rendevouz of all, at the town of Amboyna; and therein first, Master George Muschamp, and afterward Master Gabriel Towerson, their Agents, with directions ouer the smaller Factories at Hitto and Larica vpon the same Island, and at Loho and Cambello, vpon a [western] point of their neighbouring Island of Seran" (True Relation, p. 2). At Amboyna the English lived "not in the Castle, but vnder protection thereof, in a house of their own in the town" (p. 3); at Cambello and Loho they shared quarters with their Dutch opposites (Answer, p. g). 14 Plantations. Both Dutch and English grew as well as traded for spices. "After the treaty [of 1619] came vnto the Indies, the Hollanders forbare publishing thereof in the Hands of Banda, vntill they had taken Polaroon [from the English], But, knowing that it must be restored again, according to the treaty, they first . . . transplant the Nutmeg trees, plucking them vp by the roots, and carrying them into their owne Hands of Nera and of Poloway, there to bee planted for themselues" (Answer, p. 28). True Relation says the English lost the island of Pulo Lantore at that time and describes how they and their goods suffered there at the hands of the Dutch ("To the Reader," pp. [ii-iii]). After the Treaty of Westminster, which ended the First Dutch

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War, an Anglo-Dutch commission awarded Pularum to the English East India Company as partial payment for what the Dutch East India Company owed them, but the Dutch company refused to hand it over. T h e island was given to the Dutch by the Treaty of Breda, which ended the Second Dutch War, and again by the Treaty of Westminster, which ended the third war (Boxer, pp. 20, 62). Dryden included the history of Pularum and Pulo Lantore in III, iii, 7 9 - 8 5 (p. 4 2 above). 14 of Seran. On Ceram, the next island to the north. For Dryden's spelling see note to 1. 13. 17 torture. A perhaps unintended ironic foreshadowing. 21 Pyrats. T h e Malabar and Malay pirates were the principal dangers in the East Indies. Turkish pirates might be encountered in the Arabian Sea (see III, i, 3-4, p. 32 above). 23 famish'd. Another irony; we see at once that Harman is fat. 2 4 a true Dutchman. A major theme in the play (see I, i, 8 5 ; II, i, 3 3 5 - 3 3 6 ; IV, iv, 4 9 - 5 2 , pp. 1 3 , 3 0 , 5 2 above). It is negatively put in III, ii, 6 0 - 6 1 (p. 3 5 above). 25 fat. William Cartwright, who created the role of Harman, was fat, but Dutch fatness is insisted on throughout the play and into the epilogue (1. 16, p. 77 above). 26 blown. Worked, made to puff. 26 pair. As in "a pair of scissors" (OED). T h e bellows used by a blacksmith to blow his furnace to a high heat would be larger than the household utensil. One model had about the dimensions of a chair: four feet supported the bellows at chair-seat level; above the bellows to about chair-back height was a system of levers for working it and an upward extension of the nozzle to reach the forge. 28-31 You may remember . . . fourscore thousand. True Relation mentions only "the Amnesty of the Treaty of the yeare 1619" ( " T o the Reader," p. [ii]), without giving exact figures, but later says that if things continue as before "the maine stock and estate of the Company must needs abate and decay by some hundred thousands of pounds yeerly" (p. [viii]). Dryden tends to have real amounts in mind in passages of this kind, so he may have had a source for the precise figures here. 29 English East-India Company. Queen Elizabeth chartered this company on 31 December 1600. 31 tane up. Patched up (OED, sense 90U of the verb, citing Pepys's Diary, 24 October 1666, for the specific meaning). 3 2 - 3 3 throw my Cap into the Sea. Victoria Hayne called our attention to a passage in Chapman's, Jonson's and Marston's Eastward Ho, IV, ii, 8-9, "hurl away a brown dozen of Monmouth caps or so, in sea ceremony to your bon voyage" (The Plays of George Chapman, ed. Thomas M. Parrott [ 1 9 6 1 ] , II, 5 1 0 - 5 1 1 ) ; and to a historical event of a similar nature: when Sir Walter Raleigh, who had coordinated the attack on Cadiz ( 1 5 9 6 ) by both sea and land, brought the news to the Earl of Essex, "calling out of my boat upon him, Entramos; he cast his hat into the Sea for joy" (letter in Sir Walter Raleigh, Selections, ed. Grace Eleanor Hadow [ 1 9 1 7 ] , p. 1 6 8 ) . As noted above, one side of the castle at Amboyna was washed by the sea, and was presumably so represented on the stage.

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Commentary

33 my Gold Chain. Presumably Harman's badge of office as governor, similar to a lord mayor's chain of esses (OED, chain). Later we find a Dutch captain wearing a chain (III, iii, 147, p. 44 above). A medal reproduced in Boxer (p. 21) clearly shows the great Dutch admiral M. A. de Ruyter wearing a chain of office. 41 Skellum. Scoundrelly (OED; this passage is the only one cited for the adjective). It was a Dutch word that had become an English one. T h e first citation in OED for the noun is from Ben Jonson's introductory verses to Thomas Coryate's Crudities ( i 6 u ) , where we read of "a Dutch Skelum." We cannot therefore be sure that Dryden's use of it reflects a knowledge of Dutch. 42 here in Pericranio. Tapping his head. 43-44 cut all their Throats, and seize all their Effects within this Island. Ironic; the Fiscal's plot is what the Dutch accused the English of hatching. 44 compound. Settle differences [to one's advantage] (OED); see "composition" in 1. 62. 46-50 The capitalization of "Notoriously" indicates that the speech was in verse in Dryden's manuscript: Van Her. Seizing their Factories, I like well enough, It has some Savour i n ' t , But for this whorson cutting of Throats, it goes A little against the grain, because 'tis so Notoriously known in Christendom, That they have preserv'd ours from being cut By the Spaniards. 48-50 'tis so . . . Spaniards. "A favourite theme of English pamphleteers was the alleged ingratitude of the Dutch for all the help which the English had given them during their struggle for independence" (Rogers, p. 11). They had aided the Dutch against the Spanish not only in Holland but throughout the world; e.g., "The English had, by agreement of the [AngloDutch] Councell of defense [at Djakarta], two yeers together maintained a Fleet of fiue tall & warlike ships, to ioine with the like strength of the Hollanders, for the action of the Manilliaes [the Philippines], . . . Likewise, by agreement of the Councell of defense of both Nations, there was another Fleet of ten shippes set forth at the equall charge of the English and Dutch, for the coast of Mallabar, to secure the trade in that part" (Answer, pp. 5-6). See 11. 235-238 and I I I , iii, 60-62 (pp. 17, 41 above).

51 sterts. "Start" is the "supposed Dutch term of contempt for an Englishman" (OED, start); the only citations in OED are from this play, here and at V, i, 115 (p. 65 above); it also occurs in the last line of the play, as a kind of final insult (p. 76 above). Under the circumstances it seems hardly necessary to attempt an etymology, but OED says it is perhaps of Dutch or West Flemish origin, and if from Dutch, in which staart means "tail," then perhaps "in allusion to the old accusation that Englishmen had tails." 52 Proverb. Tilley T109, "Save a thief from the gallows and he will cut your throat" (first citation 1484). Summers (III, 565) gives a slightly different version. 53 Rebels. Against Spain. At the time imagined in the play the Dutch

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had not yet won their independence (see headnote, p. 261 above). Their rebelliousness is another major theme in the play; see II, i, 185 ("his own Masters Rebels"); IV, iv, 50 ("a Race that are born Rebels"); V, i, 167-168 ("cast off the Yoke of their lawful Sovereign"), goo ("your Children have [the spirit] of Rebellion"), and 312-313 ("their Rebellion; when they Rebell'd") (pp. 25, 52, 66, 68, 71). Any stick to beat a dog. At the time the play was produced, the Dutch had made Spain their major trading partner (Boxer, p. 20) and had induced it to join them in the war then going on (which the French had induced the English to begin and then joined them in). T h e Spanish fought on the Dutch side on land and exerted diplomatic pressure on the English to make peace (Boxer, pp. 51, 59). 60 they were first discoverers of this Isle. In fact, the first Europeans to explore the Moluccas were under the command of the Portuguese Antonio d'Abreu, who touched at Amboyna in 1511 (fine. Br.). In 1538 the Portuguese built a fort on Amboyna. In 1600 the Dutch built a small fort there, and in 1605 their newly chartered East India Company attacked the Portuguese fort and took it (van der Welle, pp. 48-49). T h e English set up a trading post there only in 1615 (Rogers, p. 9). Dryden may have got his information from John Darell's True and Compendious Narration (1665), p. 3, cited by Summers (III, 570) with reference to Poleroon in III, iii, 85 (p. 42 above). 62-65 True Relation begins: "After the fruitlesse issue of two seuerall Treaties: the first An. 1613. in London; and the other Ann. 1615. at the Hage in Holland, touching the differences betweene the English and Dutch in the East-Indies, at last by a third Treatie, Anno 1619. in London, there was a full and solemne composition made of all the said differences, and a faire order set for the future proceeding of the Supposts [subordinate officers] of both Companies in the Indies; aswell in the course of their Trade and commerce, as otherwise. Amongst sundry other points, it was agreed, T h a t in regard of the great blood-shed and cost, pretended [asserted] to be bestowed by the Hollanders, in winning of the Trade of the Isles of the Molluccos, Banda, 8c Amboyna, from the Spaniards 8c Portugals, 8c in building of Forts for the continual securing of the same, the said Hollanders therfore should enioy two third parts of that Trade, & the English the other third; and the charge of the Forts to be maintained by taxes and impositions, to be leuied vpon the Merchandize" (pp. 1-2). See also Towerson's references to the treaty in 11. 181-185 a n d V, i, 256-259 (pp. 15-16, 70 above) and similar remarks elsewhere. 66-68 Which ... charge. True Relation: "there fell out sundry differences and debates betweene them; T h e English complayning that the Hollanders did not onely lauish away much money in building, and vnnecessary expences, vpon the Forts and otherwise, and bring large and vnreasonable reckonings thereof to the common accompt; but also did, for their part, pay the Garrisons with victualls and cloth of Coromandell [which the soldiers would sell to traders], which they put off to the Souldiers at three or foure times the valew it cost them, yet would not allow of the English Companies part of the same charge, but onely in ready money; thereby drawing from the English (which ought to pay but one third part) more than two thirds of the whole true charge" (pp. 3-4).

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Commentary

70 detain . . . Prisons. True Relation: "seizing of the English Companies goods, . . . imprisoning . . . our people" (p. [iii]). 71-74 our . . . out. True Relation: "the Neatherlanders, from the beginning of their trade in the Indies not contented with the ordinary course of a fair and free commerce, inuaded diuers Islands, took some Forts, built others, and laboured nothing more, than the conquests of Countries, and the acquiring of new dominion. By which reason, as they were accordingly prouided of shipping, souldiers, and all warlike prouision, as also of places of Rendeuouz vpon the shore, and thereby enabled to wrong the English aswell as others: so the cost and charges of their shipping, Forts, and souldiers, imployed vpon these designes, rose to such an height, as was not to bee maintained by the trade they had in those parts. Wherefore, . . . they saw, they could not make their reckoning to any purpose, vnlesse they vtterly draue the English out of the trade of those parts; thereby to haue the whole and sole traffick of the commodities of the Indies in these parts of Europe, in their owne hands; and so to make the price at their pleasure, sufficient to maintain & promote their conquests, and withall to yeeld them an ample benefit of their trading" ( " T o the Reader," pp. [vii-viii]). We observe how effectively Dryden has condensed his source. 75-76 Cloves . . . bottle-Ale. Cloves, cinnamon, and other spices are heated in ale to mull it and are stuck in citrus fruits to make air fresheners and formerly to ward off infection. Shakespeare refers to a lemon stuck with cloves in Love's Labours Lost, V, ii, 653-654. 78 Let me alone. Trust me. In this play the expression is an identifying marker of the Fiscal, and is ironic, since he is not to be trusted by the English. It has particularly sinister associations in II, i, 179 (p. 24 above). 78 here. T a p p i n g his head again (see 1. 42). 79-80 Benefactors, and dear Brethren. Cf. True Relation, " T o the Reader," which ends "thou seest . . . what now enforceth the Dutch East-India Company, or their seruants in the Indies, against the common Genius of their Nation, and the wonted firm affection between these two Nations mutually, thus to degenerate, and break out into such strange and incredible outrages against their neerest allies and best-deseruing friends" (p. [viii]). 80 pipe 'em within . . . our Net. How to entice pheasants into nets with birdcalls is described in Gervase Markham, Hungers Prevention: or, The Whole Arte of Fowling by Water and Land (1621), pp. 203-204, 207-208, and in Nicholas Cox, The Gentleman's Recreation (1677), III, 34-35. 87-93 Harman's speech reflects accumulated English experience beyond 1623; there is nothing like it in True Relation. See Remonstrance and the Reply thereto printed with it, especially pp. [i-ii] of " T o the Reader" at the beginning of the volume. Dryden returns to the subject at the end of the play (V, i, 467-468, p. 76 above). 87 secure of. Made certain of (OED, citing 1 Conquest of Granada, V, i, 162). T h e construction occurs again in 1. 179. 93 Guns go off within. A commonplace stage effect; it will be recalled that Shakespeare's Globe burned down when one such feigned salvo went awry. 99+ s.d. T h e historical Beomont was factor at Loho on Ceram; Collins, at Larica on Amboyna. T h e y were at Amboyna with Towerson when the

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Dutch arrested them (True Relation, p. 6; the first edition is inconsistent here, but the second makes the necessary corrections). 100 Merchants. Wholesale traders having dealings with foreign countries (OED). xoi certify us. Tell us for certain what ship has arrived (OED). 102 Captain. True Relation always refers to Harman as governor. H e may be thought to speak as a fellow captain to Towerson in 11. 211-212. 109 General of the Voyage. See note to Persons Represented (p. 282 above). 113 upon, or near. T h e historical Towerson had previously been stationed in India (DNB). 117 Ternate, Tydore. North of Amboyna and Ceram; in True Relation (p. 2) and Answer (pp. 2-3) they are counted as the Moluccas proper and as distinct from Amboyna and Banda. The English agent there was named Nichols. T h e historical Towerson had not served his company in the Moluccas before he was sent to Amboyna by an order of 24 January 1620 (DNB). 118 a Mistress. T h e historical Towerson was married; he had left his wife in India (DNB). 120-121 receiv'd Baptism. We see from IV, iv, 57, and v, 43-45 (pp. 53, 55 above), that Dryden knew the natives of Amboyna, like those in large areas of Borneo, Sumatra, and the other smaller islands east of Java, were heathens. They were converted to Christianity in the nineteenth century. T h e Balinese were Hindus. In the other parts of Indonesia the people were Muslims, and Islam is the religion of 80-90% of Indonesians today. 125-134 True Relation: " T o [John Powle, who had been able to prove that he was not in Amboyna at the time the alleged conspiracy was hatched, John] Fardo religiously protested his innocency; but especially his sorrow for accusing M. Towerson: for, said he, the feare of death doth nothing dismay me; for, God (I trust) will be mercifull to my soule, according to the innocency of my cause. T h e onely matter that troubleth me, is, that through feare of torment I haue accused that honest and godly man Captain Towerson, who (I think in my conscience) was so vpright and honest towards all men, that he harboured no ill will to any, much lesse would attempt any such businesse as he is accused of" (p. 19). Van der Welle, who has most thoroughly investigated the character of the historical Towerson, has found him to be no better and no worse than the next European adventurer in the East (p. 143; see also Summers, III, 569, and Tavernier, II, 330-333). 141 Brendice. Bumper (OED, citing only this passage). T h e word occurs several times in the play and once in The Tempest, IV, ii, 63, in a drunken scene where Dutch words also appear (Works, X, 78-79). 144 fleering. OED cites this passage without making clear what meaning to attach to the word. See, however, Richard Flecknoe, Enigmaticall Characters (1658), pp. 84-85, "Character of a Fleerer": "your fleering, tis alwayes the counterfeit vizard of the False, the Descembler, and the Treacherous"; "a Judas face, with . . . its treacherous smile, . . . faining friendship and pretending zeal only to cozen you." See note to 11. 242-243. 151 Fiscal. See note to Persons Represented (pp. 282-283 above). 156 malice. Collins and Beamont are aware of earlier Dutch actions at

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Banda dramatized by Dryden in III, iii, 79-85 (p. 42 above); see note to III, iii, 80, 85 (p. 303 below). 1 57—»58 no Castle. See note to 1. 13. 166-167 This to .. . Loho. As noted at 1. 13, Cambello and Loho were on Ceram, so that messages to them had to be sent on by sea; Hitto was on Amboyna, but presumably could be visited on the way. 176-185 Since capitalization after colons is not normal in the first edition, such capitalization here, together with the extraneous commas, probably means that the lines were divided in Dryden's manuscript more or less as follows: Harm. Ju. And let me speak for my Countreymen the Dutch, I have heard my Father say, he's your sworn Brother: And this late accident at Sea, when you Reliev'd me from the Pirats, And brought my Ship in safety off, I hope Will well secure you of our gratitude. Towers. You over-rate a little courtesie: In your deliverance I did no more, T h e n what I had my self from you expected: T h e common ties of our Religion, And those yet more particular of Peace, And strict Commerce, betwixt us and your Nation, Exacted all I did, or could have done. 177 sworn Brother. See 11. 210-213. 178 Pirats. See note to 1. 21. T h e event here is dramatized in III, iii, 36-59 (pp. 40-41). 179 secure you of. See note to 1. 87. 182-183 The common ties of our Religion. See note to prologue, 1. 18 (p. 280 above). 188 doubling the Cape. Rounding the Cape of Good Hope. 189 passing twice the Line. Dryden is thinking of voyages to India, which required crossing the equator twice. Amboyna, however, is south of the equator, so Towerson would have crossed it either once or (more likely) three times. 207-209 Although the introduction of music and dancing here accords with the theatrical practice of the time, it accords also with Dutch practice. Tavernier (II, 386) tells of a banquet at Djakarta: "We had been seven or eight hours at table, and they had already asked the [Dutch Governor] General if it pleased him that the comedy should commence, which the youth of the town were to enact." 212-213 receiv'd the Sacrament. These words, which sound ironic in themselves, seem to be based on what John Fardo said to John Powle, as recorded in True Relation (p. 19): ". . . hee would before his death receiue the Sacrament, in acknowledgement that hee had accused Captaine Towerson falsely and wrongfully, onely through feare of torment." Harman, of course, intends to break his oath. See The Duke of Guise, V, i, 43-47 (Works, XIV, 280) for another sacramental oath that was broken. 216 enough for both. But "Captain George Cock, a great Baltic merchant

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and a Navy contractor, told [Pepys] bluntly, 'the trade of the world is too small for us two, therefore one must down' " (Boxer, p. 23). And Scott (S-S, V, 4) says Clifford, the play's dedicatee, also remarked, "We must have another Dutch war." 216 Chapmen. Retailers, especially itinerant ones (OED). 226 Gums. Exudations from trees (OED). The only commercial gum from the East was lac, which came from India and Myanmar (Tavernier, II, 21-23). Other gums came from Africa (Wilson, p. 1 ia). What Dryden has in mind, however, as we see from "the Food of Heaven," is frankincense, which came from Arabia; see note to Of the Pythagorean Philosophy, 11. 584-585 (Works, VII), and Paradise Lost, XI, 323-327, where Adam says he will raise altars to God and "Offer sweet smelling Gums." 226 the Food of Heaven in Sacrifice. In antiquity, the gods were thought to feast on the smell of the sacrifices offered to them, and offerers who ate what they did not burn were thought to share in the feast (see 1 Cor. 10:20, with respect to eating food part of which had been offered to a god: "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils"). Dryden combines this idea with the burning of frankincense in Christian services. It is perhaps also possible that he combines the Greek and Latin word manna, frankincense, with the biblical manna, called "angels' food" in Psalm 78:25. 227 Gems. Tavernier, who was a jeweler, sold diamonds, pearls, rubies, and sapphires in Indonesia, but he could not buy any there; rather, receiving an order for jewels from the king of Bantam, an island near Java, Tavernier said the king would have to send for them from India (II, 353-361). 231-234 See headnote (p. 260 above). T h e Fiscal overstates Holland's debt to England, but those of Dryden's audience who were aware of the fact would account his speech as a diplomatic exaggeration, comparable to Dryden's language in his various dedications. His acknowledgment of the debt in II, i, 345-346 (p. 30 above) is truer to the facts. There is another reference to Alva at V, i, 310 (p. 71 above). 235-236 Commerce and . . . Conversation. Synonyms. 236-237 several Treaties bind us to. True Relation begins: "After the fruitlesse issue of two seuerall Treaties: the first An. 1613. in London; and the other Ann. 1615. at the Hage in Holland, . . . at last by a third Treatie, Anno 1619. in London, there was a full and solemne composition made." 241 will never. Possibly Dryden wrote "never will," which better fits the iambic rhythm. 242-243 Judas colour'd. Red. The idea that Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, had red hair goes back to medieval times (OED, Judas). See also Tilley Mi55, "Greet a red man and a bearded woman three miles off" (first citation 1573), and the citation under M395 from William Vaughan, Natural and Artificial Directions for Health (1600), V, iv, p. 144: "As likewise they ayme [reckon], that the red-headed or red-bearded are crafty." In Dryden's Lines on Tonson (Works, VII) we learn that the famous publisher had "Judas-colour'd Hair." We see then that Cartwright, who created the role, wore a red beard if he was not himself redheaded. 246-247 in either Ear. During the Renaissance, Englishmen were more likely than Englishwomen to wear earrings (Ernie Bradford, Four Centuries

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of European Jewellery [1953], p. 61). T h e Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, for example, shows h i m wearing a r i n g in the ear that is visible. T h e fashion died out when men's wigs covered their ears. 252 use your Head. Clearly ironic, b u t n o t e that True Relation asks "what h o p e h a d Tomson a n d the rest, when Capt. Towersons head was off?" (pp. 37-38). T h e volume also has a picture of decapitation (facing p. 30 in the 1971 reproduction). 263 Do I hold . .. him. Possibly Dryden wrote "Do I behold my Love, d o I embrace him," b u t both rhythm a n d sense allow the text as printed. 264 three years. A n o r m a l t u r n a r o u n d time for agents of the East I n d i a Company. 289 you shall be feasted. See note to 11. 207-209. 29s Romers. R u m m e r s ; large d r i n k i n g glasses ( O E D , citing this passage; the word occurs several times in the play). Van der Welle (p. 143) notes that it is also a Dutch word. II, i 4 jealous. Probably m e a n i n g suspicious throughout this scene, as, for instance, it often does in The Kind Keeper (see n o t e to IV, ii, 34, 35 of the latter in Works, XIV, 417). 22 part Captain, and part Merchant. See note to Persons Represented (pp. 281-282 above). It is possible that Towerson was trading o n his own as well as for his company, b u t how Dryden would have known about it is n o t clear except as general knowledge of common practice (see Tavernier, II, 332-333, for the practice among the Dutch, b u t Tavernier's Travels was n o t p r i n t e d until later). O r perhaps Dryden derived it f r o m Towerson's confession that if he could get help f r o m the English in Djakarta in h o l d i n g the castle at Amboyna, he would hold it for his company, or if n o t h e would hold it for himself (see note to V, i, 124-125, p. 312 below). 25-26 See note to I, i, 25 (p. 285 above). 49 happy. Lucky. T h e expression "the h a p p y M a n " occurs again in 1. 281. 77 opprest. See note to I, i, 156 (pp. 289-290 above). 79 Treaty. Of 1619. See notes to I, i, 2 8 - 3 1 , 62-65, a n d III, iii, 150 (pp. 285 above a n d 303 below). 89 no Castles. T h e statement here repeats I, i, 1 5 7 - 1 5 8 , perhaps because of lack of "labour" on the play (see dedication, p. 5 above), b u t perhaps for subtle emphasis (see n o t e to I, i, 13, p. 284 above). 9 3 - 1 0 2 T h e r a n d o m capitals a n d commas in these lines suggest t h a t they stood more or less as follows in Dryden's manuscript: Har. T h e y may be try'd. Towers. Your Father sure will not M a i n t a i n you in this Insolence, I know H e is too honest. Har. Assure your self, he will Espouse my Quarrel. Towers. W e wou'd complain to England. Har. Your Countrey M e n have try'd that course so often,

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Methinks they should grow wiser, a n d desist: But now there is no need Of troubling any others but our selves; T h e sum of all is this, you either must Resign me Ysabinda, or instantly resolve, T o clear your T i t l e to her by your Sword. 97 See note to I, i, 87-93 (P- 2&8 above). 105 though. T h e iambic rhythm of the speech suggests that Dryden wrote "although." 109 single Duel. Single combat, here (see note to King Arthur, V, ii, 3a, i n Works, XVI), b u t in 11. 146-147 the phrase is the equivalent of "duel" alone. 1 1 1 - 1 1 8 T h e dramatic irony of these lines becomes evident only later in the play. 116 Indignities. See note to I, i, 156 (pp. 289-290 above). 1 4 6 - 1 5 1 T h e capitalization of " H e " in 1. 149 indicates that the speeches stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript: Har. At last, nought else prevailing, I defy'd h i m T o single Duel, this he refus'd, a n d I Believe 'twas fear. Fisc. No, no, mistake h i m not, 'Tis a stout Whorson, you did ill to press him, 'Twill not sound well in Europe, H e being here a publick Minister; H a v i n g n o means of scaping shou'd he kill you, Besides exposing all his Countrymen T o a Revenge. 162-163 'twill break no squares. It makes n o difference ( O E D , square). T h e phrase occurs also in An Evenings Love, III, i, 436-437 (Works, X, 262), a n d in A Defence of the Duchess's Paper (Works, XVII, 299). 167-169 T h e capitalization after a colon, not n o r m a l in the first edition, a n d the extraneous comma or commas indicate that this speech stood as verse is Dryden's manuscript: Fisc. I, a right young Man's bravery, that's Folly: Let me alone, something I'le put in practice, T o rid you of this Rival e're he Marries, W i t h o u t your once appearing in it. 167 I. Aye. 167 Let me alone. See note to I, i, 78 Let (p. 288 above). 175 Stay. From here to the end of the act, the language is almost always indisputably prose. 179 let thee alone. See note to I, i, 78 Let (p. 288 above). 179-180 T h e devil's readiness is so much a commonplace that Dryden used it again in III, i, 2 3 - 2 4 (p. 33 above), in Absalom and Achitophel, 1. 80 (Works, II, 7), a n d in The Spanish Fryar, I, i, 306, 3 1 3 - 3 1 4 , a n d II, iv, 44-45 (Works, XIV, 118, 119, 136). Possibly he would not have used it twice in this play if he h a d " l a b o u r e d " more over his scenes (see dedication, p. 5 above), but the triple use in The Spanish Fryar suggests otherwise. 181 Captain, who commands our Slaves. See note to Persons Represented (p. 282 above).

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183 jealous. See note to 1. 4. 185 his own Masters Rebels. Perez speaks as a Spanish subject, against whose sovereign the Dutch have rebelled (see note to I, i, 53, pp. 286-287 above). Dryden apparently sees no irony here, presumably because in the T h i r d Dutch War there were English and Scottish battalions in the Netherlandish service (see headnote, p. 264 above). 199 It shall be told . . . or given her upon honour. It shall be counted out, but the amount is guaranteed correct in any case. Dryden usually writes "upon content" instead of "upon honour." See The Spanish Fryar, I, i, 338340 (Works, XIV, i 19-120): "Suppose you were in want o£ Money; wou'd you not be glad to take a Sum upon content in a seal'd bagg, without peeping?" Also Love Triumphant, III, i, 61-62 (Works, XVI): "A mighty Summ, but taken on content; / T o save the tedious telling o're and o're." 2oi Dobloons. Spanish double-pistoles (OED). I n 11. 265, 267 the reward becomes three hundred quadruples, four-pistole pieces (OED, quadruple, citation of 1727), so either Dryden is not really paying attention to the value of the coins or he has made the Fiscal decide he had better double his blood price or made him intend to pay Perez both before and after the assassination (see III, i, 25, p. 33 above). T h e alternate possibilities may also simply be taken as further evidence of Dryden's lack of "labour" over his play. 216 transitory. Apparently a usage peculiar to Dryden. It means "trifling, of little moment" (OED, citing only this passage and The Assignation, II, ii, 28). 217 your own Countrey Gold. This peculiar construction occurs several times in Dryden. We have not only "Grandam and Aunt gold" in The Wild Gallant, IV, i, 247 (Works, VIII, 62), "your grandame gold" in The Hind and the Panther, III, 149 (Works, III, 165), and "their Grandam Gold" in the preface to the Fables (Works, VII; Kinsley, IV, 1459: 580-581), but "His Country Laws" and "My Country Walls" in Of the Pythagorean Philosophy, 11. 34 and 665 (Works, VII). 222 jealous. See note to 1. 4. 223 Cuerno. Horn. For the meaning of Querpo, the reading in the folio, see note to The Spanish Fryar, V, ii, 397 (Works, XIV, 473). 224 Mi Mujer. My woman, my wife. 229-230 Cuckold his Catholick Majesty in his Indies. True Declaration begins by accusing the English of having failed to provide ships of war to fight the Spanish, as required by the treaty of 1619, with the result that the Spanish traded in the Moluccas. T h e Answer replies that the Dutch had made an agreement with the Ternatans, who were "performing daily exploits against the Spaniards, and communicating the triumph with the Dutch" (p. 3), besides which, says the Answer, the English had in fact matched the Dutch ship for ship in a flotilla to attack Manila and had been refused an opportunity to join in an attack on Macao (pp. 5-6). 236 Beard. Summers (III, 567), citing Wycherley's Gentleman Dancing Master, IV, i, points out that, as a Spaniard, the actor who played Perez (Burt in the original performances) would have worn a long beard. I n An Evening's Love, II, i, 546 (Works, X, 247) Don Lopez swears by his beard. But anyone might so swear; Harman has already done so (I, i, 241, p. 17 above).

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248 jealous. See note to 1. 4. 260 business. A similar pun appears also in The Kind Keeper, II, i, 360365 (Works, XIV, 35, and n, p. 400). 269 swager. A shortened form of belswagger, which Dryden makes a synonym for seducer in The Spanish Fryar, V, ii, 236, 239 (Works, XIV, 195). Saintsbury (S-S, V, 34), Summers (III, 567), and van der Welle (p. 143), on the contrary, believe swager is a Dutch word, meaning brother-in-law, used "left-handedly of course" (Saintsbury) or "scommatically" (Summers). 270 my Nose is wip'd. Tilley N244; the citations suggest various kinds of frustrations, but the one closest in date to this play, in William Walker, Paroemiologia Anglo Latina (1672), no. 59, p. 17, is "You are even fairly cheated; your nose is wiped." 271 jealous. See note to 1. 4. 281 happy. See note to 1. 49. 282-284 have got . . . Merchandise. Another reference to the treaty of 1619 (see headnote, p. 260 above). 284 a third part. See note to I, i, 62-65 (p. 287 above). 286 Mace . . . and Nutmegg . . . in the same Fruit. The nutmeg seed, ground, is the spice nutmeg and its outer layer, ground, is mace; the tastes are similar. 290 jealous. See note to 1. 4. 291 yellow. The traditional color of jealousy and Spaniards. See The Kind Keeper, III, i, 198 "the yellow Jaundies of thy Jealousie" (Works, XIV, 44). Summers (III, 568), cites Jonson's Alchemist, IV, iii, for yellow Spaniards. 293 drudgery. Dryden hardly ever uses noun or verb except in a sexual sense. See, for example, Nourmahal in Aureng-Zebe, V, i, 250, 312 (pp. 235, 237 above). 294 Pocky. See note to 1. 328. 298 the new Christians. Spanish Jews who declared themselves Christians were called Marranos; Spanish Muslims who declared themselves Christians were called Moriscos. Jews in Spain sometimes required their Christian debtors to embrace Judaism. The Moriscos sometimes adopted ancient Christian heresies. T o combat them, Castile instituted the Inquisition in 1480 and Aragon did so in 1484. Ferdinand, husband of Isabella and first king of all Spain, expelled the Jews from the country in 1492 and the Muslims in 1502. (The conquest of Granada, celebrated in Dryden's plays, had left the Muslims in situ and they had revolted in 1501.) Dryden's "new Christians" are those who then chose instead to become Marranos or Moriscos; he either used "new" very loosely or intended its sense to be "converted." Sancho in Love Triumphant is a Marrano. 300 Nose itches. None of the various portents assigned to an itching nose in the sources collected by Summers (III, 568) exactly fits here; the closest are expectations of meeting fools or cuckolds. Tilley N224, "If your nose itches you will kiss a fool," fits better, and he gives an earlier reference: Dekker, 1 Honest Whore (1604), in Dekker's Works (1873), II, 26. 301 your Nation. Perez is Spanish but Julia is an Amboyner (see V, i, 442-445, p. 75 above). We have three possibilities. Perhaps this is another mark of lack of "labour" on Dryden's part. Perhaps he regarded the wife as taking her husband's nationality by marriage. Perhaps there is an element

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of irony here, though the audience would have no sense of it unless Julia and Ysabinda were somehow costumed similarly and in some way differently from English women. 306 Dog dayes. Roughly, August; as noted by OED, the exact span of time has been differently calculated at different times. 306 the Park. In Beamont's time, the park would have been St. James's, but by the time the play was written, Hyde Park had become more fashionable. (See Etheredge, The Man of Mode, III, iii, 36: "Most people prefer High Park to this place [the Mall in St. James's Park].") 307 slept like Dormice. Tilley D568, first citation 1608. 308 Michaelmass. September 29. 310 Sodden. Boiled. 313-325 I've known . . . Board Wages. T h a t meat was in short supply in Spain was "a seventeenth-century commonplace" (Works, XI, 536; see also X, 467, 478). Dryden had referred to it twice in An Evening's Love, I, i, 3643, and IV, i, 720-721, and once in The Assignation, III, i, 11-12 (Works, X, 218, 291; XI, 348). 323-324 at a Morsel. In one bite (OED). 324 barr'd the Dice. T o bar the dice is "to declare the throw void" (OED, bar, sense gb of the verb, citing this passage only). 328 their Neapolitane. T h e "Neapolitan disease" was "a form of syphilis" (OED). Summers (III, 568) notes that according to John Lacy's play, The Dumb Lady (1672), Act III, it was new in England when Dryden wrote Amboyna; also that venereal diseases had been known by another name, the French pox or disease, for nearly two centuries (OED, French). Dryden chose the name because Spain governed the kingdom of Naples. 331 our Nation. See note to 1. 301. 338-340 your Fishery at home, . . . your Soveraignty of the Narrow Seas. See headnote (p. 261 above). 338-339 Dogs in the Manger. Tilley D513, first citation Erasmus's Adagia (first English trans., 1539), and therefore appropriate in the mouth of a Dutchman, though Dryden may have been unaware of it. 341 the Inhabitants of 'em, the Herrings. Whence we see that Dryden claims the North Sea as under British sovereignty (see headnote, p. 261 above). 345 you gave us aid in our time of need. See note to I, i, 231-234 (p. 291 above). 346-347 Cautionary Towns . . . since deliver'd. See headnote (p. 260 above). In July 1672 the English were once more demanding "Cautionary Towns," i.e., towns in pledge, this time Sluis, Flushing, and Brielle and this time for payment of tribute on the herring fishery, and they were offering to garrison them to protect William of Orange against his Dutch enemies (Geyl, pp. 364, 417). Dryden knew of the demand from the publication in Holland in August 1672 of a letter that Charles II had sent to William (see L. Sylvius, i.e., Lambert van den Bos, Historien Onses Tyds [from] 1669 [to] 167c, [ 1685], p. 381). 353 expensive. Lavish (OED). See note to 11. 392-393. 356-357 the Multitude of Mouths with which you Man your Vessels. "In shipbuilding the Dutch showed great ingenuity based on practical experi-

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ence, in the construction of different types of vessel, and one of their greatest achievements was the introduction of a three-masted merchant ship known as the fluit (fly-boat). This type of vessel, easy to handle and thus needing a comparatively small crew, was developed at the end of the sixteenth century, and [also] proved invaluable to the Dutch as an auxiliary transport in their fighting fleets because of its great carrying capacity" (Rogers, pp. 4-5). 371—372 stollen the Arms of the best Families of Europe. Not a very good argument, as some English towns also took for elements in their coats of arms those of English royalty or nobility. 373 the first of the divine Attributes. Almightiness is obviously meant, and "first" may then mean "primary," but the first time God speaks of himself in the Bible he says, " I am the Almighty G o d " (Gen. 1 7 : 1 ) . 374 HIGH and MIGHTY. " T h e States-General were 'their High Mightinesses', the States of Holland 'their Noble Great Mightinesses', but the States of the remaining provinces simply 'their Noble Mightinesses' " (Rogers, p. 3); Dryden is thus thinking of the States General, as noted by Summers (III, 568). See also "High and Mighty States" in V, i, 261 (p. 70 above). 377 seven . . . Provinces, no bigger in all than a Shire. T h e seven are Gelderland, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Overijsel, Groningen, and Friesland. T h e only comparable shire, however, was Yorkshire. Mun (p. 74) had put it more accurately: "not fully so big as two of our best Shires" (quoted by Wilson, p. 21). 381-382 We and They have set you up, and you undermine their Power. English help against Spain and the political and military leadership of the princes of Orange had effectively brought Dutch independence by 1623 (not acknowledged by Spain until 1648), but the Dutch States party often resisted the princes' dynastic aims. T h e play opens, be it recalled, with a reference to the fall of Johann van Olden Barnevelt before Prince Maurice in 1618. Dryden and his audience would have been more familiar with recent events. On 5 August 1667 the States of the province of Holland unanimously passed the Perpetual Edict, which denied the provincial stadholdership to any captain- or admiral-general, and by 1670 the other provinces had proceeded similarly. T h e y expected that William I I I would become captain-general, as he did in 1672, and thereby be excluded from the executive office. But on 4 J u l y 1672 the Orange party, supported by the rebellious common people, won repeal of the edict and made William the nation's stadholder (Geyl, pp. 270, 272, 336, 361-362). 386-387 ye tolerate all Worships, in them who can pay. Dryden returned to the idea in dedication of Troilus and Cressida: "we abound as much in words, as Amsterdam does in Religions" (Works, X I I I , 223). T h a t the Dutch exacted a price for religious toleration seems to be a slander (Pieter Geyl, The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century: Part II, 1648-1J15 [1964], pp. 2o8ff., makes no mention of it in his account of religious variety in Holland), but we must remember that the Dutch had fought a civil war in which Arminians were divided against Calvinists, and that the winners had executed Barnevelt as a heretic (see headnote, p. 260 above). Dryden may also be drawing upon incidents in which their political toleration had been bought. See notes to 1. 403 and to 1. 19 of the epilogue (pp. 3 1 8 - 3 1 9 below). 388 Pegu. Now part of Myanmar.

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388 sacrifice to his Idols. Henry Stubbs, A Further Justification of the Present War (1673; advertised November 1672), p. 77 (second numbering), said a Mr. Britton, who had been chief of the British merchants at Pegu, had told him the following story: "In the Kingdom of Pegu, when the English Merchants had refused (being commanded to attend the Emperour at a Solemnity) modestly, to sacrifice some parched-Rice to the Idol in the Temple: as also did the Portugueses, spitting upon the said Rice: the second man of the Dutch factory (the principal declining it) briskly takes the Rice, and addressing himself to the Idol, offers it, as became a Christian of Holland." The incident postdated 1623, however, for Mr. Britton, who witnessed it, was still living in 1672. Dryden may have heard the same story if he had not read Stubbs. We owe the reference to Stubbs to Professor Gardiner. 389 precise. Rigidly religious. 392-393 like Noblemen . . . like Bores. Bores: Boers, farmers; used again in epilogue, 1. 6 (p. 77 above). Van der Welle (p. 77) notes that in the dedication of the Aeneis Dryden was to compare the lowest class of readers of literature to "Dutch Boors, brought over [by William III] in Herds, but not Naturaliz'd" (Works, V, 326-327). He also (p. 140) quotes a passage in Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society (1667), p. 88: "The Merchants of England live honourably in forein parts; those of Holland meanly, minding their gain alone: ours converse freely, and learn from all; having in their behaviour, very much of the Gentility of the Families, from which so many of them are descended: The others, when they are abroad, shew, that they are onely a Race of plain Citizens.... This I have spoken, not to lessen the reputation of that Industrious People." As van der Welle (p. 20) points out in still another connection, Dryden had also written of Dutch industry in Annus Mirabilis, 1. 1 (Works, I, 59), but in dislike of it. 396 Butter. The English traditionally associated butter with Dutchmen. See The Wild Gallant, V, ii, 18-19 (Works, VIII, 79): "an Hollander with Butter will fry rarely in Hell." See also Edward Barlow, writing of the Four Days' Fight, 1-4 June 1666: "If it had pleased God that we had our whole fleet together we had made an end in half the time, for we should have had them to have showed us their butter-box arses and run from us the first day" (quoted by Boxer, p. 33). Barlow, the son of agricultural laborers, went to London to seek his fortune; he served in ships of the navy and merchant marine from 1659 to 1703 (ibid., p. 19). Barlow's Journal, edited by Basil Lubbock, was published in 1934. 397 pickl'd Herring. See headnote (p. 261 above). 402 more Tax'd. Mun (pp. 61-62) names the United Provinces as among those states with heavy taxes, i.e., "at 4, 5, 6, and 7. per cent." 403 you never keep any League with Forreign Princes. Dryden presumably refers to the Dutch dealings with Charles II. Charles was brother-in-law of William II of Orange, and in 1649 he was acknowledged by the States General as king in exile. But William died in 1650, leaving the Orange party leaderless, the English declared war on the Dutch in 1652, and when in 1653 the French began to nudge Charles out of France the States party, which was negotiating for peace with Cromwell, let Charles know that he would not be welcome with them (Geyl, p. 104). In 1655 Charles came for a few days to Middelburgh (Geyl, p. 126), and in 1658 he went to Hoogstraten, at

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which time the States General, under pressure from Cromwell, expelled him from the country (Geyl, pp. 132-133). Not until 1660, when Monk had overthrown Richard Cromwell, did the States General allow, indeed invite, Charles to pass through Holland on his way to England (Geyl, p. 135). 403-404 you flatter our Kings. See note to I, i, 87-93 (P- 288 above). 404 ruine their Subjects. Dramatized in III, iii, 79-109 (pp. 42-43 above). 404-405 never deny'd . . . abroad. Dramatized in III, iii, 141-148 (p. 44 above). 408-411 Beamont's prophecy never came true except in the sense that Charles II began two wars with the Dutch in an attempt or an associated attempt to make it so. See headnote (pp. 262-263 above). Ill, i 3 Turk. Until 1633 Arabia was part of the Turkish empire, so that Turks and their Arabian subjects were rivals of the Europeans in trade to India and eastward. The Answer (p. 6) accuses the Dutch of having spoiled an Anglo-Dutch attack on the Portuguese along the southwest coast of India by sending two of their ships to the Red Sea. Dryden's Towerson and Perez would not have been likely to have encountered the Turks in the Mediterranean, for Towerson is an employee of the East India Company, whereas the Mediterranean trade was in the hands of the Levant or Turkey Company (Strype, Bk. V, pp. 265-266). Perhaps the battle Perez refers to is the one in which Towerson saved Young Harman, described in the song "The Sea Fight" in III, iii, 36-59 (pp. 40-41 above). 5 clear'd our Decks. Drove off boarders (see III, iii, 53, p. 41 above, and n). 22-28 Random capitalization and commas indicate that this speech stood more or less as follows in Dryden's manuscript: Perez. So, this makes well for my design, He's left alone, unguarded and asleep: Satan, thou art a bounteous friend, And liberal of occasions to do mischief, My pardon I have ready if I am taken. My Money half before hand; Up Perez, rouze thy Spanish courage up, If he shou'd wake, I think I dare attempt him, Then my revenge is nobler, and revenge, T o injur'd Men is full as sweet as profit. 23-24 Satan . . . mischief. See note to II, i, 179-180 (p. 293 above). 27-28 revenge .. . is . . . sweet. Tilley R90 (first citation 1566). I l l , ii S.d. T o draw a scene is to pull apart the flats in the back scene and reveal what is behind them. In Act V, such drawing represents opening a door (see note to V, i, 307, 326, p. 315 below), but in the present instance, as in Act IV, it represents a change of place (see first note to Act IV, pp. 303-304 below). 3 Dcemon. Spirit, genius, or ghost.

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26 with Myrtle and with Cypress. Emblems of love a n d mourning. T h e red robes m e n t i o n e d in 1. 28 are similarly emblems of marriage or of bloodshed. Towerson seems oblivious to the ambiguity of the omens. 65-66 Temple. A common synonym for church in Dryden's plays. 85-88 T h e capitalization after a semicolon indicates that the speech stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript. T h e r e is more t h a n o n e way in which the lines may have been divided, e.g.: Harm. Come, come, I know your reason of refusal, But it must not prevail; My son has been to blame, I'le not maintain H i m in the least neglect, which he shou'd show T o any Englishman, much less to you. T h e best, a n d most esteem'd of all my friends. 97 Literally true, though spoken out of politeness. m Why this is as it shou'd be. Evidently a conventional phrase m a r k i n g a reconciliation. It occurs twice in The Kind Keeper, II, i, 198 a n d V, i, 506 (Works, XIV, 30, 91). 105-107 T h e capitalization a n d p u n c t u a t i o n show that the lines stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript: Towers. Your Father may C o m m a n d m e to more difficult employments, T h e n to receive the friendship of a Man, Of whom I did not willingly embrace An ill opinion. 119 There Iudas, take your hire of blood again. T h e words probably stood as a line of verse in Dryden's manuscript. Of course it was J u d a s who ret u r n e d the blood money to the priests who h a d hired him. 134 Cf. Tilley M 1 3 3 1 , " W h a t must (shall, will) be must (shall, will) b e " (first citation 1546). I l l , iii 1 - 2 4 Dryden based this epithalamium on the L a t i n of Joannes Secundus (Jan Everaerts, a Dutchman), first as a p p r o p r i a t e to a celebration provided by H a r m a n , a n d second, in its picture of the groom r a p i n g the bride, as a p p r o p r i a t e to H a r m a n Junior's character a n d foreshadowing what he will do. Summers (III, 569), followed by van der Welle (pp. 62-63), noted the parallels in Secundus to Dryden's 11. 12-16 a n d 21-22. T h e r e are n o parallels to Dryden's 11. 23-24. T h e relevant parts of the Latin poem are: " T h e h o u r . . . which Venus could not make happier, n o r bright C u p i d with golden feathers, . . . has come in the revolving sequence of the sky [11. 1-16]. . . . Over a n d over he chides the slow sun, a n d over a n d over he entreats the tardy moon [11. 39-40]. Furious bridegroom [1. 42], . . . now the virgin enters the bedroom, whence . . . take care she does not r e t u r n a virgin. Now the virgin, laid on the bed in her snow-white gown desires your coming, a n d [yet] trembles, her cheeks dyed with innate bashfulness [11. 54-58]. . . . She will resist you a n d call you shameless a n d says, ' T h a t ' s enough,' in a quavering voice, a n d with her h a n d puts away your w a n t o n h a n d [11. 79-82]." For R o b e r t Smith's music to the song see Day, p. 47.

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27—35 Beamont's inflammation o£ everyone's emotions gives the impression that he is drunk; if so, his drunkenness may have been suggested by that of Abel Price, the first Englishman tortured at Amboyna. Price was already under arrest for having threatened while in his cups to burn a Dutchman's house down (True Relation, p. 5). 32 'twill breed ill blood. Echoing the reasons given by the English East India Company for delaying the publication of True Relation; see " T o the Reader" therein: " T h e English Company from time to time contented themselues with informing his Majestie and his Honourable Priuy Councell with their grieuances priuately in writing, to the end that necessary relief and reparation might bee obtained, without publishing any thing to the world in print, thereby to stir vp or breed ill bloud between these Nations" (p. [iii]). 36-59 Van der Welle (pp. 63-64) notes that this song depends heavily on John Smith's Sea-mans Grammar, chapter xiii, "How to Manage a fight at Sea, with the proper tearms in a fight largely expressed, and the ordering of a Navy at Sea." T h e following notes draw together information from various parts of the book, in the edition of 1653. Chapter xiii presents its information mostly in words a captain and his crew might speak in combat with a Spanish ship. Smith thought it the "Master piece of this worke," saying he had read similar descriptions of fighting on land, but none at sea. 38 bloody Colours. Red flag. Smith (lookout and captain speaking alternately): "A sail . . . let flie your colours [in the poope]. Captain, out goes his flag [in the main top] and pendants [at the ends of his yards armes]" (pp. 59, 58). 39 your Fights and your Nettings. OED cites Dryden's words under both "Fights" and "Nettings." Smith (p. 58): "A ships close fights, are small ledges of wood laid crosse one another like the grates of iron in a prisons window, betwixt the main mast, and the fore mast, and are called gratings, or nettings as is said, which are made of small ropes, much in like manner covered with a sail; the which to undo is to heave a kedger [the smallest size of anchor (p. 29)], or fix a grapling into them, tied in a rope, but a chaine of iron is better, and shearing off will tear it in pieces if the rope and anchor hold." T h e dramatization of the battle, continued: "he makes ready his close fights fore and aft. . . . [After a gun battle, ready to board,] make fast your graplings if you can to his close fights and shear off" (pp. 60-61). 41 brindice. See note to I, i, 141 (p. 289 above). Smith on second day's battle: "Boy, fetch my cellar of bottels, a health to you all fore and aft, courage my hearts for a fresh charge" (p. 61). 42 Smith: "Master, lay him aboord . . . in the smoke let us enter them in the shrouds, and every squadron at his best advantage; so sound Drums and Trumpets, and Saint George for England" (p. 61). 43 Turks. See note to III, i, 3 (p. 299 above). 44 Gunroom. Smith (p. 12) says the gun room was below the steerage room before the great cabin. T h e steersman moved a vertical whip-staff which passed through the deck and was fastened to the tiller below by a ring. T h e tiller swung back and forth above the ordnances in the gun room. OED says the gun room was the quarters of the gunner and his mates. 45 Smith: "What cheere mates? is all well? A l l well, all well, all well [i.e.,

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replies from various officers]; T h e n make ready to bear up with him again, and with all your great and small shot charge him" (pp. 60-61). Smith's table of armaments (p. 70) tells us that a culverin was a medium-sized gun, specifically 4500 pounds, with bore about 814 inches, firing a 171/3-pound shot with 12 pounds of powder, accurate at 20 paces, carrying 2500 paces. T o ply is to attack vigorously (OED). 50-51 Smith, after the first day's battle: "winde up the slain, with each a weight or bullet at their heads and feet to make them sinke, and give them three Gunnes for their funerals" (p. 61). For Dryden's drums and trumpets, see note to 1.42. 53 Smith: "in an extremity a man would rather blow up the quarter deck, half deck, fore castle, or any thing, than be taken by him he knowes a mortall enemy, and commonly there are more men lost in entering, if the chase [the ship chased] stand to her defence, in an instant, than in a long fight boord and boord [when two ships lie together side by side], if she be provided of her close fights: I confesse, the charging upon trenches, and the entrances of a breach in a rampire are attempts as desperate as a man would think could be performed, but he that hath tried himself as oft in the entering a resting ship as I have done both them and the other, he would surely confesse there is no such dangerous service ashore, as a resolved resolute fight at sea" (pp. 57-58). See also III, i, 4 (p. 32 above). Tavernier (I, 177-178) describes how an English captain whose ship was boarded by Malabar pirates and who had prepared some barrels of gunpowder for the purpose set fire to them, blew up the deck, and blew many of the pirates into the sea; when the pirates continued to board the vessel, he sent his crew off in two boats, set fire to a powder train leading to the ship's magazine, and jumped overboard; the pirates' death count was in the hundreds, says Tavernier, but the captain and his crew of forty were captured anyway. 54-59 T h e last lines of the song have no source in Smith. 54 the Dice run at all. "Dice" are dice-shot, square pieces of iron (OED, citation of 1668; not included in Smith's list of shot). Running of the usual kind of dice was rolling them forward (OED, run, sense 16 of the verb). 63 Cf. Tilley L93, "He laughs that wins" (first citation 1546). 70-74 A fleet of ships might become separated without much concern for one another and collect again at a planned rendezvous; Tavernier's ship, sailing from India, arrived at St. Helena several days before the last of its fleet (II, 405). 71 t' other side the Cape. I.e., in the South Atlantic; see note to I, i, 188 (p. 290 above). 72 St. Hellens Isle. St. Helena is in the South Atlantic about a thousand miles west of Angola, or about a third of the way to Brazil. T h e Portuguese Joao da Nova Castello discovered it in 1502, but it was uninhabited and only rarely visited in 1623, the time of the events in the play. After a temporary Dutch settlement from about 1645 to 1651, the English East India Company appropriated the island and in 1659 put a small garrison and some settlers on it. T h e Dutch had just captured or were soon to capture it when the play was produced (they held it only from 1 January to 5 May 1673). Tavernier visited and described St. Helena, saying that it was a straight run

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before the trade wind from the Cape of Good Hope of sixteen or eighteen days (II, 401-409). 75 half starv'd. In a television interview John Gielgud remarked that, before Ibsen and Pinero, time offstage was not real time. In real time the woman would have had several months to recover from her life on St. Helena. 80, 85 Lantore [and] Poleroon. In the Banda group, south of Amboyna (see headnote, p. 272 above). " T o the Reader" in True Relation pointed to Dutch contraventions in 1621 of the treaty of 1619: "in the point of hostility; the inuasion of the Islands of Lantore and Polaroone, then and before in the quiet possession of the English, in the name of the Crowne of England; the taking of the same Islands by force; the razing and demolishing of the English Forts; . . . seizing of the English Companies goods" (pp. [ii-iii]). 89 a Merry Gale. T h e trade wind north of the equator. "Merry" means "favorable" (OED). 102 to rights. A t once (OED, right, sense 14b of the first noun, citing this passage). 115 Lemmons. Planted on the island by the Portuguese to provide passing ships with lemon juice, the remedy for and preventer of scurvy (Tavernier, II, 404-405). 116 Widdow'd. "Deserted, desolate, solitary" (OED), appropriate here because the husband has just died. 142 some Affronts. Including perhaps refusal to salute (see headnote, p. 261 above). 145 the Narrow Seas. See headnote, p. 261 above. 146 Main Yard. T h e lowest yard on the mainmast. 147 Gold Chain. See note to I, i, 33, my Gold Chain (p. 286 above). 150 complain at home. True Relation: "Hereupon, and vpon the like occasions, grew some discontents and disputes, and the complaints were sent to laccatra [Djakarta], in the Island of laua Maior, to the Councell of defence of both Nations there residing: who also, not agreeing vpon the points in difference, sent the same hither ouer into Europe, to be decided by both Companies here; or, in default of their agreement, by the Kings Maiestie, and the Lords the States Generall, according to an Article of the Treatie of the yeare 1619. on this behalfe" (p. 4). 157 Romers. See note to I, i, 292 (p. 292 above). IV, i S.d. A Wood. T h e scenes in the wood change when the stage is cleared. W e are told specifically that the change to the last scene was managed by drawing the flats. T h e preceding changes were presumably managed similarly. For example, start with the front flats closed, so that the action takes place on the front stage; draw the scene between the first and second scenes and again between the second and third; then close the scene between the third and fourth, so that the place of the fourth scene is the same as the second (both second and fourth scenes show the wedding party, and the fourth scene begins "You have led us here a Fairies round," i.e., we have been here before); and finally draw the scene so that the place of the fifth

Commentary scene is that of the third. (The third scene shows Harman beginning his assault on Ysabinda and the fifth shows her tied to a tree, i.e., Harman has consummated the rape at the place where he began it and always intended to finish it. Having r u n offstage after Ysabinda, he says within, "I'le bear you where your crys shall not be heard" [iii, 73, p. 50 above]). 4 woody Walk. One meaning of "walk" is "a tract of forest land comprised in the circuit regularly perambulated by a superintending officer" (OED, sense 10 of the first noun), and the word is so used by Dryden in King Arthur, III, ii, 6, and Cleomertes, I, i, 29 (Works, XVI). Preceded by "woody" as here, or by "woodland" as in The Secular Masque, 11. 28, 55 (Works, XVI), it might seem to be redundant or to have its more usual meaning of a place to walk. 8 here. I.e., the scene is a part of the wood to which the bridal party will not come. 18 gen'rous. T h e word implies good qualities of every sort. 37-40 T h e first edition has no closing bracket in the stage direction in 1. 39, showing that Dryden wrote the speech as verse, even running the stage direction into the third pentameter: Harm. Though, (brave unknown;) night takes thee from my knowledge, And I want time to thank thee now; take this And wear it for my sake: [Gives him a Ring. Hereafter I'le acknowledge it more largely. 41-48 T h e capitalization of "Yet" in 1. 42 and the synaloepha in 1. 45 point to the likelihood that Dryden wrote the speech as follows: Towers. T h a t voice I've heard, but cannot call to mind, Except it be young Harman's Yet who shou'd put his life in danger thus? This Ring I wou'd not take as Salary, But as a gage of his free heart who left it: And when I know him, I'le restore the pledge; Sure 'twas not far from hence I made th' appointment: I know not what this Dutchman's business is, Yet I believe 'twas somewhat from my Rival; It shall go hard but I will find him out, And then re-joyn the Company. IV, ii S.d. Re-enter. T h e location has changed from the preceding scene, which took place in a part of the wood to which the wedding party would not come (see note to IV, i, 8). See note at head of IV, i, as to how the change of location could be managed by drawing the scene. For the use of "Re-enter" after drawing a scene to reveal a new location see the opening stage direction in III, ii (p. 33 above). 16 The Moon begins to rise. T h e light on stage then increased and, if the back scene included a view of the sky, a moon began to appear against it. 28-29 remember . . . well. T h e Fiscal's advice is as old as Ovid, as new as

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today. Protests against it and the harm it has done and can do have much increased in modern times. Dryden's protest against it in this play would be louder had he not subsequently decided to translate the Art of Love (see Works, IV, 503). See also Aureng-Zebe, II, i, 159-160 (pp. 180-181 above). 31 Romer. See note to I, i, 292 (p. 292 above). 4 8 + s.d. Exeunt. Harman Junior leads Ysabinda in one direction and the Fiscal leads the others in another. IV, iii S.d. Re-enter. T h e location has changed from the preceding scene, in which Harman Junior led off Ysabinda in a direction the Fiscal said would take them to Towerson (IV, ii, 38, 40). See also first note to IV, ii. 1 which is the way? Ysabinda is not lost; as we see from IV, ii, 16-19, knows the wood well, and the moon is up. She is asking which path Towerson is supposed to have taken. 32-33 In charity . . . gleanings. That the source of Harman's image is biblical (Lev. 19:9-10) may be thought to intensify its impiety. 45 Bless. Defend (OED). 53-54 T h e random capitalization indicates that Dryden wrote the speech as verse: Harm. Jun. Call not the act of Love by that grosse name, You'l give it a much better when 'tis done; And wooe me to a second. 58-74 Ysabinda's rape has little resemblance to the fate of Modesta in Hecatommithi, V, x (see headnote, p. 273 above), but two accidental parallels are noted below. Modesta struggled with Riccio until he killed her. 63 a power above, who sees, and surely will revenge it. The words find a parallel in Hecatommithi, V, x: "Divine justice will see what my innocence deserves." 72 Ysabinda's words find a parallel in Hecatommithi, V, x: "kill me." IV, iv The supposed place is the same as in scene ii. T h e Fiscal has led the wedding party in a circle (see the first words of the scene). See first note to IV, i, as to how the change of location could be managed by closing the scene. 1 a Fairies round. In a circle, as if they were making a fairy ring, "a circular band of grass differing in colour from the grass around it, . . . supposed in popular belief to be produced by fairies when dancing; really caused by the growth of certain fungi" (OED). In the same way Puck "Misleadfs] night-wanderers, laughing at their harm" in A Midsummer Night's Dream, II, i, 39. 7 Hans in Kelder. Tilley J 1 8 , "Jack-in-the-cellar" (first citation 1640). Van der Welle (p. 143), points out that the phrase is Dutch. Dryden had used it also in The Wild Gallant, V, iii, 39, and in The Tempest, IV, ii, 25 (Works, VIII, 80; X, 78). 13 yough Fro. Dutch juffrouw, lady. Dryden, whose knowledge of German

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Commentary

is somewhat more certain than his knowledge of Dutch (van der Welle, p. 143), very likely supposed it was the same as Jungfrau, maid, virgin. 18 exalted. With a play on the slang meaning, drunk (see The Kind Keeper, I, i, 149-152, 194, in Works, XIV, 13, 15). 19 Phlegm. Dullness; see note to prologue, 11. 33-34 (p. 281 above). 19-20 that which can make you fight. See notes to III, iii, 41 (p. 301 above) and to The Kind Keeper, II, i, 49-50 (Works, XIV, 395-396). 27 look. Look for (OED, citing All For Love, IV, i, 253). 39-42 T h e capitalization after the second semicolon suggests that the speech stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript: Har. Jun. Oh, I have nothing left of Manhood in me; I am turn'd Beast or Devil; Have I not Homes, and Tayle, and Leathern wings? Methinks I shou'd have by my Actions Oh I have done a Deed so ill, I cannot name it. 50 Rebels. See note to I, i, 53 (pp. 386-287 above). 59-60 T h e capitalization of "She" suggests that Dryden wrote the speech as verse: Harm. I forc'd her W h a t resistance She cou'd make she did, but 'twas in vain; I bound her as I told you to a tree. 71-84 T h e words capitalized after semicolons suggest that they headed lines of verse in Dryden's manuscript, but the speeches do not divide into regular pentameters. IV, v S.d. bound. Ysabinda is tied to a tree (see IV, iv, 36, 60). T h e location is the same as in scene iii. Having caught Ysabinda, Harman brought her back to the same place where he began his assault on her (see IV, iii, 73, p. 50 above). 1-87 Set as verse in Congreve's edition (1717). Capitalization after semicolons and colons, the latter not usual in the first edition, show where lines began in Dryden's manuscript, occasional extraneous commas show where lines ended, and synaloephas further indicate that the text is verse. T h e verse is not entirely regular, so that often the lines might be divided in more than one way. In the following notes we call attention to lines in 1717 that exceed eleven syllables but not to those that fall below ten. 2 stumbled. A bad sign; see The Duke of Guise, V, iii, 166 (Works, XIV, 300). 3-4 My Nostrills bled . . . follow. "If the nose bleeds three drops and no more it bodes some fearful mischance" (Summers, III, 571, citing John Melton's Astrologaster [1620] and showing from a whole series of plays from 1599 to 1723 that a three-drop nosebleed was a theatrical convention). It occurs in The Duke of Guise, for instance, in V, iii, 161-164, just before the stumbling (Works, XIV, 300). 12-87 Carelessly read, these lines may seem a sterile canvassing of the theme of divine justice. We must instead see Towerson take Ysabinda in his arms in spite of her objections, stroke her hair and speak tenderly to

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her until she strikes out no longer, then be drawn into her former way of thinking as she adopts more of his, so that in the end she is seeking to help him accept what has happened. Nothing could be more moving or more dramatic. 19 the sport of fate. This natural outburst leads into a mutual seeking after a reason for what has happened, which is dramatically very effective in that Towerson is no more able to arrive at a reason than is Ysabinda; his Christianity, though lifelong, is still insufficient for the task. 19 better half. Tilley H4g (first citation 1590); a very common phrase in Dryden. 20 I had . . . then thee. T h e comma suggests that the line division in Dryden's manuscript was: I had been more content, T o suffer in myself then thee. Alternatively, the last two lines may have been one, a fourteener, or, as in 1717, a hexameter and a monometer, " T h a n thee." 26-27 the Conscious Firmament. T h e (all-)knowing (shell of the) sky, i.e., God. 29 Heaven suffer'd more. Exactly what Towerson has in mind is not clear; perhaps he feels that God's reputation has suffered, or perhaps he means that a loving God feels the sorrows of his world even more than it does. 31 the second man, who e'r. Apparently "the second" means "another" (OED), though the normal meaning of "who e'r" goes awkwardly with such an interpretation. 40 Kill me. See note to IV, iii, 72 (p. 305 above). 45-46 in us .. . th' Eternal Mind. Accepted as a hexameter in 1717. 50 Can death,. . . be good? Accepted as a hexameter in 1717. 51-52 Death is . . . preserve our beings. Tilley S219, "Self-preservation is nature's first law" (first citation 1602-1609). 53-60 T h e capitalization of "And" after the colon (not usual in the first edition) suggests that "And blessed Virgins, whom you celebrate" was a line in Dryden's manuscript, but there is then no easy way to make the surrounding lines regular. In 1717 they are divided as follows: Nor is death in it self an ill; T h e n holy Martyrs sin'd, who ran uncall'd T o snatch their Martyrdom: And blessed Virgins, Whom you celebrate for voluntary death, T o free themselves from that which I have suffer'd. 53-54 Kings . . . should be above Laws. Appropriate on the lips of a loyal Englishman's bride in the reign of James I, who "believed that kings derived their authority directly from God and were answerable to him alone for the discharge of that trust" ( O x f o r d History of Britain, p. 351). Consequently nothing can be deduced from these words as to Dryden's own feelings, although divine right was a Stuart doctrine to the end and Dryden was loyal to the Stuarts. 57-58 Martyrs . . . Virgins. Summers objects that voluntary martyrdom was against the precepts of the church (III, 572), but the average Christian would understand the church's stories the same way Ysabinda does.

3

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Commentary

63 if I am ... a little longer. Accepted as a hexameter in 1717. 70 as a Governor. T h e image is ironic, though whether intentionally so we cannot be sure. 74-75 Divided after "Countreymen" in 1717. 78 thither I will go. I.e., for divine justice. For Dryden's attitude toward Ysabinda's intended suicide, see headnote (p. 271 above). 84 Tarquin. He raped Lucrece (see headnote, p. 273 above). 97-103 Set as verse in 1717. 100 fiery Cherub . . . Paradice. Gen. 3:24. See The State of Innocence, V, iv, 240-241 (p. 145 above). 100-101 to guard . . . second Violation. Accepted as a fourteener in 1717. 102-103 and when . . . the excuse. Turned into a normal pentameter in 1717 by introducing three synaloephas. 109-117 Set as verse in 1717. 124 for all your cause. T h e language of trial by combat. 127-134 Set as verse in 1717, the first line made regular by substituting "over" for the first edition's "o'r." 133 frank. Generous (OED, citing dedication of Marriage A-la-Mode; see Works, XI, 223:19-20). 145-147 Set as two pentameters and a hexameter in 1717. 157-190 Set as verse in 1717. 168 Accepted as a hexameter in 1717. 191 Jealousie. Here perhaps in its usual meaning, but see note to II, i, 4 (p. 292 above). 199-217 Set as verse in 1717. 203-204 or is it probable . . . afterwards. T h e Fiscal conveniently forgets that Towerson had saved Harman Junior from pirates. 215-216 wou'd have surpriz'd . . . and made us Slaves. True Declaration (pp. 6-8) says that Towerson's plan was to wait for English ships to arrive, so he would have more men, and to wait until the governor was away on a military expedition, so the castle would have fewer men. When the time was ripe, says True Declaration, Towerson intended to signal the Japanese in the garrison to revolt and to kill all the Dutch in the castle and the town who offered any resistance [which Dryden might count as enslaving the rest]. T h e same source says that Towerson then planned to send to Djakarta for help in holding the castle for the East India Company, or, if he got no help, to make peace with the "Indians" and hold it for himself. 220-239 Set as verse in 1717. 227 no power to judge us. A major theme of the play, repeated at V, i, 56-57, 132-133, and 254-259 (pp. 63, 65, 69-70 above). For the Dutch reply and the English counterreply, see under the letter " Q " in True Declaration and Answer. 229 several. Separate. True Relation: "Captaine Towerson was committed to his chamber with a guard of Dutch Souldiers. Emanuel Tomson [his assistant] was kept prisoner in the Castle; the r e s t . . . were sent aboard the Hollanders ships then riding in harbour, some to one Ship, and some to another, and all made fast in Irons" (p. 6). 232 Was ever ... Bridal night? Accepted as a fourteener in 1717.

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56-63

309

V, i 2-3 great advantages must with some loss be bought. Tilley W188, "No weal without woe" (first citation c. 1470). 5 eat, and drink down all my griefs. Apparently intended as a typical Dutch remedy, but the English had a proverb, "Drink after grief goes merrily down" (Tilley D596, citations 1 6 1 1 , 1659), and see Prov. 31:6-7: "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." 1 1 shrowd. An alternate spelling of "shrewd" in the seventeenth century. 16 s.d. Messenger. As Summers notes (III, 572), this messenger is one "employed . . . to apprehend state prisoners" (OED). 27 Honourable Court. The governor and council acting as a court. See True Declaration, pp. 5, 18, and "the Court or Councell at Amboyna" (Answer, p. 20). 28-34 Some two or three . . . my self being present. True Relation: "About the eleuenth of February, 1622. Stilo veteri, a laponer Souldier of the Dutch in their Castle of Amboyna, walking in the night vpon the wall, came to the Sentinell (being a Hollander,) and there, amongst other talke, asked him some questions touching the strength of the Castle, and the people that were therin. . . . This laponer aforesaid, was for his said conference with the Sentinell, apprehended vpon suspicion of treason, and put to the Torture. Therby (as some of the Dutch affirmed) hee was brought to confesse himselfe, and sundry others of his countrey-men there, to haue contriued the taking of the Castle. Hereupon, other Iaponers were examined and tortured, as also a Portugall, the Guardian of the Slaues vnder the Dutch." The English suspected nothing, "hauing neuer had any conuersation with the Iaponers, nor with the Portugall aforesaid" (pp. 4-5). 36-47 I ask'd him . . . so he stands committed. T h e Japanese "confessed the English to haue beene of their confederacy" (True Relation, p. 5). See note to Persons Represented (pp. 282-283 above) for the English charge that the fiscal led the witnesses. 50-51 their General. See note to Persons Represented (p. 282 above). 56 no power to Judge him. See note to IV, v, 227 (p. 308 above). 58 League and Union. The treaty of 1619. See notes to I, i, 28-31, and III, iii, 150 (pp. 285, 303 above). 60-61 a pain ne'er heard of. Summers notes (III, 573) that Sir Edward Coke's First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England or "Coke upon Littleton" (1628) says "there is no law to warrant tortures in this land," but that torture was practiced from time to time anyway when examining those suspected of treason. Sir Robert Holmes tortured Dutchmen by fire on the African coast (van der Welle, p. 22; Wilson, p. 131). In January 1673, two unofficial Dutch emissaries to England who were suspected of trying by bribery to divide the members of the council of state were imprisoned and threatened with the rack. The question was considered whether they should in fact be tortured "yet not so as to lame or disable them" (Haley, pp. 3 1 4 315). True Declaration (p. 16) points out that "pressing" was practiced in

3io

Commentary

England. Dryden refers to pressing in The Assignation, II, iii, 53 {Works, XI, 342), set ostensibly in Rome. T h e note in Works, XI, 535, describes the procedure, as does True Declaration, p. 16. 62-67 T h e capitalization after the second semicolon, the synaloepha, and the extraneous commas show that the speech stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript: Fisc. Their English Laws, in England have their force; And we have ours, different from theirs, at home; It is enough, they either shall confess; Or we will falsify their hands to make e'm; T h e n for th' Apologie let me alone; I have it writ already to a Tittle, Of what they shall subscribe; this I will publish, And make our most unheard of Cruelties, T o seem most just, and legal. 62-63 Their English .. . at home. T h e matter of which nation's law ought to be in effect in Amboyna is treated in True Declaration, and Answer, under the letter "N." Each side felt its law ought to govern. 63-67 It is enough . . . legal. This passage is in effect a description of True Declaration, except that the latter does not give any of the confessions. T h e charge of forgery in the confessions appears in Answer, p. 19, which says the confessions were published in "the Acts of the Processe of Amboyna"; Acts was later issued as part of Remonstrance. 65 let me alone. See note to I, i, 78 Let (p. 288 above). 68-73 Harman's speech is rhythmical, and the verb "Rifle" is capitalized, but "Rifl'd" occurs in III, iii, 101 (p. 43 above), where the speech is again rhythmical but the verb cannot begin a line. W e also note here the lack of synaloepha in "the Execution," a circumstance Dryden avoided in his verse, at least in later times (see dedication of Examen Poeticum in Works, IV, 371, and discussion of caesura in dedication of the Aeneis, in Works, V, 319321). Therefore we cannot insist that this speech stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript. 68 him. See note to II, i, 179-180 (p. 293 above). 69-72 proceed we to the . . . Inventory. True Relation (p. 6): "[The Dutch] tooke the Marchandize of the English Company there into their owne custody by Inuentory, and seized all the chests, boxes, bookes, writings, and other things in the English house" (i.e., the factory). 77 stope. Stoup (the Dutch word is stoop), a drinking vessel, of varying dimensions (OED, stoup, citing this passage; the next citation, from 1713, defines a Rotterdam stope as about three English quarts). 82-83 'Tis . . . so. This pentameter is on a line by itself in the quarto and folio editions and is indented in the first quarto. Perhaps it should be assigned to "2 Dutch." Cf. the first quarto's omission of the speech tag at the head of its p. 57 (1. 175, p. 67 above); the tag is in the preceding catchword. 82 a Member. A part, like one of the legs. 94-95 the cryes . . . have reach'd your Ears. T h e historical Beomont had

Notes to Pages

63-65

to listen to the torture of two of his fellow Englishmen (True Relation, p. 7). 97 Juglings. Tricks (OED). In fact, according to True Relation, both Collins and George Sharrock, in fear of torture (further torture in Collins's case), manufactured the stories that led to Towerson's execution (pp. 9, 14). 98-gg a free confession, will first attone. True Relation: " T o these [ten men] that remained in the Hall [and had been condemned to death], came the Dutch Ministers, who telling them how short a time they had to liue, admonished and exhorted them to make their true confessions; for it was a dangerous and desperate thing, to dissemble at such a time. . . . [And one said] By how much the cleerer you are, so much the more glorious shall be your resurrection" (pp. 24-25). 100-102 let me exhort . . . Conspiracy. Samuel Colson, having seen Collins after his torture, confessed before he had to suffer (True Relation, p. 10); so did William Griggs and William Webber (pp. 12-16). Webber was later pardoned (p. 26). 104-105 Although the text in the first edition makes reasonable sense, the rhythm, normal usage, the possibility of dittography, and the capitalization of "Mask'd" suggest that the speech stood in Dryden's manuscript as follows: Fisc. Why la you, that the Devil shou'd go Mask'd with such a seeming honest face; I warrant you you know of no such thing. The historical fiscal was not so ironic; he would have said "You lie" (True Relation, p. 9; similarly, p. 14). 104 la you. "An exclamation formerly used to . . . call attention to an emphatic statement" (OED). 108-109 More than one passage in True Relation is similar; perhaps the nearest are the words of Samuel Colson, written in a Book of Common Prayer that he gave to a servant of the Dutch, who in turn sewed it up in his mattress until he delivered it to Captain Welden, the English agent at Banda: "I Samuel Colson, late Factor of Hitto, was apprehended for suspicion of conspiracy; and for any thing I know, must dye for it: . . . I doe here vpon my saluation, as I hope by his death and passion to haue redemption for my sinnes, [declare] that I am cleere of all such conspiracy" (p. 21). See van der Welle (p. 53) on the genuine existence of this book and its later history. io8-iog Article. Critical moment (OED). 114-115, 127 two Japonneses. Only one has been mentioned before, but historically there were eleven (named in True Relation, p. 29). 115 Starts. See note to I, i, 51 (p. 286 above). 116 Not to enforme your knowledge. Not to put words in your mouths. But we see that by reading the accusation the Fiscal does exactly that. T h e historical fiscal asked leading questions again and again (see note to Persons Represented, pp. 282-283 above). 119-125 True Relation says that John Clarke, who seems to have held out longest under torture, ,at last "answered, yea to whatsoeuer they asked: whereby they drew from him a bodie of a confession to this effect; to wit, That Captaine Towerson had vpon New-yeares day last before, sworne all the English at Amboyna to bee secret and assistant to a plot that he had proiected, with the helpe of the Iaponers, to surprise the Castle, and to put

$12

Commentary

the Gouernour and the rest of the Dutch to death" (p. 12). Dryden seems to have followed this passage rather than the longer account of how Collins invented this plot (with fewer details) to escape further torture (pp. 9-10). 124-125 Jacatra, and Banda, and Loho. Jacatra (Djakarta) is in Java, Loho was on Ceram, as already noted; probably Dryden was misled by True Relation: "The Fiscall then asked him, whether the President of the English at Iaccatra, or Master Welden Agent in Banda, were not plotters or priuie to this businesse" (p. g). The name of Loho and the words following seem to come from the account of Towerson's confession in True Declaration: "that they of Loho should also come to helpe him . . . and . . . if they [the English at their headquarters in Djakarta] had sent him succour, hee would haue kept the Castle for his owne company (viz: for the English East India Company) and if not, he would haue held it for himselfe" (pp. 7-8). 129 True Relation: "some of the English-men . . . heard of their tortures" (p. 5). 130 It matters not which way the truth come out. See headnote (p. 273 above) for English objections to testimony obtained under torture or the threat of it. 132-135 See note to IV, v, 227 (p. 308 above). 135 we are in possession here. Tilley P487, "Possession is eleven (nine) points of the law" (first citation 1596). 140-142 Dryden has condensed the description of this kind of torture in True Relation and in the process has made it less horrible. Perhaps he wished to have the climax of horror come later when the torturers were shown at work. 145 Matches. A kind of fuse for setting off gunpowder was called a match (OED) and that seems to be what Dryden means here (see 1. 3 2 6 + s.d., p. 72 above), but so was a candlewick (OED) and hence perhaps Dryden's variation from his source. True Relation says the torture by burning was done with candles (see note to 1. 366). 146-147 Nutmegs, to quicken your short Memories. Summers (III, 575) cites a superstition that a gilded nutmeg would keep you in mind of your beloved. See note to I, i, 13 (p. 284 above) for Dutch nutmeg plantations. 151 Corpulent. Again Dryden has condensed descriptions in True Relation of those who had suffered the torture. Remonstrance is probably correct in objecting to inflammatory exaggeration in the English account; it says (pp. 13, 18) that the water torture does not cause swelling of the body but leaves it as before, so that it is more humane than the rack. On the other hand, as we see below, Dryden is able to increase the power of his source when he represents the effect of torture by fire. True Relation gives many factual details; Dryden recreates feelings. 155-156 Apparently based on Collins's words as given in True Relation: "that because hee knew that they would by torture make him confesse any thing, though neuer so false, they should doe him a great fauour, to tell him what they would haue him say, and hee would speake it, to auoide the torture" (p. 8). 161 'Tis well you're Merry. Apparently Dryden rearranged his text without noticing that he had thus made these words incongruous. As the play stands, the black humor comes later.

Notes to Pages 65-jo

313

167-168 cast off the Yoke of their lawful Soveraign. See note to I, i, 53 (pp. 286-287 above). 170 Historically, no English boys or women were at Amboyna. 175-180 The capitalization of "Wee'l" after a comma shows that the speech stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript, more or less as follows: Harm. The Devill's in these English, those brave Boys Wou'd prove stout Topers if they liv'd. Come hither ye perverse Imps, They say, you have indur'd the Water Torment, Wee'l try what Fire will do with you: you Sirrah, Confess, were you not knowing of Towerson's Plot, Against this Fort and Island? 176 stout Topers. A Dutch commendation; see note to 1. 5. 190 half straine. Half-breed. All citations in OED are from Dryden. 194 Pennance. I.e., torture. 200 your Children have that of Rebellion. See note to I, i, 53 (pp. 286-287 above). 202 Falstaff. Falstaff was one of the other roles of William Cartwright, who played Harman; see headnote (p. 270 above). 214 a Hen of the Game. Feminine of cock of the game, a fighting cock (OED cock); a "game" woman. 218 cram Gunpowder into 't, and blow me up. No such torture is mentioned in True Relation, but it appears in the next century in Lismahago's sufferings at the hands of American Indians (Smollett's Humphrey Clinker, letter from Jerry Melford to Sir Watkin Phillips, 13 July: "the calves of his legs had been blown up with mines of gunpowder, dug in the flesh with the sharp point of the tomahawk"). No doubt Dryden also had heard or read of the use of this torture by American Indians. 219 shame my Countrey. See note to II. 332-333. 220 the Mother of the Maccabees. A Jewish woman who encouraged her sons to die under torture rather than eat pork, and then died herself (2 Macc. 7). 235 True Relation: "Beomont . . . was told, that he was beholding to Peter Iohnson the Dutch Merchant of Loho [where he and Beomont had lived and worked in the same building], and to the Secretarie; for they two had begged his life" (p. 24); the secretary was not the fiscal, who was the prosecutor, but Dryden might have assumed he was. T h e secretary's name was Vincent Corthals, as we see from Acts, p. 33. For Johnson's and Beomont's sharing living quarters, see Answer, p. 9. 245 shipt. See note to 1. 382. 250 examin'd last. The historical Towerson was not examined last (True Relation, p. 16). 254-472 Set as verse in Congreve's edition (1717) except for seven brief interruptions: 11. 260-264 (Fiscal and 1 Dutchman), 275 (Fiscal), 342-343 (Harman), 367 (Van Herring), 388-389 (Harman), 434-436 (Harman and Collins), and 462-468 (Van Herring, 1 and 2 Dutchmen, and Fiscal). 255-256 no right to judge me. See note to IV, v, 227 (p. 308 above). 256 the last Treaty. See note to I, i, 236-237 (p. 291 above). 258 Councel of Defence. See notes to 1. 260 and I, i, 48-50 (p. 286 above).

Commentary 260 This Court conceives. True Declaration: "this common Councell o£ Defence hath no more power, saue onely ouer the fellowship of the treaty, that is, ouer the Nauy of defence in the Sea, to the defence of the common Merchandize, and liberty of commerce; and lastly, to taxe the charges for the prouision of munition in the Forts: neither can any other thing be sincerely collected out of the said treaty [of 1619], so farre as I can conceiue" (p. 14). "These proceedings were holden by the Netherlandish Gouernor, in the name of the illustrious Lords the States, hauing supreame power, many yeares since in the Yles of Amboyna" (pp. 9-10). 261 most High and Mighty States. The formal title; see note to II, i, 374 (p. 297 above). 269 strike Say I. See headnote (p. 261 above). 269 Lives and Freedome are our Alms. See I, i, 48-50 (pp. u - 1 2 above). 270-271 new upstart Common-Wealth. Repeated in epilogue, 1. 1 1 (p. 77 above). Compared with the English kingdom, the Dutch commonwealth as an independent nation was new, but see epilogue, 1. 9, for a Dutch claim to high antiquity. 272-274 the meanest . . mighty States. See note to II, i, 392-393 (p. 298 above). 282-300 True Relation: "In the next place let it be considered, how impossible it was for the English to atchieue this pretended enterprise. "The Castle of Amboyna is of a very great strength . . . ; the Garrison therein two or three hundred men, besides as many more of their free Burgers in the Town. [Two examples of their alertness to possible attack are then given.] "Durst ten Englishmen (whereof not one a souldier) attempt any thing vpon such a strength & vigilancy? As for the assistance of the Iapons, they were but ten neither, and all vnarmed aswell as the English. For . . . at the seizure of the English house [i.e., factory], all the prouision therein found was but three swords, two muskets, and half a pound of powder. . . . But let it be imagined, that these twenty persons, English and Iapons, were so desperate as to aduenture the exploit; how should they be able to master the Dutch in the Castle, or to keep possession when they had gotten it? what Second had they? There was neither Ship nor Pinace of the English in the harbour. . . . T h e neerest of the rest of the English, were at Banda, forty leagues from Amboyna. . . . "On the other side, besides the strength of the Castle and Towne of Amboyna, the Hollanders haue three other strong Castles, well furnished with Souldiers, in the same Island, and at Cambello neere adioyning [i.e., on Ceram]. They had then also in the road of Amboyna eight Ships and vessels" (pp. 34-36). 282-291 The capitalization of "Extorted" in 1. 284 and the synaloepha in 1. 290 show that the speech stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript (in which the last line of the preceding speech was "But with our common danger") and the 1717 edition so divides the lines: Towers. Let me first Be bold to question you: what circumstance Can make this your pretended Plot seem likely? The Natives first you tortur'd, their confession

Notes to Pages 70-72 Extorted so, can prove no crime in us. Consider next the strength of this your Castle; It's Garrison above two hundred Men, Besides as many of your City Burgers, All ready on the least Allarme, or Summons, T o Reinforce the others, for ten English, And Merchants they, not Souldiers, with the Ayd Of ten Japanners; all of e'm unarm'd, Except five Swords, and not so many Muskets; Th' attempt had only been for Fools or Madmen. 283-284 the Natives first you tortur'd. A mistake within the play as well as historically. The first to be tortured were Japanese; see 11. 28-34, and headnote (pp. 62, 272 above). 295 Ship nor Pinnace. Large craft or small. 296-297 forty Leagues from hence. I.e., at Banda (see note to 11. 282-300). 302-303 Give him the Beverage. See note to 1. 388. 307, 326 ope that Prison door [and] shut that door. See the accompanying stage directions. Summers (III, 576) gives numerous examples of the drawing and closing of scenes to represent the opening and closing of doors. Two examples from An Evening's Love may be added, IV, i, 1 9 7 + s.d.-igS ("The Scene opens and discovers . . . a Garden with an Arbour in it. [Wildblood then says] The Garden dore opens"), and V, i, 279 ("Maskall open the door. Maskall goes to one side of the Scene, which draws") and 314 (Maskall shut the door. Maskall goes to the Scene and it closes") (Works, X, 275, 303-304). True Relation had a picture of the method of torment (facing p. 30 in the 1971 facsimile) so the set designer would know how to proceed. It shows an Englishman spread-eagled against a closed door, and so may have led Dryden to have the tortures displayed by opening a door. 310 D' Alva. See headnote (p. 259 above). There is another reference to Alva at I, i, 232 (p. 17 above). 311-312 he knew . . . your Blood. Accepted as a hexameter in 1717. 313 us'd to this. At the hands of the Spanish (see headnote, p. 259 above). 314-315 your Countrey lies confin'd on Hell. See IV, v, 86: "Hell has its Nether-lands" (p. 56 above). Also, The Dutch-mens Pedigree (1653) ends: "from Hell they came, and thither without doubt they must return again" (quoted by Rogers, p. 12). 323 transfix'd on Theatres. Pierced through in Roman circuses. 326 shut that door. See note to 11. 307, 326. 326+ s.d. Matches. See note to 1. 145. 332-333 will not shame our Countrey. Contrary to the facts; see headnote (p. 272 above). 333-334 like Marble Statues . . . not melted down. Marble is a form of limestone and so turns to quicklime when burned. 342 Candles. See note to 1. 366. 342-343 from the Wrists up to the Elbows. True Relation: "[The Dutch] burnt [John Clarke] also vnder the elbowes, and in the palmes of the hands" (p. 11). 344 Scavola. See Livy, II, xii, for the famous story. Caius Mutius Scaevola, an assassin caught and ordered to be burned, held his right hand in a sac-

316

Commentary

rificial fire beside the j u d g m e n t seat, for which fortitude he was pardoned. Scaevola means "left-handed." Beamont says he will do more. 350-353 T h e capitalization of the verbs a n d the synaloepha show that the speech stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript, a n d the 1717 edition so divides the lines: Beam. Yet this I can endure, Go on, a n d weary out two Elements; Vex Fire a n d W a t e r with th' Experiments Of pains far worse then death. 365 exalted. See note to IV, iv, 18 (p. go6 above). 366 Fat. True Relation: " [ T h e Dutch] b u r n t [John Clarke] with lighted candles in the bottome of his feete, vntill the fat d r o p t out the candles" (p. 11). 367 T h e capitalization of "Divinely" shows that the speech stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript: Van Her. So wou'd I; o h the Tobacco tasts Divinely a f t e r it. Nevertheless, as noted above, Congreve let it stand as prose. 368 We have . . . to see. Accepted as a n acephalous hexameter in 1717, as is 1. 374. 370-373 T h i s horrifying speech is the more terrible because Beamont has just said (11. 344-345) he could stand the flames. 374 Do with Beamont as you please. See the Fiscal's promise, 11. 244-246. 382 next. Nearest, i.e., H i t t o or Larica on the island of Amboyna; see note to I, i, 13 (p. 284 above). T h e historical Beomont was sent to the Dutch governor-general at Djakarta ( T r u e Relation, p. 32). 388 I'le spare your torture. True Relation: " C a p t a i n Towerson was brought vp into the place of examination, & two great Iarres of water carried after him. W h a t he did or suffered, was v n k n o w n e to the English without: b u t it seemeth they m a d e h i m then to vnder-write his confession" (p. 23). 392 forgive. True Relation: "Firmed by the Firme of mee Gabriel Towerson now a p p o i n t e d to die, guiltlesse of any t h i n g that can bee iustly laid to my charge. God forgiue them their guilt, a n d receiue me to his mercy. A m e n " (p. 20; written on a bill of debt to T h o m a s Johnson, "a free Burgher . . . for acknowledgement, that the English C o m p a n y owed h i m a certaine summe of money"). 398-399 became . . . Company. T w o lines of verse in 1717 divided after "brave." 399 Employers. True Relation: "we desire . . . that our Imployers may vnderstand these wrongs" (p. 2 1 ; written in a "tablebook" belonging to William Griggs which was given by one of the Dutch to Captain Welden, the English agent at Banda; see p. 31). 421 dye unforc'd. See note to IV, v, 78 (p. 308 above). 4 2 1 - 4 2 2 I'le make . . . to Towerson. Accepted as a hexameter in 1717. 425 She shall . . . that violence. Accepted as a hexameter in 1717. 432 shrowd. Shade. T h e word was then going out of use (OED's last citation is f r o m Shakespeare) a n d Congreve's edition (1717) accordingly has "Shade" here. 436 Death's a privation 0} pain. Collins is to be executed.

Notes to Pages 72-76 439-447 T h e capitalization of "For" after a semicolon (unusual at this time) suggests that the speech stood as verse in Dryden's manuscript, more or less as follows (the line division in the 1717 edition is somewhat different): Perez. As you love my Soul, take hence that Woman; My English friends, I'm not ashamed of death, While I have you for part'ners; I know you innocent, and so am I, Of this pretended plot; But I am guilty of a greater crime; For, being married in another Countrey, T h e Governors perswasions, and my love T o that ill Woman, made me leave the first, And make this fatal choice. I'm justly punish'd, for her sake I dye; T h e Fiscal to enjoy her has accus'd me. There is another cause by his procurement I shou'd have kill'd 439-445 As you love . . . 7 dye. True Relation: " T h e Portugall prayed ouer his Beades very deuoutely [before his execution], and often kissed the Crosse; swearing therupon, that he was vtterly innocent of this Treason: yet confessed, that God had iustly brought this punishment vpon him, for that hauing a wife in his own countrey, hee had, by the perswasion of the Dutch Gouernour, taken another in that countrey, his first being yet liuing" (p. 28). 445-446 the Fiscal to enjoy her has accus'd me. T h e historical sources do not explain why Perez was accused. 446 another cause. See III, ii, 155-156 (p. 39 above). 451 go to sleep. Biblical language. 452 th' unjust. Carried over from the verse in Dryden's manuscript. 454 with Blood, shall pay that blood. T h e intended application of the words is of course to the war going on when the play was written and staged. 455 invite the Waves. See headnote (p. 263 above). 463 pull. Drawing of a numbered or unnumbered ticket or a black or white ball from an urn in a lottery (see Cleomenes, V, ii, 256-258, in Works, XVI). 464 when his Head's o f f . Towerson was beheaded. 465 Nostradamus. Michel de Nostredame (1503-1566), court physician and astrologer, who gained immense prestige by correctly foretelling how Henry II would meet his end. Nostredame's almanacs and other books of prophecy began to be printed in England in 1559. Dryden refers to him in other plays, but probably without having read his works, or works written in his name, with any attention. The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus (1672), sometimes attributed instead to Théophile Garencières, foretold disaster for the English (p. 518) and victory for the Dutch and French over the emperor of Austria (p. 521). 467 Apology. Explanation. T h e reference is to such works as True Declaration and Remonstrance, but they say nothing about a letter to the king (11. 467-468); see also note to I, i, 87-93 (P- 2 ^8 above). 469 Now. T h e capitalization after a colon, unusual in the first edition,

3x8

Commentary

suggests that the word began a new line in Dryden's manuscript, as it does in 1 7 1 7 . 470 three days. True Relation: "The next day after the execution, beeing the eight and twentith of February, Stilo veteri, was spent in triumph for the new [Governor] General of the Dutch then proclaimed, and in publick rejoycing for the deliuerance from this pretended treason" (p. 30). 472 rifle. "To play at dice; to gamble or raffle" (OED, citing this passage). 473 Romers. See note to I, i, 292 (p. 292 above). 474 Starts. See note to I, i, 51 (p. 286 above).

EPILOGUE

I-2 T h e poet Tyrtaeus led the Spartans in the second war against Messenia ( 6 8 5 - 6 6 8 B.C.), stirring them to unity and victory with his songs. Dryden knew of him from Horace's Ars Poetica, 11. 4 0 1 - 4 0 3 , and Plutarch's Life of Cleomenes, ii. He had read Plutarch in college (Works, XVII, 269), and in 1692 prefixed the Life of Cleomenes (in Thomas Creech's translation) to his tragedy, Cleomenes, the Spartan Heroe (see Works, XVI, Appendix). 3 - 4 See headnote (pp. 2 6 4 - 2 6 5 above). 6 Bore. See note to II, i, 3 9 2 - 3 9 3 (p. 2 9 8 above). 9 The Dutch could look back on their first appearance in recorded history, when Caesar conquered the Belgic tribes and began the conquest of Britain but the Dutch tribes maintained their independence as allies of Rome. I I - 1 2 For various points here see headnote and notes to V, i, 2 7 0 - 2 7 1 , and II, i, 4 0 3 (pp. 2 6 8 , 3 1 4 , 2 9 8 - 2 9 9 above). 13 "The situation of Venice renders it impossible to bring horses into the town; accordingly, the Venetians are proverbially bad riders" (Scott, S-S, V, 9 2 ) . 14 Mankind bestride. "The United Provinces had become the world centre for the exchange and distribution of goods" (Wilson, p. 5). 16 Paunches swell above their Chin. A violent image, climaxing a theme begun in I, i, 25 (p. 11 above). 17 Humour. Fluid or vapor (OED). 18 two Kings Touch. Either Charles II and Louis XIV, who were allies in the Third Dutch War, or Charles alone, with reference to the second and third Dutch wars (see headnote, p. 262 above). "Charles the Second, in the course of his reign, touched near a hundred thousand persons"; as he also gave each one a gold piece, his touching for the scrofula made a considerable drain on his treasury, "little less than ten thousand pounds a year" (Macaulay, IV, 1744, citing preface to Richard Wiseman, A Treatise on Wounds [ 1 6 7 6 ] , and John Browne, Charisma Basilicon [ 1 6 8 4 ] ) . 1 9 Cato. Marcus Porcius Cato ( 2 3 4 - 1 4 9 B.C.), who in his last years, when called upon for his vote on any subject before the Roman senate, added, "Carthage must be destroyed" (Plutarch, Life of Cato, XXVII). As Scott observes (S-S, V, 92), Plutarch tells also of an occasion when Cato showed the Roman senate some remarkable African figs, saying that the country of their source was not more than three days' sail away. Thus, if they wished

Notes to Pages 76-77 a constant supply, they had only to destroy Carthage and seize its territory. There was, however, no Caesar (1. 22) in Cato's day. As W i n n notes, Shaftesbury also quoted Cato in his speech in parliament on 5 February 1673 (see Lords Journals, XII, 524-527; Haley, pp. 316-317; and Winn, p. 240; see also Winn's note 86 on pp. 580-581 for a discussion of who came first, Dryden or Shaftesbury, and other problems of dating). Scott notes (S-S, V, 92) that when "that versatile statesman afterwards fled to Holland, he petitioned to be created a burgess of Amsterdam, to ensure him against being delivered up to England. T h e magistrates conferred on him the freedom desired, with the memorable words, 'Ab nostra Carthagine nondum deleta, salutem accipe [accept safety from our Carthage, not yet destroyed].' "

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" W e shall here beg the Readers Pardon for m e n t i o n i n g a Passage told a G e n t l e m a n of our Society almost Forty years since by M r Dryden, w h o went with M r W a l l e r in C o m p a n y to make a Visit to M r Milton and desire his Leave for putting his Paradise Lost into R h i m e for the Stage. W e l l , M r Dryden, says Milton, it seems you have a mind to T a g g my Points, and y o u have m y L e a v e to T a g g 'em, but some of 'em are so A w k w a r d and O l d Fashion'd that I think you had as good leave 'em as you f o u n d 'em." T h u s does a notice in the Monitor in 1713 confirm the report of J o h n A u b r e y in the earliest biographical notice of Milton: "Jo: Dreyden . . . went to h i m to have leave to putt his Paradise-lost into a Drama in R h y m e : Mr. M i l t o n received h i m civilly, & told h i m he w o u l d give h i m leave to tagge his Verses." T o his still briefer account of the meeting Jonathan Richardson added the explanation, "the Fashion was in those days to wear much R i b b o n , which Some A d o r n ' d with T a g g s of Metal at the E n d s . " 1 If the foregoing accounts are correct, M i l t o n forgot that his contract w i t h Samuel Simmons for the publication of Paradise Lost forbade him, his executors, his assigns, "or any other" to "print or cause to be printed or sell dispose or publish . . . any other Booke or Manuscript of the same tenor or subiect" without the consent of Simmons, his executors, or his assigns. 2 O r if Milton did not forget, then either h e understood the language of the contract differently or he sent Dryden off to come to an agreement with Simmons, a matter to which we shall return. M i l t o n died 8 N o v e m b e r 1674. W h e n w o u l d D r y d e n have written The State of Innocence? In 1674, says one scholar, a d d i n g that it was "surely intended to compete w i t h " the operatic Tempest, produced about the end of A p r i l of that year, a n d moreover was written in haste to do so. 3 Others say the work was written to celebrate the marriage of the dedicatee, M a r y of M o d e n a , to James D u k e of York in N o v e m b e r 1673. 4 T h e second line of reasoning is perhaps weaker than the first,5 but, as there is only about six 1 All quotations are from Helen Darbishire, ed., The Early Lives of Milton (1932), pp. 335, 7, 296. Winn's review of Dryden's visit to Milton (pp. 264-265 and notes) is enlivened by his suggestion that Milton, besides disagreeing with Dryden in matters of politics, was in effect fighting on the side of Sir Robert Howard, who knew him well, in Howard's battle against Dryden's rhymed plays, because Milton used and defended blank verse in his epics (the defense is in the second edition of Paradise Lost just preceding the text). Winn thinks that Dryden's remark in the Discourse of Satire, "I consulted . . . Milton" (Works, IV, 84-85), should be added to the accounts of the visit. It seems more likely that Dryden meant in that instance that he consulted Milton's writings. 2 The Life Records of John Milton, comp. J. Milton French (1949-1958), IV, 430. 3 Winn, p. 262. i W. J. Lawrence, "Dryden's Abortive Opera," TLS, 6 August 1931, p. 606; Summers, "Dryden's Abortive Opera," TLS, 13 August 1931, p. 621; Macdonald, p. 115. 5Eleanore Boswell [Murrie], The Restoration Court Stage (1932), pp. 111-112,

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months' difference between the two conclusions, the disagreement is not very significant. Our edition has come down cautiously on the side o£ those who believe Dryden did not write the operatic Tempest,6 but it is difficult to decide how much haste there was in writing The State of Innocence. Dryden says he wrote it in a month and never revised it.? In the dedication of Amboyna he had implied that a month was not enough time to write a serious play. 8 In the dedication of The Spanish Fryar, however, he was to say he was ashamed to bring a badly written play before the public even when he knew that it would have a good effect on the stage.9 Haste in writing may be conditioned not only by a sudden purpose with a near deadline but by other calls on a writer's time. We know essentially nothing of Dryden's private affairs while he may have been writing The State of Innocence, but we do know something of his other literary activities. The State of Innocence was entered in the Stationers' Register on 17 April 1674, under the title, The Fall of Angells and man in innocence.10 Entry in the Register is not proof that the opera was finished, but it is at least-evidence that it had been begun. We have perhaps some indication of when it was finished from a remark made by Marvell in his commendatory poem in the second edition of Paradise Lost, which was advertised in the Term Catalogue for 6 July 1674: Marvell lauds Milton's blank verse above the rhymes written by "the Town-Bayes" and poets who "tag" their "Fancies." 1 1 Marvell's words may tell us that he had seen Dryden's opera in manuscript, or they may indicate only that he knew of Dryden's visit to Milton. Still, on balance the evidence we have suggests that Dryden's month of writing came in the spring of 1674. At that time Dryden was collaborating in and perhaps directing the writing of Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco,12 and that task may have made him hurry with The State of Innocence. Otherwise, in this period, he wrote only a prologue and an epilogue for the opening of Drury Lane Theater, 26 March 1674. 1 3 What impulse may have led Dryden to approach Milton with his request or proposal? Toward the end of the Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (1693) he said that about twenty years earlier he had begun a search in Milton for "Beautiful Turns of Words and Thoughts" like those in Waller and Denham and had not found them; he had found only "true sublimity, lofty thoughts, which were cloath'd with admirable Grecisms, and ancient words, which he had been digging from the Mines of Chaucer, and could find no documentary evidence that the court was contemplating an opera at this time. 6 Works, X, 324. I The Authors Apology, p. 86 above. 8 See p. 5 above. 9 Dedication, 11. 27-29 (Works, XIV, 99). to Macdonald, p. 116. II John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. Merrit Y. Hughes (1935), p. 5. Osborn (p. 29) points out that Johnson was the first of Dryden's biographers to notice Marvell's attack. i2 Works, XVII, 387. " Ibid., I, 148-151.

322

Commentary

of Spencer, and which, with all their rusticity, had somewhat of Venerable in them." 1 4 Possibly he then decided that he could excel Paradise Lost. His friend John Dennis was to say of him, "one of these two Things must be granted; either that Mr. Dryden knew not the Extent of Milton's great Qualities, or that he design'd to be a Foil to him. But they who knew Mr. Dryden, know very well, that he was not of a Temper to design to be a Foil to any one." 1 5 Shall we believe Dennis, or shall we believe Dryden, who wrote that An Evenings Love "pretends to nothing more than to be a foyl to those Scenes, which are compos'd by the most noble Poet of our Age, and Nation," apparently a hyperbole for the Duke of Newcastle? 16 More of this matter below. T h e opera was never acted. Scott's commonsensical explanation that the nudity of the "humane pair" would have prevented stage presentation has not appealed to everyone, for Adam and Eve had been appearing on stage since medieval times, and a stage direction at III, iii, 1 2 + calls for a demon "habited like Eve." 1 7 Winn suggests that Dryden, an Anglican, rehandling the work of Milton, a Puritan, and eventually dedicating the result to the Duchess of York, a Catholic, "surely meant to emphasize Christian unity," but he thinks that uncertainty about how viewers would respond to the biblical subject and its theological interpretation may have contributed to the opera's failure to find acceptance by an acting company. 18 But W i n n thinks it still more likely that the opera was not staged because the scenes and the machines it would require were too expensive and because adequate music was not to be had. 1 9 It would seem that the King's Company or its successors might have put on the opera at a later date, when music and money were more plentiful, but let us consider only what might have been done between the composition and the publication of the work, that is, from late 1673 or early 1674 to February 1677. First, the music. Besides composers 14 Ibid., IV, 84-85. 15 To Judas Iscariot, Esq; On the Degeneracy of the Publick Taste (1719), in Critical Works, ed. Edward Niles Hooker (1939-1943), II, 169. W h i l e not suggesting that Dryden sought to be a foil to Milton, Bernard Harris has proposed that he may have sought to make the world of Milton's epic more accessible to the reader (see " ' T h a t Soft Seducer, Love': Dryden's The State of Innocence and Fall of Man," in Approaches to "Paradise Lost": The York Tercentenary Lectures, ed. C. A . Patrides [1968], pp. 119-136). 16 Works, X , 200. S-S, V, 95. Johnson had said "the personages aTe such as cannot decently be exhibited on the stage" (Lives of the Poets, ed. G . B. Hill [1905], I, 359). Montague Summers, TLS, 13 August 1931, p. 621. For the demon see p. 118 above. Malone (I, i, 109) and Scott both thought the opera was not intended to be acted. Others disagree; Summers, for example, feels its detailed stage directions show that it was prepared for the stage (III, 410, 589). W i n n , p. 269. On the same page W i n n says that Dryden's discussion of predestination and free will in the opera was "not designed to persuade the audience to the validity of any narrowly denominational theological position [but to] sharply dramatize the paradoxical nature of those eternal questions for all Christians." O n the contrary, A . W . Verrall, Lectures on Dryden (1914, 1963) p. 230, says that "Dryden's play is not addressed to real Christians." 1 9 Winn, pp. 262-264. 17

The State of

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who had set songs and dialogues in Dryden's earlier plays, men like Alphonso Marsh, Nicholas Staggins, and Robert Smith, we find Louis Grabu and Matthew Locke working for the King's Company. Grabu set Pierre Perrin's French opera Ariadne to music in 1674, and Matthew Locke provided the music for four songs in Thomas D'Urfey's The Fool Turn'd Critick in 1676. Locke had previously written the music for the masque in Settle's The Empress of Morocco, the instrumental music for the operatic Tempest, and the instrumental and vocal music for Shadwell's opera Psyche, all successfully produced by the rival Duke's Company. Grabu subsequently composed the music for Dryden's Albion and Albanius (1685).20 Both men were well capable of supplying the comparatively little music, vocal and instrumental, that Dryden's opera would have required. Turning then to the scenes and machines. In the season of 1672-73 and until March 1674, the King's Company acted in a theater in Lincoln's Inn Fields where, in 1670, the Duke's Company had put on the Dryden-Davenant Tempest. Effective changes of the scenery had always been possible there, 21 but even so simple an effect as flying had apparently not been. T h e DrydenDavenant Ariel always walks on. 22 In March 1674 the King's Company moved to a theater in Drury Lane that Dryden described at the time as "a Plain Built House" without "Scenes, [and] Machines." 23 "Plain Built" refers to the lack of gilding in the auditorium.24 Christopher Wren's plan of a theater, usually said to be of the one in Drury Lane, shows plenty of room above the stage for m a c h i n e r y . 2 « Even if none was in situ at first, beginning in 1675 stage effects of what we may call an operatic kind were called for in Lee's Sophonisba (April 1675) and John Crowne's The Destruction of Jerusalem (January 1677), to which we may perhaps add Lee's Mithridates (February 1678), although it came a year after The State of Innocence was published.28 What they show is an increasing use of machines 2 London Stage, Part I, pp. 215, 337 (Grabu); pp. 25a, 206, 215, 229-230 (Locke). Winn (p. 393) infers that "Someone may have considered having Grabu set The State of Innocence" from "the odd fact that three separate editions of that opera were printed in 1684," but the inference loses some force from the fact that one of the three editions has a false date (see textual headnote, p. 460 below). 2 1 London Stage, Part I, p. xxxv. As noted there, the theater measured about 75x30 feet. 22 For the staging of The Tempest see Works, X, 485-487. 23 Prologue Spoken at the Opening of the New House, 11. 1, 36 [Works, I, 148-149). 24 Ibid., 11. 3-8. 25 Summers, Restoration Theatre (1934), pi. VIII, facing p. 94. The theater proper measured 112 feet by 58 or 59 feet, and a scene room added 28 feet to the length of the building (London Stage, Part I, p. xli). Judging from the drawing, the height above the stage was 17 feet, not counting the attic, and the depth below (to ground level) was 4 feet. A trap in the stage, then, would have required some excavation below it. 26 London Stage, Part I, pp. 232 (Sophonisba), 253-254 (Destruction of Jerusalem), 267 (Mithridates). Judith Milhous says, " 'English opera' is hard to define precisely. Such a work combines spoken dialogue with [more] music and dance, fancy scenery, and special staging effects" than do other dramatic productions ("The Multimedia Spectacular on the Restoration Stage," in Shirley Strum Kenny, British Theatre and the Other Arts, 1660-1800 [1984], pp. 41-42).

324

Commentary

at Drury Lane in the years of interest. One stage direction in Sophonisba is "The Scene drawn, discovers a Heaven of blood, two Suns, Spirits in Battle, Arrows shot to and fro in the Air: Cryes of yielding Persons, &c."; another is "Rosalinda rises in a Chair pale with a wound on her breast, two Cupids descend and hang weeping over her." 2 ? Although Rosalinda and the Cupids may have been lay figures, machinery of at least an elementary kind was now in place, and effects like the opening display of The State of Innocence were possible.28 In the first part of The Destruction of Jerusalem "An Angel descends over the Altar, and speaks," and afterward "The Angel ascends." Later "The Ghost of Herod arises" and speaks.29 Similarly, Dryden's devils are to fly about, his palace of Pandemonium is to rise, and so on. 30 In the second part of The Destruction of Jerusalem we see "the Temple burning" and shortly afterward "The Scene is drawn, and Phraartes, Monobasus, and their followers are seen descending a high rockie Mount. The Romans oft attempt to Scale it, but are beaten down by great Stones flung on their heads: Titus, Tiberius, Malchus, Antiochus, come to their assistance, Scale the Mount, and after some opposition ascend it and take it. After a fight upon the Mount, the Scene closes." 31 Once more we have parallels with Dryden's opening scene and now also with the scenes in which the mount of Eden appears.32 In Mithridates "An Image of Victory descends with two Crowns in her hands; but on a sudden the Engines break, and cast the Image forward on the Stage with such violence that they dash [it?] in pieces." 33 Here we have specific reference not merely to machines but to machines that break, apparently like the one Dryden calls for when writing "The Cloud descends with six Angels in it; and when it's near the ground, breaks; and on each side discovers six more." 3 4 Hence it would appear that the King's Company was assembling or had assembled the machines needed for Dryden's opera. But "where's the money for this," as Burr asks in The Wild Gallant,35 Elaborate scenes were expensive to paint, and machines were expensive to construct and modify.36 In the period of interest to us, the King's Company Edition of 1676, pp. 21, 44. See p. 98 above; see also the beginning stage direction in II, ii (pp. 107-108 above). 29 Edition of 1677, pp. 25, 26, 37. 3 0 See pp. 100-101, etc., above. The rise of Pandemonium would be easily accomplished by drawing up a back-scene wound on a roller at stage level, but the seats for Lucifer and the others would have to come through a trap. 3 1 Edition of 1677, pp. 56, 58. 32 See notes to II, i, 84 s.d.; Ill, ii, s.d.; V, iii, s.d. (pp. 360, 366, 377 below). 33 Edition of 1678, p. 9. See p. 123 above. 28

35 Works, VIII, 9.

36 Milhous, "The Multimedia Spectacular." Exact costs are hard to come by, and Milhous's calculations for the rival theater in Dorset Garden, the usual venue for operas, lead her to be uncomfortable with reports of productions there said to have cost £3000 or £4000 (pp. 55-60). The only other figures that she cites are £800 for scenery in an opera and £100 for a single piece of scenery in a play (pp. 47-48). T o these we may add £335 1 as. for another single piece in Dryden's Tyrannick Love (Works, X, 381). In short, an opera might well have been more expensive to mount than a simple play, but need not have been excessively so.

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was going downhill financially and in the last months it was barely able to pay its bills. 37 It would seem, then, that although the company was able to recover itself enough to stage Mithridates in February 1678, Dryden may well have given up hope for The State of Innocence a year earlier. When he says that it was the proliferation of unauthorized manuscripts of the opera which led him to publish it,38 he may well have meant that he thought all chance of profit from his work was melting away. But Dryden's delay in publishing may have had nothing to do with his hopes for performance. Samuel Simmons, the copyright holder of Paradise Lost, may not have allowed Dryden to publish his opera until the epic's second edition (1674) had sold out. 39 Milton's contract with Simmons called for payments of £5 when each of the first three editions had sold at least 1300 copies (the third edition came in 1678). One might prefer to suppose that Dryden was willing to wait until Simmons and Milton's family would have their fair profit on the second edition. Dryden had, after all, known Milton since they marched together in the funeral procession of Oliver Cromwell, when he was twenty-seven and Milton was fifty.40 T h e manuscript copies of the opera that have survived usually have the same title as in the Stationers' Register. Dryden says there were "many hundred" of them, a statement he could not have proved nor can we disprove. Certainly the number known today is far greater than for any of his other dramas, and if it is objected that those plays were probably brought to the press sooner, the number of editions of The State of Innocence also attests to widespread demand. T h e first edition, published in 1677 (advertised in the London Gazette for 8-12 February), 41 was followed by eight others before the collected Comedies, Tragedies, and Operas came out in 1701, and one more edition appeared in 1703. T h e first publication, with its dedication to the Duchess of York, came a day or two before the opening of parliament and so may have been intended to give political support to the duke. 42 Perhaps of at least equal importance is the fact that the court term was about to begin and so more book buyers were in town. 43 Besides its dedication to the Duchess of York, the printed opera has what the running titles call a preface but the caption title calls The Authors Apology for Heroique Poetry; and Poetique Licence. As Dryden refers to Wycherley's Plain Dealer in the Apology, and The Plain Dealer had its première two months before The State of Innocence was published, it would seem that the Apology was written, or at least finished, only shortly before publication. 44 3 7 Leslie Hotson, The Commonwealth and Restoration 38 The Authors Apology, p. 86 above.

W i l l i a m Riley Parker, Milton: See W i n n , p. 81. 4 1 Macdonald, p. 116. 39

A Biography

Stage (1928, 1962), p. 269.

(1968), I, 635.

40

42

W i n n , p. 294.

T h e opera was listed in the Term donald, p. 116). 43

Catalogue

for 12 February 1677 (see Mac-

4 4 W i n n , p. 587 n. 22, where he notes that Robert D . H u m e h a d expressed d o u b t that the date of writing the Apology can be determined. B u t the date of final revision seems clear enough.

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Commentary f W J

T h o s e who have retold the story of Dryden's visit to Milton have sometimes imagined Milton to have been grudging in his permission to Dryden to write The State of Innocence, no doubt because as admirers of Milton's baroque masterpiece they have found it in Dryden's reworking "shorn of its beams," to adapt a phrase Dryden took from his source. Gone are all the bravura passages. Instead we have a curious mixture of admiration and rejection. Impregnation with the Miltonian aether has resulted in quotation of such striking passages as " N o t to know mee argues yourselves u n k n o w n " and a host of small verbal reminiscences. A t the other extreme we have what looks very much like hilarious rejection of Milton's Eve. If Milton's Eve is Pamela, Dryden's is Shamela. 45 (Yet Dryden almost entirely mutes Milton's "bedroom scenes." Decorous and beautiful though they seem to some readers, no doubt they could not be managed on the stage without giving offense.) A n d although it is true that most of Dryden's couplets are merely competent, none is careless, and even a drudging annotator kindles occasionally, as with Absalom and Achitophel. For example, V, iv, 160-164, is better poetry than its original, and V, iv, 266-267, the conclusion, by drawing on other parts of Paradise Lost than its closing lines, gives more hope. 4 6 T . S. Eliot could only exclaim in admiration at the phrase, "the sad Variety of H e l l . " 4 7 It has been said that Dryden interprets Milton. 4 8 H e also offers alternate interpretations to Milton's of the biblical narrative that both accepted as true history. W e have already noted their alternate representations of the character of Eve. W e shall shortly mention their alternate representations of the character of A d a m as he struggles to understand foreordination and free will. Critics cannot agree as to the character and literary function of Milton's Satan, but no one has yet supposed that Dryden's Lucifer is the hero of the opera, as Dryden supposed Satan was the hero of the epic. 4 9 A l l Dryden's characters are comparatively conventional stage presences, drawn with firm and broad strokes and having no obvious subtlety except for Lucifer's Bible-given ability to mislead Eve. As dramatic characters should, they make a more immediate and definite impression on the reader than Milton's more fully modeled and complex epic figures, whether in soliloquy or in conflict. 50 Milton's depiction of the tensions between A d a m and Eve has 45 For other views of Dryden's Eve see D. W. Jefferson, "Dryden's Style in The State of Innocence," EIC, XXXII (198a), 366: Eve is "decidedly foolish"; Jean Gagen, "Anomalies in Eden: Adam and Eve in Dryden's The State of Innocence," in Milton's Legacy in the Arts, ed. Albert C. Labriola and Edward Sichi, Jr. (1988), pp. 137-147: although Dryden's Eve is sometimes inferior to Adam, like Milton's Eve, at other times she must be obeyed; she is more intelligent and intellectual than Milton's Eve, and her motives and behavior are notably more pure. See pp. 143, 146 above. 4 7 1 , i, 6 (p. 98 above); Selected Essays (1932, 1950), p. 271. 48 Winn, p. 265. *9 Dedication o£ the Aeneis (Works, V, 276). so A smaller but still interesting set of comparisons might be made between the characters of the fallen angels in conference as Milton draws them in his Book II and as Dryden redraws them and redistributes their speeches in his Act I.

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been called vivid, but it is not so vivid as Dryden's picture of their quarrel and reconciliation. Considerable sections of Paradise Lost that used to be counted straightforwardly serious have come to be looked on as parodic, satiric, or comical. Dryden translates these sections literally, so to speak, with the result that any comedy, satire, or parody they contain can be recognized in the translation if one wishes. 51 Is Lucifer's pride, for example, a satire on Almanzor's? Readers must answer such questions for themselves. In dramatizing Paradise Lost, Dryden followed the same procedures, with perhaps two exceptions, as any other adapter for the theater would have done. He left out extensive tracts of the original, particularly the scenes in heaven at the beginning, the account of creation in the middle, and the survey of human history at the end, and he condensed, rearranged, and rephrased the rest as necessary to make a good drama. In so doing he had to sacrifice a good deal of Milton's display of knowledge. One exception to standard practice in adaptations was Dryden's decision to write in rhyming couplets, as he had in all his earlier serious dramas. Another was his willingness to discuss ideas, even though the flow of the action suffered thereby, as he had been willing to do in other dramas that were less bound to their sources.52 What is exceptional to the generality of dramatic adaptation is therefore normal to Dryden's own dramatic practice. 53 Only one discussion of ideas may seem actually to halt the action, Adam and Raphael's discussion of free will in IV, i, the climax of an elegant crescendo and diminuendo of references to the subject. Free will was even more important to Milton, who discusses it twice at length in his epic and refers to it everywhere. If we suppose that the authors were expressing their own feelings rather than the imagined feelings of their characters, we may say that free will sat more easily on Milton's shoulders than on Dryden's, which some readers will count to Dryden's credit, just as they will his uneasiness at the closely allied idea of original sin that he was to express in Religio 51 It has been proposed that the opera is "an ironic satire on innocence," none of its characters being truly innocent. See P. S. Havens, "Dryden's ' T a g g e d ' Version of Paradise Lost," in Essays in Dramatic Literature: The Parrott Presentation Volume, ed. Hardin Craig (1935), p. 396. Similarly, James Ogden, "Milton's Ideal of Innocence," Critical Quarterly, 24:4 (Winter 1982), 22. K. W . Gransden, "Milton, Dryden, and the Comedy of the Fall," EIC, X X V I (1976), 129, says that both Paradise Lost and The State of Innocence are satires on reason and on "the logical weaknesses and absurdities inherent in the doctrine of free will." Jefferson, "Dryden's Style," pp. 363-366, says that Adam's knowledge and reasoning power at the moment of his creation are humorous, Lucifer is a comic figure, and Eve is a fool. Bruce King, Dryden's Major Plays (1966), pp. 102-103, also finds Adam's mental powers humorous. Jefferson and King ignore the fact that Dryden has prepared the reader for Adam's reasoning powers by Lucifer's description of "this intended Man" in I, i, 144-153 (p. 103 above). 52 E.g., in The Indian Emperour, V, ii, a n d Tyrannick Love, II, i (Works, IX, 98-101, X, 132-134). 53 Accounts of Dryden's visit to Milton do not suggest that Milton discussed his own earlier plans for a drama on the fall of man. Still it is interesting to note similarities and differences between Dryden's opera and Milton's four sketches in the T r i n i t y College Cambridge manuscript.

Commentary

328 LaiciM

M i l t o n hardly mentions original sin; he says o f t e n e n o u g h

that

A d a m ' s sin brought death, but only briefly in B o o k I I I that it brought death and hell for those w h o did not accept the atonement made by the Son of G o d . D r y d e n leaves h u m a n punishment in hell entirely out of his opera. Contrariwise,

D r y d e n makes the blessed in heaven his climactic

vision,

whereas M i l t o n tucks away the salvation of Christians in his B o o k III. (Parenthetically, some theologians in the interregnum regarded, a n d some today regard, the doctrine of original sin as a denial of free will.) W e say that the doctrine of free will was easier for M i l t o n (or Milton's A d a m ) to accept than for D r y d e n (or Dryden's A d a m ) because D r y d e n gives to A d a m all but one of the arguments against it, in fact all the arguments that had been arrived at by 1677, a n d finally quashes h i m b y edict rather than b y reason. T h e dialogue thus takes on a dramatic intensity that keeps it f r o m being a mere interruption of the action a n d instead makes A d a m a more complex and sensitive b e i n g than he w o u l d otherwise be. M i l t o n , o n the contrary, treats the reasons he puts in the mouths of G o d a n d Gabriel as if they are all-sufficient. T h e doctrine may be called the intellectual center of the A d a m and Eve story as it was understood in the seventeenth century, and it has consequently attracted a n d perhaps always will attract commentary on Dryden's opera. M u c h of the commentary sees T h o m a s H o b b e s as the source of the objections raised by Dryden's A d a m , b u t similar objections are to be f o u n d in the M i d d l e A g e s 5 5 and could have occurred to a person of Dryden's intellectual powers as soon as he decided to p u t Milton's divine reasons into a dialogue between angels and a m a n . 5 6

54 See Works, II, 99-102, 115-116. 5 5 E.g., in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, I, 1663-1672. See Palamon and Arcite, II, S10-221 (Works, VII). 56 Bruce King first proposed a Hobbesian background in " T h e Significance of Dryden's State of Innocence," SEL, IV (1964), 371-391, and in his Dryden's Major Plays, pp. 95-115. See also Melissa Cowansage, " T h e Libertine-Libertarian Dichotomy in Dryden's The State of Innocence," ELN, X X I (1984), 38-44, and p. 392 nn. 43, 45 below. Watson (I, 4) had already noted "a characteristically sceptical view of free will which may owe something to Hobbes" in the dedication of The Rival Ladies (Works, VIII, 97). But Dryden later traced Hobbes's skepticism to Sextus Empiricus and Lucretius, the latter of whom Dryden admired—within limits—and translated (ibid., Ill, 9-14), so we must emphasize the uncertainty of Dryden's debt. Dryden maintained that Hobbes's skepticism was probably not heartfelt (ibid., p. 10), and in time specifically rejected it as atheism (ibid., XVII, 258). Still, inasmuch as he wrote of his own "natural Diffidence and Scepticism" even after his conversion to Catholicism (ibid., Ill, 1, and n, p. 271), there were inevitable similarities as well as differences in their philosophical and religious views from time to time. For example, Dryden admitted that Hobbes's objection to the existence of spirits, i.e., incorporeal substances, had some validity (ibid., XI, 12), but he cited scriptural authority for their existence (p. 95 above). Again, Dryden objected to Hobbes's "politicks and Morals" (ibid., XVII, 232; see also p. 258; I, 285; II, 271-272), but he agreed with Hobbes as to the right of self defense (see, e.g., ibid., XIV, 516). That some of Dryden's characters, particularly in his earlier plays, had "Hobbeian" characteristics was obvious and not only remarked on in his own time but attributed to admiration of Hobbes (see Watson, I, 4 n. 1 for Aubrey's life of Hobbes and p. 392 n. 43 below). Some modern scholars

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T h e invasion of general thought by physical science has for m a n y readers made A d a m a n d E v e mere figures of folklore, b u t science has n o t resolved the question of determinism any more than has theology w h e n it takes the biblical narrative as true. Most readers today, whatever their scientific or theological orientation, will value Milton's treatment of free will o n l y for its poetry. T h e y may, however, value Dryden's discussion for its vivid presentation of a h u m a n dilemma; a few may also value it as a k i n d of divinely inspired restlessness, a d i m b u t dawning awareness that G o d pours forth of his goodness more than we accept. B u t u n t i l the world comes to a consensus about determinism, commentary on this aspect of The cence

State

of

Inno-

will tell us as m u c h about the commentators' o w n thoughts as about

Dryden's. Associated with free will, which makes men and angels more p o w e r f u l than G o d (though M i l t o n and D r y d e n do not see it that way), is the idea that chance or fate is also more powerful than G o d . M i l t o n a n d D r y d e n regard this idea as satanic, b u t it is f o u n d today in the theology of an impotent G o d , powerless to protect his creation. Milton's characters question God's power more often than Dryden's, who do so in I, i, 20, and I V , ii, 28, 54, a n d 78. 5 7

have agreed, though others suppose Dryden was burlesquing or more subtly attacking Hobbes instead (see Works, VIII, 268, 276, 294-295, 297; IX, 301; X, 409-431 passim; XI, 417-419; p. 392 n. 45 below, and notes to Aureng-Zebe, II, i, 508 and III, i, 304-307, pp. 424, 428 below; XIII, 414; XV, 468; Cleomenes, III, i, 17, in Vol. XVI; see also III, 301 n. 8). Indeed the players, presumably at Dryden's direction, developed some of these roles to raise a laugh (see p. 398 below). And Dryden himself maintained that John Eachard had "baffled" Hobbes in Mr. Hobbes's State of Nature Considered (1671) and Some Opinions of Mr. Hobbes Considered (1673) (see Works, XX, 221-222). Watson (I, 8) takes the extreme view that Dryden's analysis of the working of the poetical mind "certainly" came from Hobbes (see also Works, X, 443; XIII, 420, 543; Kinsley, IV, 2076). A t the same time Watson shows that Dryden's picture of the imagination as a spaniel (Works, VIII, 101), while preceded by the same image in Hobbes, had been preceded by its appearance in still other authors, and Smith (ibid., p. 274) points out that Dryden assigned to the imagination the function of arranging ideas in sequence, whereas Hobbes assigned it to the judgment. In their theories of literature, Dryden and Hobbes agreed as to the nature of the genres, but disagreed, or at least Dryden said so, as to the relative importance of design and invention (see ibid., VIII, 286; X, 458, 464; Kinsley, IV, 2061). Dryden thought comparatively little of Hobbes's poetry, saying he had come to the art too late in life (preface to Fables in Works VII; Kinsley, IV, 1448), and the parallels between their translations of Homer seem accidental at best (see Works, IV, 738-741 passim, and notes to The First Book of Homer's llias in Vol. VII). On the other hand, Dryden used a certain amount of imagery that Hobbes had used before him (beside the image of the imagination as a spaniel see ibid., I, 222; II, 352; III, 366, 474; VI, 979). And he was not above quoting Hobbes when he thought him witty or insightful: "Mr. Hobbs was used to say, that a Man was alwaies against reason, when reason was against a Man" (ibid., XVII, 235); and "Thoughts, according to Mr. Hobbs, have always some Connexion" (preface to Fables, Kinsley, IV, 1446). In short, we observe in Dryden's pages the meeting of two powerful minds, with Dryden's in due time either validating Hobbes's ideas for itself or going its own way. 57 See pp. 99, 130-131 above.

33«

Commentary

In V, iv, 109-135, Dryden treats the justice/mercy problem in some depth, exploring the human dimension of resignation/objection in Adam's and Eve's speeches, and here the interruption creates suspense as to what their expected punishment will be. 58 (PW^Ii As noted above, Dryden sometimes quotes whole lines of Paradise Lost, and we may add that he must have enjoyed being able to make rhymes by very small adjustments to his original, as in V, iv, 49-50. 59 In these places the reader then also gets a special sense of difficulty overcome, which Wordsworth thought an important part of the enjoyment of poetry. At other times, Dryden weaves much from Milton with much of his own, as in I, i, 7-11. 6 0 At still other times he puts Milton's ideas entirely in his own words, as in IV, i, 31-32. 6 1 Finally, of course, he has ideas of his own, which he expresses in his own way. The only time he turns a phrase of Milton's entirely to his own purposes is in IV, ii, 52. 82 The notes to lines give the full set of indebtednesses. Whether reworking Milton in this way had as profound an impact on Dryden's poetic technique as some have suggested seems doubtful. It is not likely that Dryden made a conscious effort to find sources outside Milton and the Bible. He may have remembered his youthful reading in Joshua Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas, which he mentions in his prefatory Apology for Heroique Poetry, as well as Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, Tasso's name appearing in both the dedication of the opera and in the Apology.63 Dryden's command of languages, breadth of reading, and interest in religion were such that he could have drawn ideas or phrases from other contributors to the enormous body of writing about the creation of the universe and its first inhabitants. But he makes no claim to have done so when acknowledging his debt to Milton; instead, as noted above, he says that he completed the work in a month.84 Essentially, then, Paradise Lost was his source and model. CTW^T) The entry in the Stationers' Register calls The State of Innocence "An heroick opera," the first edition title page calls it "An Opera. Written in Heroique Verse," and Dryden himself calls it an opera in the Apology. The only singing for which Dryden wrote words is found in III, iii, but four scenes having stage directions that call for the kind of scenic effects which marked contemporary English operas also suggest or specify addi58 See pp. 141-142 above. 59 See p. 139 above and n, p. 378 below. 80 See pp. 98-99 above and notes, p. 354 below. 81 See p. 123 above and n, p. 370 below. 82 See p. 130 above and n, p. 374 below. 83 For Du Bartas see p. 96; for Tasso see pp. 81,90,97 above. M See p. 86 above.

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t i o n a l music, for w h i c h n o w o r d s are given. 6 5 W e o u g h t then to regard The State of Innocence as a n o t h e r of Dryden's e x p e r i m e n t s i n dramatic structure. S o m e scholars see h i m as " t e s t i n g the capacity of o p e r a to a c c o m m o d a t e serio u s content, a n d s t u d y i n g the differences b e t w e e n h e r o i c d r a m a a n d h e r o i c p o e t r y . " 8 6 W e see the opera rather as a n a b o r t e d investigation of h o w r h y m e d couplets a n d b l a n k verse (II, ii) c o u l d b e set to music, and, if its scene i n b l a n k verse is n o t o n e m o r e sign of haste i n c o m p o s i t i o n , as a n e x p e r i m e n t i n w h e t h e r h e c o u l d write better b l a n k verse t h a n M i l t o n . 6 7

The Authors Apology for Heroique Poetry; and Poetique Licence, with w h i c h D r y d e n p r e f a c e d his opera, has considerable interest as a n i m p l i e d d e f e n s e of M i l t o n as well as a direct defense of himself i n the use of figurative l a n g u a g e . It is n o t p a r t i c u l a r l y original, b e i n g based mostly o n L o n ginus, w i t h occasional citations of R a p i n , a n d r e p e a t i n g , t h o u g h w i t h f u l l e r discussion a n d illustration, positions he had taken in the p r o l o g u e to Tyrannick Love i n 1670, 68 i n his essay Of Heroique Playes p r e f i x e d to The Conquest of Granada i n 167a, 6 9 a n d in the postscript to Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco i n 1674. 7 0 A f t e r e x p l a i n i n g that h e has published this u n a c t e d o p e r a because so m a n y u n a u t h o r i z e d m a n u s c r i p t copies were i n circulation, D r y d e n first states ®5 See pp. 98, 104, 107, 119-120, 145 above. For a further discussion of "opera" as Dryden understood the term see Works, X V , 325-327. 6 6 Winn, p. 265. Similarly and previously, Havens, "Dryden's 'Tagged' Version," PP- 384- 39267 T h e usual view is that Dryden was making his way from rhymed to blank verse plays, but his progress, or rather his wavering, in these matters is too complex to permit a simple evolutionary explanation. 88 Works, X, 114. Lines 12-25 defend boldly figurative language and condemn faultfinding critics. 69 Works, XI, 10-13, briefly defending "liberty of Fancy . . . beyond the common words and actions of humane life," and at greater length arguing that " 'Tis enough [to meet the demand for imitation of nature] that in all ages and Religions, the greatest part of mankind have believ'd the power of Magick, and that there are Spirits, or Spectres, which have appear'd." T h e latter discussion seems to have little to do with The Conquest of Granada until we observe that a ghost makes its appearance in Part II (ibid., pp. 167-169). Robert D. Hume, Dryden's Criticism (1970), pp. 210-211, observes that in the Apology Dryden more clearly applies his rules to the stage than he had in Of Heroique Playes, but that in other respects there is little difference between his two earlier statements that "an Heroick Poet is not ty'd to a bare representation of what is true" (Works, XI, 12), and that "what ever is or may be, is not, properly, unnatural" (ibid., p. 13), and his later statement that "Poets may be allow'd . . . liberty, for describing things which really exist not, if they are founded on popular belief" (p. 95 above). George Williamson, Milton and Others (1965; 2d ed. 1970), pp. 105-106, says Dryden's argument for poetical fictions expands on an implication in 11. 21-26 of the prologue to The Tempest (Works, X, 6). 70 Works, XVII, 180-184. T h e postscript says judgment must prevail in the use of figurative language and in poetical fictions.

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that the business of a critic is to observe excellencies more than faults, citing Longinus as saying the same thing. Next, he defends epic poetry against those who condemn it, citing Aristotle, Longinus, and Horace, the Italian commentators on Aristotle, and Boileau and R a p i n . Almost at once it becomes clear that he has particularly in mind objections to the "flights" of language in the epics, including Paradise Lost, which he defends, first, as h a v i n g pleased readers over the centuries, a n d second, as imitating nature. " N a t u r e " includes, in h u m a n nature, " t h e general tast and approbation of all Ages"; even "right R e a s o n " about nature must give way if "Universal T r a d i t i o n " opposes it. A n d although " Q u o t a t i o n s are superfluous in an establish'd truth," Dryden quotes from Aristotle, Longinus, and Horace, and refers in summary fashion to Italian and French critics in his support. H e then undertakes a scientific account of "those Springs of humane Nature." Poets, h e says, are better able than scientists themselves to "enter . . . into the Causes and Ressorts of that which moves pleasure in a R e a d e r , " m u c h as he had said in Of Heroique Playes that poets could better explain ghosts and spirits. 71 Aristotle observed the poets of his day, from whose practice he derived his rules. 7 2 T h e fundamental rule is that poetry is an imitation of nature. It follows that whatever wins universal praise must be an imitation of nature—not impeccable logic o n Dryden's part, b u t presented with great dash as an argument of his own. A l l that remains is to show that even luxuriance of fancy can be imitation of nature; that is, it can conform to a constant of h u m a n nature. Exaggerated language, if not too m u c h exaggerated, is imitation of strong and exalted feelings. T h o s e persons are w r o n g w h o think imitation of nature is to be f o u n d only in "all that is dull, insipid, languishing and without sinews in a Poem." Imagined beings, "if they are founded o n p o p u l a r belief," are "still an imitation, though of other mens fancies." 7 3 A n d for some of these imagined beings there is scriptural authority. Dryden concludes this part of his discussion by d e f e n d i n g one of his own images in the opera, "dissolv'd in H a l l e l u j a h s . " 7 4 In the final part of the essay, announced as the discussion of poetic license proper, Dryden divides the work of the poet into concerns in prose and concerns in poetry, and into concern for words and concern for strings of words. In these matters, what is allowable varies "according to the L a n g u a g e and A g e in which an A u t h o r writes," b u t what is accepted as true and real at one time is not to be m i x e d with w h a t is accepted as true and real at another. A n d so, says Dryden, "the definition of W i t (which has been so o f t e n attempted, and ever unsuccessfully by many Poets,) is only this: T h a t it is a propriety of T h o u g h t s and Words, elegantly adapted to the Subject." T h e reader who will accept this definition must agree that "sublime Subjects ought to be adorn'd with the sublimest, and (consequently often) with the most figurative expressions." W e may remark that definitions of wit had indeed been often attempted, so much so that we cannot p i n p o i n t the wellspring of Dryden's thinking. 7 5 ri Works, XI, 12-13. had said the same; see note to Apology, 91:4-7 (p. 349 below). Taken from Aristotle, Poetics, XXV, 29. 7 4 See I, i, log (p. 102 above). 75 See Works, I, 272.

7 2Corneille

The State of Innocence

BBS

His definition, however, did not preclude others from saying that wit had never been perfectly defined a n d from offering definitions of their own. 7 6 I n the present essay, Dryden deals only with the m e a n i n g of words, never with their sound, not even when quoting the famous description in the Aeneid of Camilla, who, in Pope's well-known semiquotation, "sweeps the plain, / Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the m a i n . " W h e n Dryden came to translate Virgil, however, he gave full attention to the sound o f words. 7 7 T h e Apology is Dryden's first m a j o r use of Longinus, whose work he read in Boileau's F r e n c h translation of 1674. 7 8 Appeal to Longinus as an authorof Criticism in ity is to be found again in Dryden only in The Grounds Tragedy, prefixed to Troilus and Cressida (1679), where he once more defends poetical fictions and strongly figurative language used under the control of judgment. 7 9 I n the Discourse of Satire (1693) Dryden was to reject an appeal to Longinus by Casaubon, who h a d cited h i m in defense of Persius's "boistrous Metaphors." 8 0 Dryden's defining wit as "propriety o f thoughts and words" was not his first definition of it; nor, although h e was fond of this definition and repeated it several times, was it his last. 8 1 H e also used the noun again and again without definition in the previously established senses of reason, understandE.g., Sir Richard Blackmore, Essays Upon Several Subjects (1716), p. 191. See Works, V, 318ft., VI, 813, 828, and, for Camilla, VI, 606. 7 8 Longinus had been published at Oxford with a Latin translation in 1636 (reissued 1638) and translated into English by John Hall as Of the Height of Eloquence in 165a. For evidence that Dryden now read Boileau's translation, see note to 87:20 (pp. 346-347 below). Frank Livingstone Huntley notes that Dryden therefore had in the same volume the text of Boileau's Art Poétique and may have been influenced by it as well. "Dryden's 'Apology' and Boileau's critical poem . . . possess a common problem [viz., hostile critics], the common point of view of universal bon sens against the private bias of the few, a preoccupation with genres, and, in the genre of epic, an emphasis upon words and thoughts, figures and machines" ("Dryden's Discovery of Boileau," MP, X L V [1947-48], 116). 79 Works, X I I I , 22g, 238-242. For possible influence of Longinus on Aureng-Zebe, 11. 7-10 and 19-20 of the prologue, and V, i, 104-111 (pp. 159, 230 above), see pp. 410,436 below. so Works, IV, 54. 8 1 See dedication of The Spanish Fryar (1681): "the propriety of thoughts and words, . . . are the hidden beauties of a Play" (Works, XIV, 102). T h e plural verb reflects Dryden's feeling that thoughts and words have separate proprieties. T h e preface to Albion and Albanius (1685) begins, " I f Wit has truly been defin'd a propriety of Thoughts and Words," and proceeds to define the propriety of each (Works, XV, 3). In the Life of Lucian, published in 1711 but written about 1696, Dryden quoted once more his definition of wit as "Propriety of Thoughts and Words," adding that he had thought he was the first who had so defined it, but that he had since found the same sense in Aristotle in different words (Works, X X , 221; Watson, II, 211, notes Aristotle's Rhetoric, III, ii, 1-7, and Poetics X X I I ) . According to Malone (I, ii, 156), Thomas Twining found that the passage was Poetics, VI, 22: "Third comes 'thought.' This means the ability to say what is possible and appropriate" (Loeb). We have the definition in reverse in the dedication of The Spanish Fryar, where fustian is defined as "thoughts and words ill sorted, and without the least relation to each other" (Works, XIV, IOI). 78

77

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Commentary

ing, or intelligence; 8 2 mental capacity, resourcefulness, ingenuity, astuteness, or acumen; 8 ^ quickness, liveliness, aptness, sparkle, brilliance, or ability to amuse; 8 4 a witty utterance or exchange; 8 5 and a person of superior intellect, imagination, perception, or articulateness. 8 6 Dryden's first use and definition of the word " w i t " in his criticism came i n An Account of the Ensuing Poem, prefixed to Annus Mirabilis, written i n 1666, published in 1667. T h e r e are two sorts of wit, he said there: the first, "wit writing," is another name for imagination; the second, "wit written," is effective expression, "that which is well defin'd, the h a p p y result of thought, or product of that imagination." 87 Less formally, he proceeded to subdivide "wit writing": as compared with Virgil, w h o writes in the third person, O v i d writes in the first, so that he "images more often the movements a n d affections of the mind . . . he pictures Nature in disorder, with which the study and choice of words is inconsistent. T h i s is the proper wit of Dialogue." It does not exclude "quickness of wit in repartees, yet admits n o t . . . any thing that showes remoteness of thought, or labour in the W r i t e r . " O n e kind of "wit written," then, is "quickness of wit in repartees"; another is "remoteness of thought," or the ability to relate seemingly disparate things so as to illuminate or amuse; 8 8 and still another reflects " l a b o u r in the W r i t e r , " or what Dryden calls a few lines later "embellishing." 89 Dryden had already discussed "wit writing," or imagination, under the latter name in his first work of literary criticism, the dedication of The Rival Ladies (1664). Imagination, he had said there, is the first of three "faculties of soul," as he was later to call them, 90 which produce literature. T h e second faculty is "memory" and the third is " j u d g m e n t . " Imagination brings to judgment whatever it finds in memory, and judgment allows only the best to pass into expression. T h e dedication opens with the words, " M y Lord, T h i s worthless Present was design'd you, l o n g before it was a Play; W h e n it was only a confus'd Mass of T h o u g h t s , t u m b l i n g over one another in the Dark fin memory]: W h e n the Fancy [imagination] was yet in its first W o r k , m o v i n g the Sleeping Images of things towards the Light, there to be Dis82 OED, sense 2, since Beowulf; Dryden's first use is in To My Lord Chancellor, 1. 18 (Works, I, 38). ss OED, sense 5, since 1297; Dryden's first use is in Astraea Redux, 11. 200, 202 (Works, I, 27). 84 OED, sense 7, since Euphues; Dryden's first use is in the prologue to The Wild Gallant, 1. 43 (Works, VIII, 5). 85 OED, sense 8c, since 1595; Dryden's first use, prologue to The Rival Ladies, 1. 10 (Works, VIII, 103). 86 OED, sense 9, since about 1470; Dryden's first use is in the prologue to The Rival Ladies, 1. 4 (Works, VIII, 103); sense 10, one who can say smart, brilliant, or amusing things, OED says is no earlier than 1692. Dryden, like others before him, also used the word in sense 9 after an adjective that reversed its usual meaning: e.g., "Town Fools and City Wits" (Works, XVII, 85), and "this Frog-land [i.e., Dutch] Wit" (Works, X X , 219; "Dull as a Dutchman" was a proverb). 87 Works, 1,53-54. 88 OED, sense 8a, in use since 1542. 89 Works, I, 54. so In preface to the Fables (1700), when he was discussing his physical and mental health (Works, VII [Kinsley, IV, 1446]).

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tinguish'd, and then either chosen or rejected by the Judgment." 91 Shortly we read, "Plotting and Writing . . . are certainly more troublesome employments than many which signifie more, and are of greater moment in the World: T h e Fancy, Memory, and Judgment, are then extended (like so many Limbs) upon the Rack; all of them Reaching with their utmost stress at Nature; a thing so almost Infinite, and Boundless, as can never fully be Comprehended, but where the Images of all things are always present." 92 And finally Dryden says: "Imagination in a Poet is a faculty so Wild and Lawless, that, like an High-ranging Spaniel it must have Cloggs tied to it, least it out-run the Judgment." 9 3 In the Account of Annus Mirabilis, Dryden again says that "imagination in the writer, . . . like a nimble Spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of Memory, till it springs the Quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or Idea's of those things which it designs to represent." 94 The "Images of things," the "species or Idea's of things," and "Nature" are synonyms, the exact meaning of which we leave aside for the moment. We see that for Dryden, as for many other writers, literary composition was a push-me-pull-you process carried on by human faculties.95 Although he spoke of God as "the Almighty Poet," 96 he rejected the concept that ideas come from divine inspiration.97 That is to say, he was using conventional language only, and only to excuse his delay in fulfilling a commission, when he wrote that "We, who are Priests of Apollo, have not the Inspiration when we please; but must wait till the God comes rushing on us, and invades us with a fury, which we are not able to resist." 98 Dryden's language is ambiguous with respect to vinous inspiration: men wholly given to "Fancyfull Poetry, and Musick . . . . have the same elevation of Fancy sober, which men of Sense have when they drink. . . . meer Poets and meer Musicians, are as sottish as meer Drunkards." 99 He certainly and several times said that literary composition was almost impossible unless the writer's desire for fame stimulated a desire to please.100 Judgment, he was later to say, "is Works, VIII, 95. B2 ibid., pp. 96-97. 98 Ibid., p. 101. As noted in Works, VIII, 273, Hobbes had used the image in a similar context in Leviathan, I, iii. 94 Works, I, 53. 85 Unless Dryden claims originality or cites a source for what he says about wit, he draws upon common knowledge, no doubt verified, for him, by self-examination (see Works, VIII, 272-274). 9® Dedication of The Rival Ladies (Works, VIII, 97). 9 7 See the postscript to Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco (Works, XVII, 182): Settle "would perswade us he is a kind of Phanatick in Poetry, and has a light within him; and writes by an inspiration which (like that of the Heathen Prophets) a man must have no sense of his own when he receives." 98 Dedication of Eleonora (Works, III, 231). See also A Parallel betwixt Painting and Poetry (Works, X X , 74): Virgil, "siez'd as it were with a divine Fury . . . " (italics added). 9 9 Postscript to Notes and Observations (Works, XVII, 181-182). 1 0 0 See dedication, 11. 2-4 (p. 8i above). In An Essay of Dramatick Poesie, published in 1668 but perhaps finished the preceding year, he had written "Emulation is the Spur of Wit" (Works, XVII, 16), and he was to write in A Parallel betwixt 91

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the effect of Observation." 1 0 1 In The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy (1679) he accepted Longinus's statements that imagination is inborn, but that judgment can be improved with study. 102 When Dryden says in the dedication of that "all Men are equal in their Judgment of what The State of Innocence is eminently best," 1 0 3 he is merely flattering his dedicatee, who is the eminently best he has in mind; he is not enlarging his analysis of judgment. In the dedication of the Aeneis he gave a succinct account of what one might call the judgment of judgment: Virgil's "great Judgment made the Laws of Poetry, but he never made himself a Slave to them." 1 0 4 In the Account of Annus Mirabilis, Dryden identified three successive operations of imagination and their different qualities: first, "Invention, or finding of the thought," in which the "quickness" or liveliness of the imagination appears; second, "Fancy, or the variation, deriving or moulding of that thought, as the judgment represents it proper to the subject," in which the "fertility" of the imagination appears; and third, "Elocution, or the Art of clothing and adorning that thought so found and varied, in apt, significant and sounding words," in which the "accuracy" of the imagination appears. 105 Later in the essay he uses "images" and "words" for the concerns or products of imagination in the second and third operations, and "descriptions" as a synonym for "images." 1 0 6 T h e function of judgment he mentions by name in describing the second operation and by implication in describing the others, for without judgment there can be no "finding," no "Art," and no "accuracy." Thus we see that he conceives of the three operations of imagination as three cycles of imagination-judgment, from conception to execution. What he had said in the dedication of The Rival Ladies was the "first Work" of fancy he has now named invention; he has confined the term fancy, which he had previously used and was regularly to use as a synonym for imagination, to the second cycle; and he has given it a new name, elocution, in the third cycle. Although the exact names are not important—Dryden used various synonyms for all of them—the ensuing discussion will be clearer if we continue to use the terms Invention, Fancy, and Elocution. In the preface to Secret Love (1668) he called the second cycle of imaginaPainting and Poetry (1695) that the other spur was reward (Works, X X , 59) and, in the dedication of the Aeneis (1697), that "Without this Ambition which I own, of desiring to please the Judices Natos, I cou'd never have been able to have done any thing at this Age [he was sixty-six], when the fire of Poetry is commonly extinguish'd in other Men" (Works, V, 328). Cf. Milton, Lycidas, 1. 70, "Fame is the spur," and Johnson, "No man ever writ but for money." 1 0 1 Dedication of the Georgics (1697; Works, V, 138). 102 Works, XIII, 240; repeated as his own observation in A Parallel betwixt Painting and Poetry (1695; ibid., X X , 61). See also the Discourse of Satire (1693): Persius and Juvenal wrote before they "had arriv'd to that Maturity of Judgment, which is necessary to the accomplishing of a fonn'd Poet" (ibid., IV, 51). i°3 See p. 82 above. 104 Works, V, 300. 105 Ibid., I, 53. loe ibid., p. 56. He used "words" again as a synonym of elocution in A Defence of an Essay of Dramatique Poesie, prefixed to the second edition of The Indian Emperour (1668; ibid., IX, 12).

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tion-judgment (Fancy), "the Fabrick and contrivance" or " f r a m e and contexture." 1 0 7 I n the preface to The Tempest, written in 1669 and published the next year, he said Davenant displayed imagination, invention, and fancy, here apparently all synonyms, in his additions to Shakespeare's "Design," a new name for the second cycle (Fancy). 108 A t the b e g i n n i n g of the Apology in The State of Innocence, the first cycle (Invention) is called " F o u n d a t i o n , " the n e x t (Fancy) " D e s i g n " once more, and the third (Elocution) " O r n a ments." 1 0 9 A few sentences later we read of " t h e Design, the Conduct, the T h o u g h t s , and the Expressions of a P O E M , " terms not so obviously distributed a m o n g the three cycles (Invention, Fancy, Elocution). Probably "Design," " C o n d u c t , " and " T h o u g h t s " all belong to the second cycle (Fancy) and "Expressions" to the third (Elocution), for Dryden says at the b e g i n n i n g of the preface to Albion and Albanius (1685): "Propriety of thought is that Fancy which arises naturally from the Subject, or which the Poet adapts to it [i.e., it belongs to the second cycle of literary composition (Fancy)—and it is j u d g m e n t that insures propriety]. Propriety of Words, is the cloathing of those thoughts with such Expressions, as are naturally proper to them [i.e., it belongs to the third cycle of composition (Elocution)]." 1 1 0 In the Apology, as w e have noted, Dryden also divides the activity of the third cycle of imagination-judgment (Elocution) into concern for words and concern for strings of words, that is, figures of speech. 1 1 1 In A Parallel betwixt Painting and Poetry (1695), the three cycles (Invention, Fancy, Elocution) are called "invention," "disposition," and "expression." 1 1 2 A n d from various remarks we see that imitation is an allowable alternate to invention and indeed may substitute for what we think of as imagination in the second and third cycles (Fancy, Elocution) as well. " J u d g m e n t " has as synonyms not only " a r t " but "taste" and " r e a s o n . " 1 1 3 A l t h o u g h imagination is fundamentally more important than judgment, since without it judgment has nothing to decide, Dryden came to distinguish between the contribution of the two faculties in the three cycles of composition (Invention, Fancy, Elocution). In the preface to Secret Love, w h e n speaking of the first two cycles, he speaks almost exclusively of judgment; the contribution of imagination appears only in the words " m o d e l " and "idea," i°7 Works, I X , 115, 116. 108 Ibid., X, 3-4. Later on, Dryden wrote of Davenant as not showing enough invention in The Siege of Rhodes (Of Heroique Playes, prefixed to The Conquest of Granada [1672]; ibid., XI, 10). «9 See p. 87 above. 110 Works, XV, 3. 1 1 1 See p. 96 above. 112 Works, XX, 61-62, 71. Because Dryden is matching his discussion to a threestep description of painting, the second step of which has no parallel in literature (see p. 64), he classes disposition under the head of invention. 1 1 3 "Artfull Rhyming," dedication of The Rival Ladies (ibid., VIII, 101); "without Rules there can be no Art," A Parallel betwixt Painting and Poetry (ibid., X X , 61). "Taste," Apology (p. 89 above); Life of Plutarch (Works, XVII, 282). "Imagination . . . is supposed to participate of reason, and when that governs . . . , " Defence of an Essay of Dramatique Poesie (Works, IX, 18); "right Reason," Apology (p. 90 above); "a reasonable and judicious Poem," The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy (Works, XIII, 248).

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to w h i c h the writer's j u d g m e n t holds h i m . " B u t for the o r n a m e n t of W r i t i n g [the third cycle ( E l o c u t i o n ) ] , . . . as it is p r o p e r l y the C h i l d of Fancy, so it c a n receive n o m e a s u r e " ; it c a n n o t itself, "if I m a y so s p e a k , " j u d g e of itself a n d the poet's j u d g m e n t c a n n o t control i t . 1 1 4 T h e words "if I m a y so s p e a k " w a r n us that D r y d e n is s t r a i n i n g a m e t a p h o r , n o t u s i n g his n o r m a l l a n g u a g e . E v e r y w h e r e else h e says that the poet's j u d g m e n t must g o v e r n his imagination, at least to some e x t e n t . 1 1 5 N e a r the e n d of the preface to An Evening's Love (1671) he said that a p l a y w r i g h t , l i k e a g u n s m i t h , works o n s o m e t h i n g n o t his o w n b u t gives the p r o d u c t its v a l u e by his labor. T h e p l o t of a play is the least c o n c e r n of its writer a n d its characters are the n e x t least. H e " m o d e l s " t h e story w i t h " a r t " a n d " f o r m s " it w i t h " c a r e " ; that is, j u d g m e n t is the m o r e i m p o r t a n t faculty at the b e g i n n i n g . B u t in e v e r y t h i n g else, e v e n " f o r m i n g " the play i n t o acts a n d scenes, " f a n c y . . . is t h e p r i n c i p a l l q u a l i t y r e q u i r ' d . . . J u d g e m e n t , indeed, is necessary . . . b u t 'tis f a n c y that gives the life touches, a n d the secret g r a c e s . " 1 1 6 L a t e r D r y d e n d i v i d e d the b a l a n c e of i m a g i n a t i o n a n d j u d g m e n t a c c o r d i n g to the writer's age. I n the d e d i c a t i o n of the Georgics h e was q u i t e specific: u n t i l forty a w r i t e r has m o r e imagination than j u d g m e n t , f r o m fifty to sixty " h e loses n o t m u c h i n Fancy; a n d J u d g m e n t . . . still increases," so that there is a b a l a n c e , a n d t h e r e a f t e r h e has m o r e j u d g m e n t t h a n i m a g i n a t i o n . n 7 A n d early in the p r e f a c e to his Fables (1700), w h e n h e w r o t e that h e felt himself "as v i g o r o u s as ever i n t h e Faculties of m y Soul, e x c e p t i n g o n l y m y M e m o r y , " he a d d e d , " W h a t J u d g m e n t I had, increases rather than d i m i n i s h e s . " 1 1 8 F o l l o w i n g Segrais, D r y d e n divides readers as w e l l as writers i n t o s o m e t h i n g l i k e his three ages of m a n . T h e first class of readers, w h o m Segrais calls " L e s Petits Esprits," are those " w h o like n o t h i n g b u t the H u s k a n d R h i n d of W i t ; p r e f e r r a Q u i b b l e [pun], a C o n c e i t , an E p i g r a m , b e f o r e solid Sense, a n d E l e g a n t E x p r e s s i o n . " A s readers " i m p r o v e their Stock of Sense, (as they m a y by r e a d i n g better Books, a n d by C o n v e r s a t i o n w i t h M e n of J u d g m e n t ) , " at first they still c a n n o t discern b e t w e e n " F u s t i a n . . . a n d the t r u e s u b l i m e , " b u t e v e n t u a l l y they j o i n the ranks of the most judicious, w h o " h a v e a certain M a g n e t i s m in their J u d g m e n t , w h i c h attracts others to their Sense," a n d w h o constitute the a u d i e n c e addressed by V i r g i l . 1 1 9 A s a subscriber to Aristotle's conclusion that art imitates nature, D r y d e n r e g a r d e d the writer's m e m o r y as a storehouse of " i m a g e s " or " i d e a s " of nature, i n c l u d i n g h u m a n nature, a n d i n c l u d i n g b o t h o r i g i n a l observations " 4 Works, IX, 116. 1 1 5 For example, in The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy (1679) he said, "No man should pretend to write, who cannot temper his fancy with his Judgment," and went so far as to propose emending the text of Aristotle to fit his conviction (see ibid., XIII, 241-242). And before that he had said in the postscript to Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco (1674), " M e n that are given over to fancy onely, are little better then Madmen: W h a t people say of Fire (Viz. T h a t it is a good Servant, but an ill Master) may not unaptly be applyed to Fancy, which when it is too active Rages, but when cooled and allay'd by the Judgement, produces admirable Effects" (ibid., X V I I , 181). «6 Ibid., X , 212. in Ibid., V, 138. u s Ibid,, VII (Kinsley, IV, 1446). " 9 Works, V, 326-328.

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and those drawn from reading and conversation. 1 2 0 W e see that n o n e of the original observations are direct, all are retrospect. T o draw our own parallel betwixt painting and poetry, Dryden regarded the writer as painting all his landscapes in the studio, never out of doors. In r a n g i n g through the stores of memory, the " w i l d and lawless," or as Dryden more often said, the " l u x u r i a n t " imagination did not, he usually implied, get prior or concurrent guidance from judgment, which also consulted memory's storehouse, but subsequent filtering, retrenchment, or polish. W h e n he wrote that "a Poet . . . [must be] supported by the help of A r t , " he was paraphrasing Longinus. 1 2 1 Speaking for himself in To My Honored Friend, Sir Robert Howard (11. 26-28), he described j u d g m e n t as " T h e curious N e t that is for fancies spread, / Let's through its Meshes every meaner thought, / W h i l e rich Idea's there are onely c a u g h t . " 1 2 2 A n d later he wrote of Virgil's "sober retrenchments of his Sense," and said, "the W o r k s of Judgment, are like the Diamond, the more they are polish'd, the more lustre they receive." 1 2 3 T h e nearest Dryden came to saying that j u d g m e n t was like a refiner's fire was in the Defence of the Epilogue, where he says that "a severe Critique is the greatest help to a good W i t " because "his malice keeps a Poet within those bounds, which the L u x u r i a n c y of his Fancy would tempt him to o v e r l e a p . " 1 2 4 In his mind Dryden had a kind of V e n n diagram in which a circle labeled "natural/reasonable" intersected a circle labeled "interesting/exciting." W i t worthy of the name resided in the intersection. In Pope's words, " T r u e wit is nature to advantage dressed." From time to time Dryden labeled other circles, so to speak, and discussed how they intersected the intersection of the first two. T h e first of these additional circles h a d the label "rhyme in plays." In the dedication of The Rival Ladies and in An Essay of Dramatick Poesie, he debated the question of when, if ever, dialogue in rhyme was both interesting/exciting and natural/reasonable. A n o t h e r circle was "authority from the ancients"; another was "the supernatural in literature," which had within it smaller circles for drama, epic, and so on, and was included in a larger circle labeled "poetic licence." In the earlier postscript to Notes and Observations and in the Apology prefixed to The State of Innocence Dryden 120 T h e value of conversation to the writer appears first in the epilogue to 2 Conquest of Granada and the ensuing Defence of the Epilogue (ibid., XI, 201-218); the value of reading or "learning" appears first in the preface to Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco (1674): Settle has "a most deplor'd understanding, without Reading & Conversation," with the result that such sense or thought as he has "he can never fashion either into Wit or English. . . . That little Talent which he has is Fancy. He sometimes labours with a thought, but . . . for want of Learning and Elocution, he will never be able to express any thing either naturally or justly. This subjects him on all occasions to false allusions, and mistaken points of Wit. As tor Judgment he has not the least grain of it" (ibid., XVII, 84-85). 1 2 1 The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy (ibid., XIII, 241). J22 Ibid., I, 17. Dryden glossed "Net" as "Rete Mirabile," the "wonderful net" supposed to exist in the brain for transforming the "spirits" that passed through it (see ibid., I, 209), but we may suppose the gloss points up the metaphor rather than defines the judgment as a physical entity. !23 Dedication of the Aeneis (1697; Works, V, 326, 328). 12 4 Ibid., XI, 207.

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argued that "pleasing, and probable fictions," included in poetic license, were also included in what was natural/reasonable, but "Authoritie from the ancients" was not. 125 Three other circles were "refinement/gentility/courtliness," "the dignity of the subject," and "restraint," all mandated in the Defence of the Epilogue,126 Many of these arguments and mandates were really special pleading against what Dryden's enemies had done and for what he had done. Often enough, too, he and his enemies had done the same thing, in which case the words "pedant" and "pedantry" show up in his descriptions of them and their work. 127 Returning, then, to Dryden's definitions of wit. In An Essay of Dramatick Poesie, Eugenius says, "a thing well said will be wit in all Languages," and soon gives examples from Cleveland's poems. 128 W e see from the examples, however, that, as Eugenius says, "his wit is independent of his words," that is, the wit lies in the thought, not in the expression. Further on, Neander speaks of FalstafFs "wit, or those things he sayes, . . . unexpected by the Audience; his quick evasions when you imagine him surpriz'd, . . . are extreamly diverting." 1 2 9 Here the idea of wit as comedy makes its appearance. Although Eugenius and Neander are both imagined characters, and thus do not necessarily speak for Dryden, it is usually supposed that Neander does. It is therefore of interest to observe that later on Neander speaks of the wit of tragedy. 130 In the preface to An Evenings Love we find wit contrasted with humor in its old technical sense. Is it easier to write the lines of a witty character than those of a humors character? Any wit will serve for a witty character, whereas a humors character must not vary from his humor. 131 T h e Defence of the Epilogue says dialogue that never varies from a character's humor, Jonson's forte as a writer of dialogue, may also be called wit; "It being very certain, that even folly it self, well represented, is W i t in a larger signification: and that there is Fancy, as well as Judgement in it," though "imitation . . . of Folly is a lower exercise of Fancy." But Jonson, "when at any time, he aim'd at Wit, in the stricter sence, that is Sharpness of Conceit, was forc'd either to borrow from the Ancients" or fall "into meanness of expression." 132 In the dedication oiExamen Poeticum (1693) Dryden 125 Ibid.., X V I I , 180-183; p. 96 above. In the essay Of Heroique Playes, D r y d e n had said that heroic plays and poems give their writers "a freer scope for imagination," that is, may have spirits and ghosts among their characters, w h i c h beings poets are better than scientists or theologians at explaining because all explainers "have onely their fancy for their guide," and fancy is likely to be "sharper in an excellent Poet" and "see farther, in its own Empire." A novel claim for fancy or imagination {ibid., X I , 12-13). I n the preface to Albion and Albanius he says that magic and supernatural characters are acceptable w h e n based on others' faith in them (ibid., X V , 3). 12 B

Ibid., X I , 212-215. E.g., importing words from other languages, in the dedication of The Rival Ladies (ibid., V I I I , 98); taking the practice of the ancients as authority for moderns, in the postscript to Notes and Observations (ibid., X V I I , 183). 127

12s ibid., XVII, 28, 30. 129 ibid., p. 60. ISO Ibid., p. 74. 131

Ibid., X , 203.

132 Ibid., X

1,213,

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wrote, " I f W i t be pleasantry, [Ovid] has it to excess: but if it be p r o p r i e t y , . . . [others] are his Superiours." 1 3 3 I n the Discourse of Satire he quoted Casaubon's definition of " U r b a n i t y " as "well-manner'd W i t . " 1 3 4 I n the Life of Lucian, Dryden defined comedy as " t h e W i t and F o o l i n g of a T h e a t r e . " 1 3 5 A negative definition of wit comes in the preface to Sylvte (1685): "barefac'd Bawdery is the poorest pretence to wit imaginable." Dryden then observes that Mulgrave had said the same and that C o w l e y had gone further, d e n y i n g that obscenity was wit at all. 1 3 8 Other negative definitions come in the Discourse of Satire, where Dryden accepts the dictum of Casaubon that wit can only be " a n Instrument, a kind of T o o l , or a W e a p o n " in satire, w h i c h ' 'is of the nature of Moral Philosophy"! he says o n his o w n that in lampoons "there is a perpetual Dearth of W i t ; a Barrenness of good Sense, and Entertainment." 1 3 ? Still another, the last, comes in the dedication of the Fables: " V u l g a r Judges . . . call Conceits and Jingles W i t , . . . yet . . . they are . . . so far from being Witty, that in a serious Poem they are nauseous, because they are u n n a t u r a l . " 1 3 8 Finally, or almost finally, we may note what may be called historical definitions of wit. "Doubtless many things appear flat to us [in the writings of the ancients], the wit of which depended o n some custome or story w h i c h never came to our k n o w l e g e . " 1 3 9 Jonson's puns are to be excused because p u n n i n g "was then the mode of wit, the vice of the A g e , " and "that admirable wit, Sir Philip Sidney," p u n n e d perpetually. 1 4 0 Poetic license varies "according to the Language and A g e in which an A u t h o r writes." 1 4 1 A n d again, the early Greeks and Romans had "Songs and Dances, and that w h i c h they call'd W i t , (for want of knowing better,)" after their sacrifices. 142 T o sum up, The Authors Apology for Heroique Poetry; and Poetique Licence gives us Dryden's thoughts as he had l o n g settled them, b u t with somewhat different citations of others than before or after and somewhat different language, in part, no doubt, because he liked variety, and in part, certainly, because the terms of criticism were not yet settled and common property. W e turn away from his discussions of imagination and j u d g m e n t in the Apology and elsewhere by observing that thinkers to this day have gone beyond him hardly at all as l o n g as they too exclude divine inspiration. 1 4 3 " C r e a t i v i t y " has largely replaced " i m a g i n a t i o n " as a descriptor, but how to put oneself into a state of creativity is not much better k n o w n . T o d a y ' s thinkers state more clearly and emphatically than Dryden that Ibid., IV, 370. Ibid., p. 55. Similarly, in the Life of Lucian Dryden said Lucian's "Wit" was "Facetious, well Manner'd, and well bred" (ibid., X X , 220). MS ibid., XX, 222. 186 Ibid., Ill, 13. 13 7 Ibid., IV, 55, 60. iss ibid., VII (Kinsley, IV, 1451). 139 An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (ibid., XVII, 20-21). 140 Defence of the Epilogue (ibid., XI, 214). 1 4 1 P. 96 above. 142 Discourse of Satire (Works, IV, 30). 1 4 3 See Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman, and Michael Ray, The Creative Spirit (1992). Cf. Louise Duchesneau, The Voice of the Muse (1986). 133

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judgment, knowledge, forethought, and expertise hinder creativity if they are not excluded from the conscious mind during the creative process. They do say, contrary to Dryden, that experiments have proved that competitiveness, Dryden's "ambition," is not a spur to but a checkrein upon the creative process. In other respects, today's thinkers only make explicit what Dryden acted out: creative thinkers are willing to try new things, to challenge convention, to work harmoniously with others, to make mistakes; they are confident, they never lose heart, and they joy in their work. If we fail to sense Dryden's joy, we miss much. (TVWS Dryden's appeal to taste and judgment in the Apology is of special interest in the light of some later remarks of his about Paradise Lost. In his preface to Sylva (1685), after saying that "Miltons Paradice Lost is admirable," he objected that Milton "creeps along sometimes, for above an Hundred lines together," and condemned Milton's "antiquated words, and the perpetual harshness of their sound." 1 4 4 In the preface to Don Sebastian (1690), citing the boldness of his own figures, his importation of foreign idioms, and his resurrection of old words, he named Milton as a precedent, though saying that Milton used too many old words. 145 In the Discourse of Satire (1693), after praising Milton's elevated thoughts, sounding words, and happy imitations or translations of bits from Homer and Virgil, he objected once more to Milton's overuse of old words and to his flatnesses, now identifying the latter as occuring in passages of theological discussion. He added that Paradise Lost did not sufficiently follow the heroic pattern in its plot and characters, and that it ought not to have been written in blank verse. On later pages he said Milton had showed how good and evil angel forces could balance each other sufficiently to maintain suspense in a Christian epic and had illustrated the truth that poetry began in worship of the deity by showing Adam and Eve singing hymns. 146 In the dedication of the Aeneis (1697), Dryden repeated his objections to the plot and characters in Paradise Lost,147 Possibly he had arrived at all his objections to Milton's epic before he undertook his opera and so wrote with the conviction that by using rhyme and omitting the rest of what he objected to he was succeeding where Milton had failed. 148 W e have the word of Dryden's friend and patron, the Earl of Dorset, transmitted through Fleetwood Sheppard and Tancred Robinson to Jonathan 144 Works, III, 17. Nevertheless, the same year he drew heavily on Paradise Lost in Albion and Albanius, II, i, 1-16 (ibid., XV, 30-31, 373). 145 Ibid., XV, 67. 146 Ibid., IV, 14-15, 22, 2g. 1*7 Ibid., V, 276. 148 Such is the argument of Havens, "Dryden's 'Tagged' Version," and of Williamson, Milton and Others, p. 117. It has also been argued, perhaps not so convincingly, that Dryden wrote rather as an experiment and that, finding it had failed, he turned away from rhyme for his tragedies (see Morris Freedman, "Dryden's 'Memorable Visit' to Milton," HLQ, XVIII [1954-55], 107-108, and "The 'Tagging' of Paradise Lost: Rhyme in Dryden's The State of Innocence," Milton Q, v l>97 »]• PP- 18-22).

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Richardson, that after Dryden had read Paradise Lost he said: " T h i s M a n . . . Cuts us A l l O u t , and the Ancients too." A n o t h e r person told Richardson that Dryden had once approved the blank verse of Paradise Lost.1*9 A n d w e have the word of Dryden's younger friend John Dennis that in the 1690s D r y d e n had admitted he "knew not half the Extent of his [Milton's] Excellence" when he wrote The State of Innocence. Dennis, w h o preferred the epic to the opera, said the latter was proof of Dryden's lack of appreciation at that time. 1 5 0 M a l o n e doubted the stories recorded by Richardson and Dennis. 1 5 1 W e may also note the admiring verses Dryden provided for the fourth edition of Paradise Lost (1688). 152 A l t h o u g h the possibility exists that he was hired to write these verses, 153 just as he was hired to write epitaphs and his long memorial poem Eleonora, still he says in them much of what he was to say in the Discourse 0/ Satire in praise of Milton's elevated thoughts and s o u n d i n g words. 1 5 4 5 W 5 Between the opera's entry in the Stationers' Register and its first edition, Dryden wrote not only the Apology but also Aureng-Zebe and various prologues and epilogues. Possibly lines 13-18 of the prologue to Aureng-Zebe mean that Dryden had also begun work o n All for Love,155 H e dedicated Aureng-Zebe to the Earl of Mulgrave, a clear sign that his allegiances a m o n g the court poets had shifted away from Mulgrave's enemy, the Earl of Rochester. It may be that Dryden's quotation from Horace in the Apology, "honest H o m e r nods sometimes," is a reply to Rochester's attack o n h i m in An Allusion to Horace,156 but the possibility seems remote. T h e death of Dryden's mother in J u n e 1676 increased his income from his inheritance in Northamptonshire by half. 1 5 7 His salary as poet laureate and historiogra1 4 9 Jonathan Richardson, senior and junior, Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Paradise Lost (1734), pp. cxix-cxx. WO To Judas Iscariol, Esq; On the Degeneracy of the Publick Taste (1719; Critical Works, II, 169); see also preface to Britannia Triumphans (1704; Critical Works, I, 377). 1 5 1 Malone, I, i, 112-115. Morris Freedman's similar doubts are to be found in "Dryden's Reported Reaction to 'Paradise Lost,'" N&Q, 203 (1958), 14-16. 15 2 Works, III, 208. 153 Dryden's publisher at the time, Jacob Tonson, published the fourth edition of the epic. 184 George McFadden, "Dryden's 'Most Barren Period'—and Milton," HLQ, XXIV (1960-61), 283-296, argues that Dryden learned to use alliteration from Milton, but he undercuts his argument by showing that Virgil uses even more than either Milton or Dryden. 155 See p. 162 above; Winn, p. 287. 1 5 6 See p. 87 above; Winn, p. 297. McFadden (p. 131) thinks Rochester more or less drove Dryden into Mulgrave's arms. 157 Winn, p. 290. Although Winn there says the rent was small and the increase slight, on p. 79 he shows that the increase was 33 percent of the total. How much the rent was is not very clear, but it appears to have been about a third as much as his government salary of £200 a year at this time (Winn, pp. 528-529). Winn (p. 557) gives the calculations of Malone and Ward for the annual rent, £60, and £82 ios., respectively. In a letter to Tonson of 25 November [1696] (Ward, Letters, p. 84),

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pher royal was £200 a year, and just after publication of The State of Innocence it also was increased by half. 158 Malone estimated that Dryden's total income for the next few years was about £420 a year, 159 not a large sum but perhaps enough, even subtracting £100, that he could afford to wait to publish until Milton's family had received their £ 5 for the second edition of Paradise Lost,160

DEDICATION

P. 81 Mary Beatrice d'Este (1658-1718), daughter of Alphonso IV, Duke of Modena, became the second wife of James Duke of York by proxy in Modena on 30 September 1673, a week before her fifteenth birthday, and in the Church of England seven weeks after it. She had wished to become a nun. She was, as Dryden says, a celebrated beauty. Winn notes that by dedicating the opera to her, Dryden was confirming his loyalty to James, to which he had been won long before by the patronage of the Earl of Clarendon (see To My Lord. Chancellor, in Works, I, 38-42, and Winn, p. 254). She was eighteen years old when she accepted Dryden's dedication. Our frontispiece shows her about a decade later. 81:12-16 Illustrious Family . . . long-continu'd . . . famous . . . in Peace and War ... so many Generals and Heroes. The family of Este is "one of the oldest of the former reigning houses of Italy." For the two centuries preceding the death of Duke Cesare (1533-1628), "this dynasty had been one of the greatest powers in Italy, and its court was perhaps the most splendid in Europe." Alphonso I (1476-1534) "was appointed to the supreme command of the papal troops by Julius II," but he subsequently fought against them. Francis I (1610-1658) "commanded the French army in Italy in 1647." Alphonso IV (1634-1662), the father of Mary Beatrice, "fought in the French army during the Spanish War" (Enc. Br., 8:731-732). 81:19 Ariosto and Tasso. Ercole I (1431-1505) was the patron of Ariosto; Alphonso II (1533-1597) was the patron of Tasso. Dryden had previously noted these patronages at the beginning of the dedication of The Conquest of Granada (Works, XI, 3). 81:26 this new Honour of being Your Poet. Dryden had long been poet laureate; it was the duchess who was new. 81:28 Priest. As what follows appears to be based on Virgil's picture of the priestess Deiphobe in Aeneid, VI, 45-51, 77-80 (Dryden's translation, 11. 7079, 120-125; Works, V, 529-530), it would seem that he here uses "Priest" in the sense of "priestess" (O ED). 81:30 Mystery left behind. As OED explains (s.v. Delphian), the oracle at Delphi was noted for obscurity and ambiguity. 82:2-3 survey'd the Moon by Glasses. An appropriate figure for this work; Dryden mentions a rent payment, presumably a quarterly one, of £16 ioi., giving an annual rent of £66. 158 Winn, p. 529. 159 Malone, I, i, 447-449.

160 s e e p. 320 above.

Notes to Pages 81-85

345

cf. Paradise Lost, I, 287-288: "the Moon, whose O r b / T h r o u g h Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist [Galileo] views." 82:28 Conduct, Courage. W h e n these words are used together, the first o n e means "astuteness" (see also note to the dedication of Aureng-Zebe, 153:2, p. 404 below). 82:33-34 I am sure You bless all those who see You. Dryden forgot or ignored the fact that he h a d made Satan address Eve in almost the same terms in IV, ii, 37 (see p. 130 above). 83:19 rapture which Anchorites find in Prayer. St. Theresa's autobiogr a p h y h a d been translated into English by W.M. a n d published in 1611. W i n n regards the language here as a humorous exaggeration such as, in his view, we find in the Catholic imagery of Dryden's letter to H o n o r Dryden a n d in 11. 13-16 of To My Lord Chancellor (see W i n n , p p . 71, 126, 296; Works, I, 8-9, 38). T h o s e who think that the imagery in the letter is classical a n d that 11. 13-16 of the poem are simple praise may instead conclude that Dryden intended the duchess to take his words here as sincerely m e a n t . See his remark about his prologues a n d epilogues spoken at O x f o r d : "how grosse flattery the learned will e n d u r e " (Ward, Letters, p. 10). 83:29-30 have destroy'd . . . his Dominion. T h e duchess was chaste, a n d Dryden could, by a fiction to which he refers in the preface to An Evening's Love (Works, X, 210), assume that marriage h a d made her husband so; in fact, the duke continued "to caricature the excesses of his brother" ( D N B ) . 84:7 the Magical Shield. Of the magician Atlante in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, II, lvi, as Summers notes (III, 580). 84:11-14 Splende lo Scudo . . . mente. " T h e shield glittered like a gem, a n d n o other light shone brighter. Before its splendor o n e h a d to fall to the g r o u n d with eyes dazzled, a n d insensible." 84:22 Paradice, and . . . Cherubin within to guard it. Gen. 3:24: "he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims." See V, iv, 237-242 (p. 145 above). 84:27 the Image of Divinity. Gen. 1:27. 84:28 harsh. "Disagreeably hard a n d rough to the touch" ( O E D ) . 85:5 a Bull-rush cast upon a stream. Cf. Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, 11. 1667-1670: . . . through a n arch the violent roaring tide O u t r u n s the eye that doth behold his haste, Yet in the eddy b o u n d e t h in his pride Back to the strait that forc'd h i m on so fast. J u s t as Caroline Spurgeon conjectured that Shakespeare was r e m e m b e r i n g a n eddy caused by the bridge at Stratford, so we may suppose Dryden was remembering some eddy on the quieter River Ouse or N e n e with which h e h a d amused himself in childhood. 85:11 lodge a Bowl upon a Precipice. Although Dryden immediately explains what he means, making it clear that a "bowl" is a ball such as o n e would use in bowling or ninepins, he is certainly not describing the usual k i n d of bowling or the usual kind of precipice. Apparently what h e has in m i n d is some game of skill such as one might find at a fair, the object b e i n g to roll a ball u p a slope to a narrow flat surface a n d cause it to perch there instead of rolling back or falling off behind, several tries being allowed if

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the ball does not drop over the edge. At V, iv, 205 (p. 144 above), "precipice" has its usual meaning.

T H E AUTHORS APOLOGY

86:4 OPERA. See headnote (pp. 330-331 above). 86:10 many hundred Copies. See headnote (p. 325 above). 86:14-15 at a Months .. . Revis'd. See headnote (p. 320 above). 8 6 : 1 5 - 1 8 I cannot . . . from him. See headnote (pp. 3 2 6 - 3 2 9 above). 86:19 my mean Productions. Self-abasements of this kind often appear in Dryden. See headnote to Amboyna (p. 276 above). 8 6 : 2 2 - 2 4 The Original . . . has produc'd. Early praise of Milton, whose epic in its final form had appeared only three years earlier and in its first form only four years before that. John Dennis said that "Mr. Dryden in his Preface before the State of Innocence, appears to have been the first, those Gentlemen excepted whose Verses are before Milton's Poem, who discover'd in so publick a Manner an extraordinary Opinion of Milton's extraordinary Merit" (Critical Works, II, 169). The intensity of Dryden's feeling here must be judged against that of his self-dispraise just above and below. Winn (p. 265) thinks Dryden was bold to have versified the epic as early as he did. 8 6 : 2 5 - 2 6 my Friend, who is pleased to commend me in his Verses. Nathaniel Lee, for whose commendatory poem see appendix (pp. 5 3 7 - 5 3 8 below). For Dryden's subsequent collaboration with Lee see Works, XIII, 447-448. 87:3-11

In the first place . . . in favor of the Author. Dryden's complaints against critics who find only an author's faults extend from the Essay of Dramatick Poesie in 1665 to the Life of Lucian in 1696 (see Works, XVII, 16; XX, 2 2 3 - 2 2 4 ; and John M. Aden, The Critical Opinions of John Dryden [i9 6 3]. PP- 43-45)87:12 little lapses of . . . Virgil. Virgil was so conscious that he had not given the final polish to his Aeneid that in his last illness he tried to destroy it or have it destroyed. 87:13 Horace acknowledges. Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus, "honest Homer nods sometimes" (Ars Poetica, 1. 359). See headnote (p. 343 above) for Winn's sense of the significance of these lines. 8 7 : 1 6 - 1 8 Non, Ubi. . . Natura. "When the beauties in a poem are more in number, I shall not take offence at a few blots which a careless hand has let drop, or human frailty has failed to avert" (Horace, Ars Poetica 11. 351353, slightly altered but without changing the meaning; Loeb trans.). As Ker points out (I, 314), Dryden had quoted part of this passage in An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (Works, XVII, 64). 8 7 : 1 9 Longinus. His treatise Ilepi "T^ovs, On the Sublime, with a Latin translation, had been published at Oxford in 1636, and, as Watson notes (I, 197 n. 3) had been translated into English by John Hall, Of the Height of Eloquence ( 1 6 5 2 ) . For evidence that Dryden read Boileau's translation of 1 6 7 4 , see note to 8 7 : 2 0 . 8 7 : 2 0 twenty seventh Chapter. The chapter number is that in Boileau's

Notes to Pages 86-89

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translation of Longinus, and it is part of the evidence that Dryden used that translation (see Frank Livingston Huntley, "Dryden's Discovery of Boileau," MP, X L V [1947-48], 114). The passage that Dryden is now to paraphrase begins with the last words of X X X I I in the Greek. 87:23-32 He compares . . . of living. P. S. Havens, who prefers Milton to Dryden, says that with respect to retelling the Adam and Eve story Milton is like the "Man of large possessions" and Dryden is like the man "of a mean fortune" ("Dryden's 'Tagged' Version of Paradise Lost," in Essays in Dramatic Literature, ed. Hardin Craig [1935], p. 397). 87:29 Main. Essential point (OED). 88:7-17 I could, . . . than Homer. Longinus, X X X I I I , 4. Dryden's language is considerably more vivid than Longinus's, in part because he is translating from the French. For instance, the words from " I could, sayes my Author" to "with me against his carelesness" are, in Longinus, " I myself have noted not a few faults both in Homer and in the greatest of the others, and have certainly not been pleased by the slips, but equally I do not call them wilful mistakes rather than oversights allowed there by [St'] negligence and as if it happened that they were brought forward carelessly through [Ù7TÔ] greatness of soul." Boileau's version is, "Mais bien que j'aye remarqué plusiers fautes dans Homère, & dans tous les plus célèbres Auteurs, & que je sois peut-estre l'homme du monde à qui elles plaisent le moins; j'estime après tout que ce sont des fautes dont ils ne se sont pas souciez, & qu'on ne peut appeller proprement fautes, mais qu'on doit simplement regarder comme des méprises & de petites négligences qui leur sont eschappés: parceque leur esprit qui ne s'étudioit qu'au Grand" (Oeuvres Diverses [1685], p. 99, quoted by Huntley). 88:23-24 the greatest work of humane Nature. Summers (III, 581) notes that the dedication of Dryden's translation of the Aeneid begins with the words, "A heroick Poem, truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest Work which the Soul of Man is capable to perform" (Works, V, 267). Ker (I, 314) notes that Dryden is quoting René Rapin, La Comparaison d'Homère et de Virgile, "De tous les ouvrages dont l'esprit de l'homme est capable, le Poème Épique est sans doute le plus accompli," a sentiment repeated in his Réflexions sur la Poétique en Particulier. 88:24 Aristotle. In fact, Aristotle put tragedy ahead of epic (Poetics, ch. xxvi, which ends, "the better of the two is tragedy"—Loeb), as Dryden appears to have remembered shortly; see p. 89, 1. 25, above. 88:28-31 Trojani Belli . . . Crantore dicit. "While you, Lollius Maximus, declaim at Rome, I have been reading afresh at Praeneste the writer of the Trojan War; who tells us what is fair, what is foul, what is helpful, what not, more plainly and better than Chrysippus or Crantor" (Horace, Epistles, I, ii, 1-4; Loeb). 89:4-5 Cut mens . . . Sonaturum. "one has a soul divine and tongue of noble utterance" (Horace, Satires, I, iv, 43-44; Loeb). 89:7-8 all the Italian Commentators. Summers (III, 581) quotes Rapin's Réflexions sur la Poétique en General, XI, which lists the following Italian commentators on Aristotle's Poetics: Pietro Vettori, 1499-1585—commentary Francesco Robortello, 1516-1567—edition

34«

Commentary

Luigi Castelvetro, 1505-1571—translation Alessandro Piccolomini, 1508-1578—translation Paolo Beni, c. 1552-1625—commentary Antonio Sebastiano Minturni, ? - i 5 7 4 - D e Poetica Antonio Riccoboni, 1541-1599—translation Marco Girolamo Vida, c. 1490-1566—De Arte Poetica Tarquinio Galluzzi, 1574-1649—Virgilianae Vindicationes "and several others." 89:9 Boileau. T h e Art Poétique of Nicolas Boileau (1674). Dryden was to have a hand as reviser in Sir William Soames's translation (1683; Works, II, 123-156). 89:9 Rapin. See note to 89:7-8. 89:13 to instruct and to delight. Horace, Ars Poetica, 1. 343. Ker (I, 292) says: "This clause was almost obligatory in every definition of any kind of poetry; though Corneille had dared to leave out instruction in his essay on Drama." 89:21-22 the Author of the Plain Dealer. William Wycherley. See headnote (p. 325 above) for the possible significance of this reference in dating the Apology. Winn (p. 297) believes that Dryden's praise of Wycherley here is a reflection on Shadwell's humors comedies. He also (p. 244) believes that Dryden must have included Wycherley among "the best Comick Writers of our A g e " in about 1671 (dedication of Marriage A-la Mode; see Works, XI, 221:18, and, for other possible dates for the remark, p. 460). Such a remark implies friendship, if not before then surely soon after. 89:25 I do not dispute the preference of Tragedy. Dryden forgets that he has just done so in putting heroic poetry above all other; see p. 88,11. 22-24, above. 89:26 let every Man enjoy his tast. See Longinus, X X X V I , 4, "Everyone is welcome to his own taste" (Loeb). Also Tilley D385, "There is no disputing of taste" (first citation 1599). Later, Dryden was to express a different opinion: "Our deprav'd Appetites, and ignorance of the Arts, mislead our Judgments. . . . T o inform our Judgments, and to reform our Tasts, Rules were invented" (A Parallel betwixt Painting and Poetry [1695; Works, X X , 59-60]). But this view may also be traced to Longinus: "genius needs the curb as often as the spur" (ch. ii, Loeb trans.). 90:9 there are limits. See note to 89:26, and The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy: "They who would justify the madness of Poetry from the Authority of Aristotle, have mistaken the text" (Works, XIII, 241). Also, "not strain'd into bombast, but justly elevated" (dedication of The Spanish Fryar, Works, X I V , 102:30-31). 90:16-17 Chancery ... Common Pleas. Although Dryden very likely chose his examples for alliteration, he may have had in mind one of the functions of the Court of Chancery, which was to apply the rules of equity and conscience to mitigate the results of applying the rules of common law, that is, to serve as a court of appeal. T h e Court of Common Pleas heard civil cases. 90:18-19 the boldest strokes of Poetry, when they are manag'd Artfully, are those which most delight the Reader. This is the doctrine of the sublime as set down by Longinus. With respect to the qualification of artfulness,

Notes

to Pages

89-92

349

Dryden quotes Longinus again in The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy (Works, XIII, 241). 90:23-24 For generally . . . Universal Tradition. See note to dedication of The Spanish Fryar, p. 103:2-3 (Works, XIV, 446). 90:25 right Reason. T h e question of the limits of reason hovers round the Adam and Eve story as it stands in the Bible and the problem of free will attached to it in epic and opera. See note to II, i, 29 (p. 359 below). 90:32 Ressorts. As noted by Malone (I, ii, 404), the meaning is mechanical springs (OED resort, sense 10, citing this passage). 91:1-2 It requires Philosophy as well as Poetry, to sound the depth of all the Passions. Reiterated in The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy (Works, XIII, 240-241) in a passage dependent on Longinus, but whether on his ch. viii or ch. ii is in dispute (see Works, XIII, 544). 91:4-7 Aristotle . . . for our Imitation. But when Dryden wished to contravene Aristotle's rules, as in defending tragicomedy, he said Aristotle had been unable to reason beyond what he observed in the Greek dramatists, as Corneille had said before him. See dedication of Love Triumphant (Works, X V I [Summers, VI, 404]). 91:10 knowledge of Nature was the Original Rule. Aristotle introduces the term mimesis in Poetics, I, 2, and explains it more fully in X X V f f . when answering objections to poetry. 91:11 Horace. In the Ars Poetica. 91:15 Tropes and Figures. As Ker notes (I, 314), Longinus discusses them in his ch. xxxi-xxxii. 91:17 Catachreses. Defined by Dryden in An Essay of Dramatick Poesie as "wresting and torturing a word into another meaning" (Works, XVII, 10); less wittily defined as improper uses of words (OED). 91:20 as . . . in Painting. See A Parallel betwixt Painting and Poetry (Works, X X , 71-77). 91:22-23 Nec retia . . . meditantur. "And nets [noun] plan [verb] no snare for the stag" (Virgil, Eclogues, V, 60-61; Loeb). 91:26-28 Ccsca nocte . . . /.Equora. "Late in the black night, he swims the straits. Above him thunders Heaven's mighty portal, and the billows, dashing on the cliffs, echo the cry" (Virgil, Georgics, III, 260-262; Loeb). 92:3-4 Asperas tractare . . . venenum. "Handle poisonous asps, that she might draw black venom to her heart" (Horace, Odes, I, xxxvii, 26-28; Loeb). 92:6-11 As Summers points out (III, 584), these two sentences, including the Latin, draw heavily on Cowley's note to the passage in Davideis, III, 385386, which Dryden is about to quote. Cowley writes: "This perhaps will be accused by some severe men for too swelling an Hyperbole: . . . Sure I am, that many sayings of this kind . . . will be found not only in Lucan or Statins, but in the most judicious and divine Poet himself, [including] Graditurque tingit." 92:6 Hyperboles . . . Lucan, nor Statius. For similar remarks on Lucan see Of Heroique Playes and Discourse of Satire (Works, XI, 11; IV, 13); for Statius see dedication of The Spanish Fryar, and A Parallel betwixt Painting and Poetry (Works, XIV, 101; X X , 73-74). 92:10-11 Graditurque . . . tingit. ". . . then [he] strides through the open

Commentary sea; nor does the wave yet wet his towering sides" (Virgil, Aeneid, III, 664665; Loeb). As Summers notes (III, 584), today's standard Latin text has tinxit, "has wetted," but Cowley (in note 46 to Bk. I l l of the Davideis) and Dryden have tingit. 92:12 our Admirable Cowley. See note to 94:1-5. 92:14-15 The Valley .. . Hill. Davideis, Bk. III. 92:21-24 Ilia vel . . . plantas. "She might have flown o'er the topmost blades of unmown corn, nor in her course bruised the tender ears; or sped her way o'er the mid sea, poised above the swelling wave, nor dipped her swift feet in the flood" (Virgil, Aeneid, VII, 808-811; Loeb). 92:28-93:12 Longinus XXXVIII, 3-4, loosely translated so as to make the meaning clearer to the general reader. The passage in Herodotus is in VII, 225. 93:1-2 the straights of Thermopylae. The Pass of Thermopylae ("hot gates," from hot springs there) is a narrow plain on the coast route from Thessaly to the south, near modern Lamia. Herodotus gives a vivid description of the place and the battle there. In 480 B.C. the army of Xerxes trapped Leonidas, king of Sparta, and 300 of his men there. Leonidas had begun his defense with 7300 Greeks. He managed to extricate all but 1400, of whom 1100, who were not Spartans, defected. All but two of the 300 Spartans died in the battle, one hanged himself later, and the last one redeemed himself at the battle of Platasia. 93:18-19 Si vis . . . tibi. "If you would have me weep, you must first feel grief yourself" (Horace, Ars Poetica, 11. 102-103; Loeb). 93:22 Hyperbata. Inversions of the normal word order (OED). As Iter notes (I, 315), Longinus discusses them in his ch. xxii. 93:31 they onely offend. What they say is nothing but an offense to. 94:1-5 I acknowledge . . . they condemn. Cowley had been "the Darling of [Dryden's] youth," he was to say in the Discourse of Satire, but as yeaTS passed his opinion changed (Works, IV, 84). In the dedication of the Aeneis (1697) and the preface to the Fables (1700), also, Dryden was not so complimentary as he is here (see Works, V, 331-332; VII [Watson, II, 280]). 94:6-10 'Tis,. . . them. Longinus XV, 1-2, loosely translated. 94:11 imitation. See note to 91:10. 94:23 second Notions as the Logicians call them. OED (s.v. notion) quotes Isaac Watts, Logick (1725), p. 246, "first notions, or fundamental principles," and Francis Bowen's A Treatise on Logic (1864), iv, 70: "A second intention or notion is the concept which denotes first notions in their relation, not to the things denoted, but to each other." Dryden clearly has a different definition in mind. 94:26-27 this word of Image. For the construction see Palamon and Arcite, I, 439 (Works, VII). A. W. Verrall, Lectures on Dryden (1914, 1963), p. 232, says Dryden "does not understand the theory of the Epicurean imago," an observation adopted and explained by Summers (III, 585). But Dryden says only that Lucretius often used the word; he says nothing about the theory behind it. 94:28-31 Nam certe . . . extemplo, ire. "For certainly no image of a Centaur comes from one living, since there never was an animal of this nature; but when the images of man and horse meet by accident, they easily adhere

Notes to Pages 92-96

351

at once" (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, IV, 739-742; Loeb, adjusted). Modern texts have animantis, "a living thing," instead of animal. 95:3-4 if they are founded on popular belief. From Aristotle, Poetics, X X V , 29. 95:7 Masque of Witches. As Summers notes (III, 585), Dryden refers to the first part of Jonson's Masque of Queens (1609) which is there said to be "not . . . a Masque but a spectacle of strangenesse" (Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford and Percy and Evelyn Simpson [1925-1952], VII, 282). 95:11 beautiful young men. Men, yes, but the rest is Dryden's imagination. See also note to V, iv, 67 (p. 378 below). 95:19-22 Seraph . . . lye. See I, i, 106-109 (P- 1 0 8 above). 95:24-25 Wittycism. OED (citing this passage) notes that Dryden's coinage occurs again in The Vindication of The Duke of Guise (Works, XIV, 324:9) and in Edward Hooker's preface to John Pordage's Theologia Mystica (1683), in the same year as The Vindication. 95:27-28 Invadunt . . . sepultam. "They storm the city, buried in sleep and wine" (Virgil, Aeneid, II, 265; Loeb). 95:31 Where . . . ifc. Davideis, I, 79 (1987 ed., p. 94). See also Mac Flecknoe, 1. 72 (Works, II, 56). Summers (III, 585-586) quotes from Cowley's note to this passage in his poem: " T o give a probable reason of the perpetual supply of waters to Fountains and Rivers, it is necessary to establish an Abyss or deep gulph of waters, into which the Sea discharges it self, as Rivers do into the Sea" (1987 ed., p. 152). 96:9 I promis'd to say somewhat of Poetique Licence. In his title for the Apology (p. 86 above). 96:14 Oratio soluta. Prose (literally, relaxed language); the term is used by Cicero (Brutus, VII, 32) and others. 96:18, 19 Tropes and Figures. Winn (p. 297) believes Dryden is "defending poetry against scientific skepticism about metaphor, continuing the argument he had begun in the poem to Dr. Charleton some fourteen years earlier." For the poem, see Works, I, 43-44. 96:23 the Foxes quarrel to the Grapes. Babrius 19; Phaedrus, IV, 3. 96:26 Horace does not. In fact, Horace did set some limits; see note to 97: 1-4. The almost immediate contradiction suggests carelessness or haste (on the question of haste, see headnote, p. 321 above). 96:29 Martial tells you. Nobis non licet esse tarn dissertis, qui Musas colimus severiores: "We cannot be so versatile, who court Muses more unbending" (Martial, Epigrams, IX, xi, 16-17; Loeb), quoted in part also in An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (Works, XVII, 76). 96:32 two words in one. Ker (I, 315) notes that the phrase occurs in Joseph Hall's Virgidemiarum (1597), VI, i, in a passage objecting to its use, and that Rapin and Dominique Bouhours had written similarly. Hall excepted Sir Philip Sidney from his objection. 96:33 in the Greek. E.g., in the first book of the Iliad, which Dryden subsequently translated, "far-shooting Apollo" (which occurs repeatedly), "wellgreaved Achaians," "great-hearted Achaians," "aegis-bearing Zeus," "folkdevouring king," "heaven-sprung Patroklos," "wide-ruling Agamemnon," "many-ridged Olympus," "cloud-gathering Zeus," "silver-footed Thetis," "ox-eyed Hera," "white-armed Hera." Although Dryden set himself the task

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of representing the texture a n d not just the general m e a n i n g of Homer, he avoided almost all these double epithets. For example, he kept "far-shooting" in one place b u t normally left it out or substituted for it, as with "the Bowyer King"; but in o n e place, to give the H o m e r i c flavor, he devised a douille epithet of his own, "Ant-born Myrmidons" (11. 32, 138, 270; Works, VII). 96:33 Sidney. Summers (III, 587) points to Eclogue 2 in Book I I of Sidney's Arcadia, supposedly written by Philisides (Philip Sidney contracted). 96:34 the Translator of Du Bartas. Joshua Sylvester. For Dryden's early a n d later estimates of Sylvester see dedication of The Spanish Fryar (Works, XIV, 101). 97:1-4 Pictoribus . . . Tygribus Heedi. "Painters a n d poets have always h a d an equal right to audacity, b u t not to mate the savage with the tame, to pair serpents with birds a n d kids with tigers" (Horace, Ars Poetica, 11. 9-10, 12-13; Watson trans.). 97:9 interessing. Causing to take a n active p a r t in ( O E D , citing the Discourse of Satire [Works, IV, 18:27], ' n which the synonymous "interest" also appears [ibid., 17:21]). 97:10-11 our false Critiques. Summers (III, 587) believes that the criticism to which Dryden objects was either oral or unpublished, citing, like Malone (I, ii, 397), the antepenultimate paragraph of Rymer's Tragedies of the Last Age (1678), which promises "some reflections o n that Paradise lost of Miltons, which some are pleas'd to call a Poem," a promise not fulfilled (Critical Works, ed. Curt A. Zimansky [1956], p. 76). W a t s o n (I, 207 n. 1) points out that even Marvell, as he said in his commendatory p o e m printed in the seco n d edition of Paradise Lost, 11. 5-8, wondered at first whether Milton would " r u i n . . . / T h e sacred T r u t h s " by treating them in a n epic. W i n n (p. 265) says Dryden risked similar criticism for remaking the epic into a n opera, the plots of operas being normally drawn f r o m pagan history or mythology, a n d the h e a d n o t e (p. 321 above) points out that Marvell attacked him for doing so. 97:12-17 he would have blam'd . . . his Fable. Dryden breaks his own r u l e by giving God a characteristic belonging to Jove, that of t u r n i n g his words into law by n o d d i n g (see I, i, 143, a n d III, i, 33, p p . 103, 114 above, a n d notes, pp. 357, 364 below), a n d he was to do the same again in Absalom and Achitophel, 1. 1026 (Works, II, 36). 97:14 Tasso is condemn'd by Rapin. T h e statement is in error, b u t scholars differ as to the n a t u r e of the error. Summers (III, 587) notes that it was Sannazaro, De Partu Virginis, whom R a p i n criticized, b u t immediately following his strictures on Tasso (Réflexions sur la Poétique en Particulier, chap. xiii). Dryden m a d e the same k i n d of mistake in the dedication of The Spanish Friar (Works, XIV, 100, 444). H u n t l e y notes instead that it was Boileau who criticized Tasso, in a passage Dryden was later to controvert ("Dryden's Discovery of Boileau," p p . 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 ; Works, IV, 17-18). Since Boileau's strictures o n Tasso are not for introducing p a g a n deities i n t o a Christian epic b u t for making Satan too easily conquered a n d for diluting the epic struggle with too many h a p p y incidents, Huntley's position is not so strong as Summers's. Ker points out (I, 315) that in March 1694 Dryden objected to Tasso's a n d Ariosto's using the gods of Virgil (Ward, Letters, p. 71, to J o h n Dennis).

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97:15-17 Camoens ... his Fable. Taken from the same sentence in Rapin as the censure of Sannazaro. 97:20 propriety of Thoughts and Words. For Dryden's repetition of his definition, see headnote (p. 333 above). Winn (p. 297) says that in this definition Dryden is "moving away from Sprat's attempt [in The History of the Royal Society (1667), pp. 111-113, reporting the deliberations of the society] to confine words to the inelegant task of describing mere 'things.' " A. C. Howell, "Res et verba: Words and Things," ELH, X I I I (1964), 131-142, adds that Hobbes, Jeremy Taylor, and John Eachard were also calling for a less ornate style, and he supposes that Dryden may himself have heard debates on language in the Royal Society. 97:23 convenire in aliquo tertio. "A stock phrase signifying to find some means of agreement, in a third term, between two opposites" (Summers, III, 589)I, i S.d. T h e battle in which the good angels drive the evil ones from heaven depends ultimately upon Rev. 12:7-8: "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven." Verse 9 says the dragon and his angels were "cast out into the earth," not to hell, which latter place the biblical author has not yet introduced into his allegory. Dryden does not follow verses 10-12, which tell of "a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation," etc., but it may have given him the idea to call for "Tunes of Victory" and "an Hymn sung" in his stage direction. T h e "Lake of Brimstone or rowling Fire" comes from Rev. 19:20, 20:10, and 21:8. Rev. 20:10 reads: "the devil . . . was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, . . . and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." In Revelation, the devil does not come to this pass until his end on Judgment Day, when a new heaven and earth replace the old. Following Milton, Dryden supposes that the devil's eternal torment began before the world was created and continues wherever he may be. More directly, the battle reflects Paradise Lost, I, 44-49, and V, 577-VI, 892, but Dryden has picked out dramatic details from other places in the narrative: the angels transfixed with thunderbolts come from I, 328-329, or II, 181 (where Milton says this may happen to them), the rolling fire comes from I, 52 (where Milton says the angels are "rolling in the fiery Gulf"), the burnt color of the earth comes from I, 230-237, and the angels' lying prostrate on the lake of fire comes from I, 280. Saintsbury implies (S-S, V, 125) that this stage direction was too elaborate for an acted opera. Therefore Summers (III, 589-590) argues at length that its very elaborateness indicates Dryden's intention that his opera be acted. S.d. wheeling. As Dryden uses the verb "wheel" in his poetry, it means "circle," as it does in Paradise Lost, but here it seems possible that "wheeling" means "revolving" like a pinwheel, as in Milton's At a Vacation Exercise, 1. 34, "the wheeling poles." Winn (p. 263) believes this part of the stage direction may have been suggested by the torture scene in Settle's Empress of Morocco as illustrated in the edition of 1673, where the bodies hang on

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hooks in positions that they might take if they were pinwheeling in air (see Summers, The Restoration Theatre [1934], pi. XVIII, facing p. 206). S.d. Thunderbolts. Lightning bolts. T h e traditional icon for a thunderbolt is a zigzag about two feet long, pointed at both ends; it was in this form, we may presume, that they were to be represented on the stage. S.d. The fall'n Angels appear. Up to this point there has been no need for the appearance of anything other than lay figures, and indeed, in a pinch, the whole action could have been represented on painted scenery. In any event, the appearance of the human figures would presumably have been managed by drawing the scene. 1-2 Paradise Lost, I, 242-244: "Is this . . . the Clime, / . . . this the seat / T h a t we must change for Heav'n . . . ?" 5 Paradise Lost, I, 228-229: "Land that ever burn'd / With solid, as the Lake with liquid fire." 6 sad Variety. Perhaps Dryden remembered Paradise Lost, VI, 640: "Earth hath this variety from Heav'n." See also headnote (p. 326 above). 7-8 Paradise Lost, I, 169-170, 172: "the angry Victor hath recall'd / His Ministers of vengeance and pursuit," "Shot after us in storm." 9-10 Paradise Lost, I, 174, 176-177, "the Thunder," "Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now / T o bellow through the vast and boundless Deep." T h e idea that God is a God of storms is biblical (see Job 37, Psalm 29). 11 Paradise Lost, I, 178: "Let us not slip th' occasion"; 184: "these fiery waves." 12 Asmoday replaces Milton's Beelzebub (Paradise Lost, I, 81). As Summers notes (III, 591), Asmodeus is the devil in the book of Tobit. "Awake" is from Paradise Lost, I, 330, spoken to all the fallen angels. 13 Paradise Lost, I, 84-85: "If thou beest he; But O how fall'n! how chang'd / From him." 14-15 " W a n " is from Paradise Lost, IV, 870, "dim" from I, 597, "faded" from I, 602, all describing Satan. 15-16 I see / My self . . . in thee. Dryden makes Asmoday a kind of mirror for Lucifer. Milton supposed that Satan could himself see that he was "chang'd in outward lustre" (Paradise Lost, I, 97). O n the whole, Dryden seems to have better visualized the matter. It is an important theme or symbolism both in the epic and in the opera. 17-18 Paradise Lost, I, 128-129: " O Prince, O Chief of many Throned Powers, / T h a t led th' imbattl'd Seraphim to War." Thrones came to be thought of as members of a rank of angels because of the words of St. Paul: "For by him [God] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers" (Col. 1:16). Milton uses the term several times, e.g., in Paradise Lost, II, 430; V, 601; VI, 841. 19-20 Paradise Lost, I, 131, 133: "endanger'd Heav'n's perpetual King"; "Whether upheld by strength, or Chance, or Fate"; "shook" is from I, 105: "shook his throne." T h e demons' idea that chance and fate are stronger than God is a major theme in the opera. 21 low we lie. Paradise Lost, I, 137: "laid thus low." 23-24 And . . . perish'd. Paradise Lost, I, 136, 138-139: "lost," "As far as Gods and Heav'nly Essences / Can perish."

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25 wage War, with our unconquer'd Will. Inevitable language, given the subject matter; see Paradise Lost, I, 106, 121: " t h e u n c o n q u e r a b l e Will"; "wage . . . W a r . " 26 Strength may return. Paradise Lost, I, 140: "vigor soon returns." T h i s is the first of the half lines scattered through the opera; see dedication of the Aeneis, "Mr. Cowley [in the Davideis] h a d f o u n d out, that n o k i n d of Staff [i.e., stanza] is proper for an Heroick Poem; as being all too lirical: Yet though he wrote in Couplets, where R h y m e is freer f r o m constraint, he frequently affects half Verses: of which we find not o n e in Homer, a n d I t h i n k not in any of the Greek Poets, or the Latin, excepting only Virgil; a n d there is no question but he thought, he h a d Virgil's Authority for that License" (Works, V, 332). 27 Vertue. "Power or operative influence" ( O E D ) . 28 Erected by thy Voice. Paradise Lost, I, 274-280: "If once they hear that voice . . . they will . . . revive, though now they lie / Groveling." At I, 679, M a m m o n is called "the least erected Spirit that fell." 29 scatter'd Leaves in Autumn, lie. Paradise Lost, I, 301-302, 304: "lay intrans't / T h i c k as A u t u m n a l Leaves," "or scatter'd sedge." 32 Gods. Some of the fallen angels, as Milton gives them names, were gods mentioned in the Old T e s t a m e n t and sometimes worshiped by Israel. See Paradise Lost, I, 373ff., a n d notes below. 35 Wings expanded. Paradise Lost, I, 225: " e x p a n d e d wings." 36 incumbent on the dusky Air. Paradise Lost, I, 226. 37 Paradise Lost, I, 251-252: "Hell / Receive thy new Possessor." 38 envy. Paradise Lost, I, 260, a n d throughout. T h a t Satan should speak of God as possibly envious is a clue to his own envious character, a n o t h e r theme both in the epic a n d in the opera. 42 Paradise Lost, II, n : "Powers a n d Dominions, Deities of H e a v ' n " ; see also note to 11. 17-18. 43 Paradise Lost, I, 316: "Heav'n, once yours, now lost." See also note to initial stage direction. 44-50 These lines follow in general sense a n d some words Paradise Lost, I, 315-330. "Flood" (1. 53) as a synonym for "lake" may have been suggested by I, 195. 48 Battlements. From Paradise Lost, I, 742: "the Crystal Battlements," describing Vulcan's being thrown f r o m heaven by Jove. W h e n Dryden came to translate the story in The First Book of Homer's Ilias, 1. 795 (Works, VII), h e remembered Milton again a n d used "Heav'n's Battlements" to translate Homer's Pv^oG 8etrirea-loio, "the heavenly threshold." 51 Scott (S-S, V, 97) sees Ovid's influence in the chiasmus here, b u t it is sufficiently Miltonic; see note to III, i, 15-16 (p. 364 below). 53-84 T h e preliminaries to the infernal parliament, which are Dryden's own, reflect his concern to motivate the action through his characters (see n o t e to 11. 81-84) as well as to provide more natural-seeming dialogue. For the latter purpose he redistributes the words of Milton's characters a m o n g his own. 53 wing your way. Conventional enough, b u t see Paradise Lost, III, 87: "wings his way."

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54 Moloch. First in the roll call of fallen angels in Paradise Lost, I, g ^ f f . He was the god of the Ammonites; his name means king. 54+ s.d. fly. See headnote (p. 324 above) for evidence that the King's Company could "fly" actors in their theater before the opera was published. 58-59 undermine his Skie, / And blow him up. T h e introduction of techniques of modern warfare has a precedent in Paradise Lost, where the evil angels make and use cannon (VI, 507-627). If Milton's description of the war in heaven is deliberate comedy, as some scholars think, then Dryden's words may also be. Or Dryden may be emphasizing Lucifer's irrationality. 59-60 justly Rules . . . / Because more strong. ODP traces the sentiment to Plato's Republic, I, 338. T h e earliest citation in English in ODP, in the form "Might is right," is 1327. 62 sin. A n interesting definition, again not in Paradise Lost. 63-64 Paradise Lost, I, 258-259: "Here at least / W e shall be free" (Milton's speaker is Satan). 66 Paradise Lost, I, 263, except that Milton has "reign" instead of " R u l e " (Milton's speaker is Satan). 67 better half. Tilley H49 (first citation 1590); F696, "A friend is one's second self" (first citation Erasmus, Adagia). Dryden uses the phrase often enough himself, but here he has a precedent in Paradise Lost, V, 95, where Adam calls Eve his "dearer half." See also note to II, iii, 5 (p. 362 below). 70 Paradise Lost, I, 121: " T o wage by force or guile eternal War"; Satan speaks the line. But Dryden is more likely compressing a passage in another speech of Satan's, I, 645-647, in which "New war," "by fraud," and "force" occur. "Open" is from I, 662, at the end of the speech. 71 Submission were in vain. Paradise Lost, I, 661: "who can think Submission?" 74 Since all Christians in Dryden's day believed that God could be influenced by prayers, blessings, and curses, Moloch stands forth as indeed Lucifer's "better half." 78 dark Divan. Paradise Lost, X, 457. Secret council. 79 the Thunderer. "Your Thunderer" appears again in III, iii, 87 and 102 (pp. 121, 122 above). Dryden had used the term as a substitute for "Jove" in Astraea Redux (1660), 1. 42 (Works, I, 23), and he was to use it often in his translations from Latin and Greek. Since the demons are gods (see note to 1. 32), the term fits their tongues. 81-84 In Paradise Lost, I, 670-751, the impulse to build Pandemonium comes spontaneously. T h e building is all of gold, its architect is Mulciber, i.e., Vulcan, who had built palaces in heaven, but Milton compares it only with earthly wonders of architecture. 84+ s.d. A Palace rises. See headnote (p. 324 above) for evidence that the King's Company could produce such a stage effect in its theater before publication of the opera. 85-86, 88 high and mighty . .. States-General.. . Provinces. A satiric allusion to Their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Provinces; see headnote to Amboyna (pp. 265-268 above) for a survey of Dryden's attitudes toward the Dutch. As W i n n notes (p. 268), the Third Dutch War came to an end officially with the Treaty of Westminster, 9/19 February 1674, and The State of Innocence was entered in the Stationers' Register

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on 17 April. Dryden may have written 11. 85-88 while the war was still in progress, but as the English lost the war he may have been fighting on by himself. 92 In Paradise Lost, Satan does not allow the option of peace, only "of open War or covert guile" (II, 41-42). 94-95 Paradise Lost, II, 51-52: "My sentence is for open War: Of Wiles, / More unexpert, I boast not." 98 caution. Security (OED). See note to Amboyna, II, i, 346-347 (p. 296 above). 100 Sathan. Milton's Satan is Dryden's Lucifer; Dryden's Sathan is a lesser person whose speech is Dryden's invention. 102 Spirits. T h e monosyllable is Miltonic. See also 1. 115; II, i, 20; etc. 105 secure. Dryden often uses the word for an assured state of mind, and that may be part of the meaning here. 109 dissolv'd in Hallelujahs. See Dryden's remarks in the Apology (pp. 95-96 above). Dissolved, in the sense of the Latin solutus, relaxed, is also to be found in Dryden's translation of Persius's Satires, III, 114, "Thy Body as dissolv'd as is thy Mind" (Works, IV, 301); of Virgil's Aeneid, IV, 281, "Dissolv'd in Ease" (Works, V, 461); of Boccaccio's Decameron, IV, i, and V, i, Sigismonda and Guiscardo, 1. 250, "dissolv'd in Pleasure," and Cymon and Iphigenia, 1. 550, "dissolv'd in ease"; and of Ovid's Metamorphoses, XI, 410-748, Ceyx and Alcyone, 1. 346, "Dissolv'd in Sleep" (Works, VII). Actually, "dissolv'd in Hallelujahs" is not a bad expression of the deep sense of peace that sometimes comes with a sense of God's presence. 110-114 Moloch's speech is based on his words in Paradise Lost, II, 81-101. 115-123 Belial's speech is based on his words in Paradise Lost, II, 146151, 162-164, 186-199, and perhaps Mammon's words in II, 229-231. 124-129 Beelzebub's speech is based on Belial's words in Paradise Lost, II, 208-220. 130-143 Asmoday's speech is based on Beelzebub's words in Paradise Lost, II- 329-353132 Paradise Lost, II, 226-227: "Belial . . . / Counsell'd ignoble ease." 136-137 Paradise Lost, II, 341-344: "nor shall we need / . . . to invade / Heav'n, whose high walls fear no assault or Siege, / Or ambush from the Deep." 138-139 What if . . . a place. Paradise Lost, II, 344-345. 139-140 if antient. .. blest abode. Paradise Lost, II, 346-347: "(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heav'n / Err not) another World, the happy seat." 141 Of some new Race, call'd Man. Paradise Lost, II, 348. 142 Paradise Lost, II, 348-349: "about this time / T o be created." 143 Paradise Lost, II, 352-353: "by an Oath, / T h a t shook Heav'n's whole circumference, confirm'd." See also Heb. 12:26-27, "[God's] voice then shook the earth [Exod. 19:18-19]: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven [Hag. 2:6]." 144-153 Lucifer's speech expands on some words of Beelzebub in Paradise Lost, II, 349-350: "created like to us, though less / In power and excellence." Milton says that Beelzebub's counsel was "first devis'd / By Satan [Dryden's Lucifer], and in part propos'd" (II, 379-380). Other words and ideas come from Paradise Lost, V, 486-489, where Raphael tells Adam "the

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Soul / Reason receives, and reason is her being, / Discursive, or Intuitive; discourse / Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours." Lines 150-151 prepare the way for the discussion of foreordination and free will in Act IV, Scene i (pp. 123-126 above). 144-145 I heard it . . . this intended Man. See note to III, i, 52 (p. 365 below). 149 issue by discourse. The general sense is given in the next two couplets; "issue" may mean "express itself" or "have a certain result" (OED); if the latter, then, in this instance, the result is truth or knowledge. For "discourse" see note to 11. 144-153, and Paradise Lost, V, 486-500. 150-151 Truth must be brought j By Sence. Locke's epistemology, perhaps, but also Milton's; see note to III, iii, 40 (p. 368 below). 152 that faint light. Repeated and expanded upon in Religio Laid, 11. 1-7 {Works, II, 109). 154-160 Asmoday's speech also expands on some words of Beelzebub's in Paradise Lost, II, 358, 360, 368-369, 376-377: "Though Heav'n be shut," "this place may lie expos'd"; "Seduce them to our Party, that thir God / May prove thir foe"; "Advise if this be worth / Attempting." 161-169 Belial's speech is based on words of Satan in Paradise Lost, II, 402-416. "Hell's Brazen Gates" and "old Night, and . . . antique Chaos" come from any of several references to them scattered about in other parts of Milton's epic; cf. note to 11. 181-189. 170-173 Milton says no one dared speak (Paradise Lost, II, 420-423). Dryden decided not to risk a dramatic pause. The gamblers' language is his invention, but it fits Milton's conception of the risks involved. 171 Palm. Palm leaves were an ancient symbol of victory. OED cites Palamon and Arcite, III, 396 (Works, VII). 174-179 Based on Satan's words in Paradise Lost, II, 450-456. 180 Based on Paradise Lost, II, 480-482: "Nor fail'd they to express how much they prais'd, / That for the general safety he despis'd / His own." 181-189 These lines have no immediate source in Milton, but they summarize his narrative, with some phrases copied exactly. For "erect my Throne" see Paradise Lost, V, 725: "erect his [Satan's] Throne"; for "Brazen Gates" see II, 645: "the Gates . . . were Brass"; for "Chaos, and old Night," see I, 543; for "this new World" see II, 403. 187 scour our spots. See note to III, iii, 91-92 (p- 369 below). 187 Thunders. Thunderbolts; see note to opening stage direction. 189 A hexameter. Hexameters occur infrequently in the text; see II, i, 10; III, i, 37, 44; III, iii, 8; V, iii, 12, and V, iv, 266-267 (pp. 105, 114, 118, 137, 146 above). 198-201 Based on Paradise Lost, II, 528-555, part of Milton's description of what the demons did to amuse themselves after Satan set off, which could be represented on the stage as described in the stage direction at the end of the act. II, i S.d. Paradise Lost, VIII, 253-254: "As new wak't from soundest sleep / Soft on the flow'ry herb I found me laid."

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1 What am I? or from whence? Paradise Lost, VIII, 277: "how came I thus, how here?" (addressed to the world around him). T h e rest of 11. 1-12 is based on the rest of Adam's speech in Paradise Lost, except, of course, for "that I am / I know, because I think," which comes from Descartes, whose name Dryden gave when he referred to the syllogism again at the beginning of the Discourse of Satire (Works, IV, 4). Dryden has prepared us for Adam's reasoning powers by Lucifer's description of "this intended Man" in I, i, i 4 4 - ' 5 3 (P- ' ° 3 above). 5 discourse. See note to I, i, 149 (p. 358 above). 1 2 + s.d. Raphael takes the place of Milton's God in Paradise Lost, VIII, 295-451, as representing Christian divinities on the stage was not practiced, in the spirit of the commandment against images of God. Raphael is one of Adam's instructors at a later time in Paradise Lost (V, 224(1.). 1 2 + s.d. in a Cloud. How this might have been accomplished is illustrated in Works, XV, facing p. 231. 13-69 Based on Paradise Lost, VIII, 314-451, but with almost no verbal reminiscences. As usual, Dryden has interchanged speakers more often than has his source. 1 3 - 1 4 Paradise Lost, VIII, 297-298, "First Man, of Men innumerable ordain'd / First Father." 14 Fruitful Loins. Paradise Lost, V, 388: "fruitful Womb"; both phrases are anticipatory. 15 Well hast thou reason'd. Paradise Lost, I X , 229: "Well hast thou motion'd [proposed]," but most likely a coincidence. 19 T h e idea that angels are more God's image than man, especially in view of the common idea that angels have wings, implies a deeper understanding of the term "image" than we find in Dryden's many casual allusions in his other writings to Gen. 1:26-27. This deeper insight appears again in 1. 30 and in IV, i, 23 (p. 123 above). 21-22 Paradise Lost, II, 834-835: "A race . . . to supply / Perhaps our vacant room." See also IX, 148-149: "Determin'd to advance into our room / A Creature form'd of Earth." 23 Bright Minister. Paradise Lost, XI, 73. 29 Right Reason's Law. Paradise Lost, VI, 42: "Right reason for thir Law." See note to Apology, 90:25 (p. 349 above). 32 In pray'r and praise, does all devotion lye. Contradicted by various biblical passages: e.g., "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, T o visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world" (Jas. 1:27). Adam could not at this point in the drama have understood James's rule that "all devotion" includes more than "pray'r and praise"—in the more usual terminology, that "works" as well as "faith" are necessary for salvation—but in the next line Dryden says Raphael's rule applies to all mankind. He writes as a Protestant, for whom Paul's quotation in Rom. 1:17, "the just shall live by faith," takes precedence over James. Had he written after he became a Catholic, he would have taken James's words as explaining Paul. 34 every creeping thing. Paradise Lost, VII, 523; Gen. 1:26. 43 live happy. Paradise Lost, VIII, 633. 51 who all things can. Paradise Lost, XI, 309.

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52 peopled Heav'n with Angels, Earth with Man. Paradise Lost, X, 889: "peopl'd highest Heav'n"; the words "Earth," "Men" and "Angels" occur in the next four lines. 56 want'st. Apparently the meaning is "lackest" rather than "needest," for God created man to "have dominion . . . over all the earth" (Gen. 1: 26, 28). 58-59 to the mute / ... to the Brute. See note to V, i, 44 (p. 376 below). 62 Thus far, to try thee. Paradise Lost, VIII, 437. 64 An equal, yet thy subject. Contra Genesis and in part also Paradise Lost, IV, 296, 299: "Not equal," "Hee for God only, shee for God in him." That the woman is to be subject to the man appears at first glance to have been a teaching of St. Paul, e.g., 1 Cor. 1 1 : 3 , "the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God," and was so interpreted later by the church, ignoring the fact that Paul immediately recognized he had made a mistake and in his usual way did not tell his amanuensis to cross out what he said but added to it the corrective that "all things [are] of God" (vs. 12) and that the ranks of society were established only by convention (vs. 16). Convention having changed, we find that the words in Gen. 2:18 translated "an help meet for him" in the King James Version are translated "a partner [i.e., an equal partner] suited to him" in the Revised English Bible (Dryden calls Eve Adam's partner twice, in V, i, 6, and iv, 53 (pp. 134, 140 above). See also Kari Elisabeth B0rresen, Subordination and Equivalence: The Nature and Role of Woman in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, trans. Charles H. Talbot (1981). 70-82 Based on Paradise Lost, VIII, 295-311; i.e., in Paradise Lost God puts Adam in the garden before entering into discussion with him. That Adam was created outside the garden comes from Gen. 2:15, "And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." Golden apples and purple grapes are commonplaces, but see Paradise Lost, IV, 259, for the latter, and IV, 148, 220, etc., for the former. Equally commonplace are arbors for shade at noon, but see Paradise Lost, IV, 626-627. 76 fruit divine. Paradise Lost, V, 67, and IX, 776. 77 golden Apples. See also III, iii, 16 (taken from Paradise Lost, IX, 577578) and IV, ii, 31 (pp. 118, 130 above). 81 Ascend. Climb up (Eden is on a hill; see note to II, ii, 49. See also note to 1. 84+ s.d.) 83-84 See Psalm 148. 84 great Maker. Paradise Lost, V, 184, and VIII, 278. 8 4 + s.d. They ascend. The stage direction implies a practical hill (see note to 1. 81). See headnote (p. 324 above) for an example of such a hill on stage in the King's Company's theater before the opera was published. II, ii Saintsbury notes (S-S, V, 136) that the scene is in blank verse. In Paradise Lost, III, 418-644, Satan, having landed on the outer sphere of the Ptolemaic system and found the passage from earth to heaven, flies "downward" until he lands on the sun, where he sees Uriel and, hoping to

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be directed to the garden, disguises himself as a heavenly being, "a stripling Cherub" (III, 636), before addressing him. Dryden sets the scene in the air, with, we may assume from the stage direction after 1. 141, the expectation that two sets of flats would make the back scene as in his later opera Albion and Albanius (see Works, X V , 333), the lower set closer to the audience. S.d. orbicularly. In a circle (OED); cf. Paradise Lost, III, 718, and X, 381: "orbicular." S.d. A black cloud comes whirling. Very likely to be accomplished by the same machine as the cloud in which Raphael had descended in II, i (p. 105 above), with now some device to make a black facing rotate on its front. S.d. the body of the Sun is dark'ned. By withdrawing the lantern that had been shining through its semitransparent representation. 1-21 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 32-113, but moved forward; those words were spoken by Satan on earth. O n the sun, Satan disguised himself in splendor (III, 636-644). 5 Shorn of his beams. Paradise Lost, I, 596. 9 dire revenge. A commonplace, but see Paradise Lost, II, 128. 10 this gay frame. T h e universe conceived as a bright or joyous machine; Paradise Lost, VIII, 15-16: "this goodly Frame, this World / Of Heav'n and Earth consisting." 11 In scorn of me created. See note to III, i, 52 (p. 365 below). 18-21 Paradise Lost, III, 648-650: "Uriel, one of the sev'n / W h o in God's presence, nearest to his Throne / Stand ready at command"; "glorious" is from 1. 655. T w o of the seven are named in the New Testament, Michael and Gabriel; the book of 1 Enoch alternately classifies with them Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Sariel, and Remiel (ch. 20), or Raphael and Phanuel (ch. 40, etc.). Raphael appears in the book of Tobit, and Jeremiel (=Remiel?) in 2 Esdras. 21 Regent. A person with delegated authority; see Paradise Lost, V, 697698: "the Regent Powers, / Under him Regent." 2 1 + s.d. Regent of the Sun. Paradise Lost, III, 690. 22-65 Based on Paradise Lost, III, 654-735, with some touches from the preceding account of Satan's disguise. 22-28 Dryden's addition; in Paradise Lost, Satan "accosts" Uriel. T h e ideas develop from, and a few words depend on, what Satan says in III, 659667. 25 within this lucid Orb. Under the sun; see 1. 30. 29 Chief of the seaven. Paradise Lost, III, 654, 656: "thou of those sev'n . . . / T h e first." 29 flaming Minister. Paradise Lost, IX, 156. 31 The world's eye. Paradise Lost, V, 171: " T h o u Sun, of this great World both Eye and Soul." In Paradise Lost, III, 650 and 660, in the passage Dryden is basing his speeches on here, Milton describes the archangels as God's "Eyes." 36-43 Based on Paradise Lost, III, 671-676. 37 Heav'n's high King. Paradise Lost, V, 220. 38 this new World. Paradise Lost, IV, 34, 113 (note "Heav'n's King" in 1. 111). 40 our great Maker. See note to 1. 43.

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42 fraught with joyful tidings. Paradise Lost, X, 345-346, "With joy / And tidings fraught." 43 New matter of his Praise, and of our Songs. Paradise Lost, III, 413: "Shall be the copious matter of my Song"; V, 184: "Vary to our great Maker still new praise." 44-55 Based on Paradise Lost, III, 694-701 and 733-735; the brief description of the garden reflects IV, 132-149. 46 Sphere. The sphere of the moon; see note to IV, i, 39 (p. 370 below). 48 Self-Center'd, and unmov'd. The center of the Ptolemaic universe. 49 fenc'd with Rocks. In Paradise Lost, IV, 543-548, the garden is described as "a Rock / Of Alablaster, . . . with . . . one entrance high; / The rest was craggy clilf, that overhung / Still as it rose, impossible to climb." Therefore, presumably, "fenced with rocks" means "protected by cliffs" (OED fence, rock). 50-51 a Theatre of Trees, / A sylvane Scene. Paradise Lost, IV, 140, 141: "A Silvan Scene," "a woody Theatre." 57 hail, and farewel. Dryden's invention from the Latin Ave atque vale. Milton says only that "Satan bowing low . . . / Took leave" (Paradise Lost, III, 736, 739). 58-65 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 114-130, 564-575 (e.g., "Mine eye pursu'd him," 1. 572), moved forward once more. Thus Dryden nests an earlier passage of Paradise Lost in a later one. In Paradise Lost, Uriel is at first completely taken in by Satan: "For neither Man nor Angel can discern / Hypocrisy" (III, 682-683). He recognizes that he has made some kind of mistake only when he sees Satan standing undisguised on earth. II, iii S.d. cut out. Although scenery with irregular edges is not much harder to construct and no harder to move than scenery with more linear outlines, and therefore, one would think, must have existed from the beginning, this is one of the earliest clear references to the more irregular kind, a fact called to our attention by Robert D. Hume. In the opening stage direction for IV, ii, both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, apparently, are freestanding, and we shortly see a serpent swarm up the latter and carry off an apple, but it is possible these were real trees in boxes (pp. 129, 130 above). S.d. Walks. Probably "tracts of forest land" (OED, sense 10 of the first noun), as in King Arthur, III, ii, 6, and The Secular Masque, 1. 28 (Works, XVI), but possibly "avenues bordered by trees" or "broad paths in a garden" (OED, senses 9b, 9c), since the word has some such meaning in IV, i, 128 (p. 126 below). 2 that sweet sleep. Gen. 2:21-22: "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man." In Paradise Lost, VIII, 452-480, Adam describes how he slept but saw "as in a trance" the creation of Eve, who then disappeared; he woke determined to find her or to have no other pleasure. 5 My better half. For the proverbial expression see note to I, i, 67 (p. 356

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above). Dryden's source here is Paradise Lost, IV, 488, where Eve calls Adam "My other half." Considering that in I, i, 67, Lucifer had called Moloch his better half, Dryden may have intended to underline the irony in Adam's speech. 6 I yield my boasted Soveraignty. Adam rejects what Rafael had told him about his consort to be: "An equal, yet thy subject" (II, i, 64, p. 107 above). T h u s Dryden intensifies the uxoriousness that Milton built into his Adam's character. T h e biblical Adam had no such quality. W e may guess, however, that Dryden is not adding lights and shades to Milton but simply turning Adam and Eve into conventional dramatic figures such as we find in his other works, and in addition providing them with a conventional opposition when he makes Eve say she fears to lose her "much-lov'd Soveraignty" in 1. 67. 8-9 Paradise Lost, VIII, 273, 275, 277: " T h o u Sun," . . . "Ye Hills and Dales," "Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?" (Milton's speaker is Adam.) 13 gaze. Paradise Lost, IX, 539: "Thee all things living gaze on." Milton's speaker is Satan, a matter of some significance as we observe how Dryden develops Eve's character. 16-27 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 440-465, which rests in turn on Ovid's picture of Narcissus in Metamorphoses, III, 402-510. "Embrace" (1. 24) is from IV, 471. An inner voice told Milton's Eve that she was looking at herself and led her to Adam. 19 Paradise Lost, IV, 464: "Pleas'd it return'd . . . with answering looks." 28-35 Once more dependent on Satan's words in Paradise Lost, IX, 538, 546-548: "Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair," "who shouldst be seen / A Goddess . . . ador'd and serv'd / By Angels." But there are admixtures from kinder sources: Paradise Lost, VIII, 59~^3* "^Vith Goddess-like demeanour forth she went; / . . . her . . . Graces . . . shot Darts of desire / Into all Eyes to wish her still in sight"; IX, 896-897: " O fairest of Creation, last and best / Of all God's Works." 25 A n Ovidian line, and one that Dryden was later implicitly to condemn as a "Boyism" in preface to the Fables (Works, V I I [Kinsley, IV, 1451, 11. 291-292]). 29 great Creator. Often in Paradise Lost, e.g., II, 385; III, 167, 673. Dryden uses the phrase again in IV, ii, 26 (p. 130 above). 36-45 Dryden was, in effect, to rewrite this speech for blind Emmeline in King Arthur, III, ii, 134-147 (Works, XVI) when she gains her sight and sees a man (Arthur) for the first time. 38 longing eyes. Paradise Lost, IX, 743: "longing eye" (Eve looking at the forbidden fruit and about to take it); probably a coincidence rather than a deliberate irony. 45 Contra Paradise Lost, IV, 489-491: "I . . . see / How beauty is excell'd by manly grace / And wisdom, which alone is truly fair." W e find the sentiments of Milton's Eve on the lips of Dryden's Emmeline, however (see note to 11. 36-45). 46-69 Contra Paradise Lost, IV, 492-502, where Eve in "meek surrender, half imbracing," kisses Adam, who "in delight / Both of her Beauty and submissive Charms / Smil'd with superior Love," but perhaps suggested by IV, 311: "sweet reluctant amorous delay."

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53 A n awkward bit of exposition. 67 my much-lov'd Soveraignty. See note to I. 6. 68-69 Cf. V, i, 12-13 (p. 134 above). Ill, i This act corresponds to Paradise Lost, Book IV. In the first scene Dryden has interwoven the speeches of Satan (Dryden's Lucifer) with those of Adam and Eve, in order to make clearer their concurrent feelings. i-82 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 32-113. 2 equall'd the most high. Paradise Lost, I, 40. 5-7 vain desire . .. sacred Head. Paradise Lost, IV, 50-51: " I . . . thought one step higher / Would set me highest." 7-8 why, / . . . was so ungrateful I? A momentary lapse; see III, iii, 67-68 (p. 121 above). 10 arbitrary. "Depending on the will of another," says Saintsbury (S-S, V, 142). Summers, on the contrary (III, 593), derives the meaning here from liberum arbitrium, free will, so that "arbitrary Grace" is God's gift of free will. Free will is certainly of great interest to Dryden in this opera as it was to Milton in Paradise Lost, but at this place one may prefer to understand "arbitrary" as meaning "willed by God" (OED); see note to 1. 12. T h e same problem of interpretation faces us in IV, i, 50 (see note, p. 370 below). 12 the Will to pay was act. Willingness to acknowledge God's free gift of all good is acknowledgment of it. Dryden's insight makes his Lucifer more complex than Milton's Satan; see note to III, iii, 71-78 (p. 368 below). 15 Jealous. God pronounced his jealousy in the commandments (Exod. 20:5, Deut. 5:9). 15-16 hope, farewel; / And with hope, fear. Paradise Lost, IV, 108: "farewell Hope, and with Hope farewell Fear." 16 no depth below my Hell. Contra Paradise Lost, IV, 76-78: "in the lowest deep a lower deep / . . . opens wide, / T o which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n." 17 ill be thou my good. Paradise Lost, IV, n o : "Evil be thou my Good." 19 Paradise Lost, IV, 111: "Divided Empire with Heav'n's King I hold." 21 six days pain. Gen. 1:3—31* 31-38 Based on Paradise Lost, VIII, 510-520; "Nuptial Bower" is from 1. 510, but it also occurs in XI, 280, and so is a kind of commonplace. 33 Th' Eternal, nodding, shook. Dryden breaks his own rule about mixing heathen and Christian deities. It is Jove who by nods makes his statements law. T h e connection with Christian thinking is in the shaking, for which see note to I, i, 143 (p. 357 above). For " T h ' Eternal" see Paradise Lost, II, 46, and IV, 996. 34 conscious. As a witness (OED). Milton has "conscious Night" in Paradise Lost, VI, 521, which OED traces to Ovid's quorum nox conscia sola est (Metamorphoses, XIII, 15), "with the night alone to see them" (Loeb). 38 A fourteener. 39-46 Dryden could have invented Eve's description of sexual bliss or he could have adapted ideas from Adam's similar description in Paradise Lost, VIII, 521-533. For "soft embraces" (1. 40) see Paradise Lost, IV, 471; for

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"swimming eyes" (1. 44) see II, 753: "eyes . . . swum"; but these are most likely the accidental coincidence of commonplace expressions. 47-55 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 505-511, but without verbal parallels there; for "Death to hear" (1. 47), see Paradise Lost, X , 731 (fallen Adam's sense of the divine voice). 48 profusion. Of good poured out by God. 49 Abyss. As used in The Hind and the Panther, I, 66, "th' abyss of light" (Works, III, 125); OED cites the latter as a figurative use of the literal sense, "a bottomless gulf; any unfathomable or apparently unfathomable cavity or void space; a profound gulf, chasm, or void extending beneath." Similarly Paradise Lost, XII, 555-556: "abyss, / Eternity." 52 Lucifer's idea that God made man to replace the fallen angels contradicts what he said in I, i, 144-145. His words in II, ii, 11 are intermediary between the contradictories. (See pp. 103, 105 above.) Perhaps we are to see his thinking develop. More likely, however, Dryden is simply following Paradise Lost; see note to II, i, 21-22 (p. 359 above), where Dryden makes Raphael say what Lucifer says here. 56-65 Based on the description of the garden in Paradise Lost, IV, 246266, but the verbal parallels are all either inevitable, given the common subject matter, or commonplaces, e.g., "shady Bowers" (see IV, 705, "shadier Bower") and "mant'ling Vine" (see IV, 258). 66-75 Based on Adam's speech in Paradise Lost, IV, 411-439, which, however, does not tell where in the garden the tree of knowledge is planted; Dryden's "in the mid garden plac'd" comes directly from Gen. 3:3: "of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." 70 Our proof of duty. Paradise Lost, IV, 428: " T h e only sign of our obedience." Adam has learned something from Raphael (cf. II, i, 29-33), but, as we see in IV, i, 23-120, his grasp on the doctrine of free will in this its first appearance in the opera is still infirm (see pp. 106, 123-126 above). 72 Death is some harm. Paradise Lost, IV, 425-426: "whate'er Death is, / Some dreadful thing no doubt." See V, iv, 174 (p. 143 above), "But what is death?" 75 one of so much ease. A dramatic irony that all the original readers would recognize at once. 76-81 Rephrased from Paradise Lost, IV, 512-527. 77 Paradise Lost, IV, 524-526: "Envious commands, invented with design I T o keep them low whom knowledge might exalt / Equal with Gods." 78 Paradise Lost, IV, 521-522: " O fair foundation laid whereon to build / T h i r ruin!" 80 I fell by this. Milton does not ascribe Satan's fall to a desire to know more, but to a desire for supreme power. Dryden's change strengthens the central theme of the opera. Later he makes Lucifer say, "I fought for pow'r to quit th' upbraided [i.e., loathsome] debt" (III, iii, 68, p. 121 above), namely, " T h e debt immense of endless gratitude" (Paradise Lost, IV, 52). 81 Paradise Lost, IV, 527: "what likelier can ensue?" 82-91 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 436-448, 623-633, and V, 211-219. 83 Paradise Lost, IV, 618-620: "Man hath his daily work of body or mind / Appointed, which declares his Dignity, / And the regard of Heav'n on all

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Commentary

his ways." Dryden and Milton have somewhat different views of the work ethic. 88 T h e phrasing is closest to Paradise Lost, IV, 639: "With thee conversing I forget all time"; the idea is closer to 11. 445-446, "I . . . enjoy / So far the happier Lot, enjoying thee." 92-95 Dryden's invention, based on reminiscences of Jupiter and Semele; see Pierre Gautruche, The Poetical Histories (1671), I, 43. 96-100 Assembled from Paradise Lost, IV, 386-387: "Thank him who puts me loath to this revenge / On you who wrong me not for him who wrong'd," and 533-534: "Live while ye may, / Yet happy pair; enjoy, till I return." 98 thunder. See note to I, i, 187 (p. 358 above). Ill, ii This scene is based on Paradise Lost, IV, 114-132, 172-183, 395-408 (Satan's observation of the garden, being observed in turn by Uriel, his leaping into it, and his stalking Adam and Eve by adopting the forms of various animals), fitted inside 555-588 (Uriel's report to Gabriel), fitted in turn inside 776-796 (Gabriel's setting the night watch at the garden). S.d. carried on bright Clouds. See note to II, i, 12+ s.d. (p. 359 above). T h e angels alight before a wall, with the practical hill of II, i, visible beyond it (see 11. 16, 31). S.d. Ithuriel. T h e name is Milton's invention (Paradise Lost, IV, 788). 4 rising mists . . . setting Sun. Commonplaces, but see Paradise Lost, IX, 75; IV, 540. 7 disturb their sleep with dreams. Anticipatory of the masque in the next scene. 9-10 watch . . . strictest guard. Paradise Lost, IV, 783: "strictest watch"; an inevitable parallel given the common subject matter. 11 This morning. Paradise Lost, IV, 564: "This day at highth of Noon." 12 young Cherub. See first note to II, ii (pp. 360-361 above). 14 shews of zeal. Paradise Lost, IX, 665 (Satan conversing with Eve). 16 yon steepy Mount. Paradise Lost, IV, 569: "the Mount that lies from Eden North"; 126: "th' Assyrian mount"; III, 742: "Niphates." Niphates and Eden were strictly in Armenia, north of Assyria, Eden being at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates; local tradition says Noah's flood washed Eden down the rivers' valley to become marshland at the head of the Persian Gulf. See Notes and Observations on Virgil's Works, "Niphates . . . is a Mountain in Armenia" (Works, VI, 814). 17 as he thought unseen. Paradise Lost, IV, 130: "As he suppos'd, all unobserv'd, unseen." 20 revolving. Paradise Lost, IV, 31. 22 mounds. Not mounts but mounds in the garden. 23 Paradise Lost, IV, 870-871: "by his gait / And fierce demeanour seems the Prince of Hell" (Satan brought before Gabriel). 24-25 Compounded of Paradise Lost, IV, 587: "In whatsoever shape he lurk," and IX, 159-160: "pry / In every Bush and Brake." 26 hypocrite. Very likely, considering that Lucifer can disguise himself, with some sense of the root meaning of the word, namely, actor.

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27-30 Condensing Paradise Lost, IV, 582-588, without verbal parallels. 31 to the East. According to Paradise Lost, IV, 542, 549, the only gate to the garden was at the east and there Gabriel sat (see Gen. 3:24; "he placed at the east o£ the garden of Eden Cherubims"). Accordingly he sent his guards in two parties, one around the northern perimeter, one around the southern, to meet him at the west side (11. 782-784). He sent Ithuriel to search the garden and bring to him at the same meeting place the unknown "infernal Spirit" Uriel had seen (11. 788-796). 33 Reminiscent of Paradise Lost, III, 735: "Thy way thou canst not miss, me mine requires" (Uriel to Satan, supposing him a cherub and directing him to the garden). Ill, iii T h e scene combines Paradise Lost, IV, 788-1015 (the discovery of Satan "close at the ear of Eve" and his ejection from the garden) and V, 28-93 (Eve's description of her dream). Ward (Life, p. 75) believes that the similar scene in Tyrannick Love, IV, i, 1-196 (Works, X, 147-153) represents an earlier dependence on Milton, and G. Blakemore Evans concurs ("Dryden's 'State of Innocence,' " TLS, 21 March 1942, p. 144). 1-2 Winn (p. 268) says that these lines probably reflect "Dryden's irritation with Settle's 'confus'd heap' of language"; that the key terms, "Mimic fancy," "wild Ideas's," and so on, may be found in Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco, as may be the misogyny (those who admire Settle "most commonly are Women"); and that even though the misogyny is in Milton it may reflect Dryden's own quarrels with his wife. If quarreling left its mark here, it left it throughout Dryden's works. He never overcame a dislike of womankind, whatever may have been its occasion or occasions, at the same time that he never lost his ability to imagine ideal women or his appreciation of good individuals. As for "Mimic fancy," it comes direct from Milton; see the note to 1. 5 below. A. C. Howell, on the contrary, sees Lucifer as initiating, so to speak, the question of how "words and things" (1. 7) are related, a question first broached by Quintilian in the Institutes, Book VIII, Proem, 20-21 ("Res et verba: Words and Things," ELH, XIII [1964], 131-142). Here again we must note that Dryden is drawing his language from Milton. 1-2 Paradise Lost, IV, 791: "asleep secure of harm." 3-4 Paradise Lost, V, 240-242: "Late fall'n himself from Heav'n, is plotting now I T h e fall of others from like state of bliss; / By violence, no, for that shall be withstood" (God sending Raphael to warn Adam). 5-9 Based on Paradise Lost, V, 100-113 (Adam's analysis of dreams). 5 Mimic fancy wakes. Paradise Lost, V, 110. 7 Paradise Lost, V, 111, 113: "misjoining shapes," "111 matching words." 12 Dryden's (or Lucifer's) analysis of femininity, not Milton's. i2-f s.d. Winn (pp. 263-264) believes Dryden "probably imagined [the Vision] as something like the popular scene in The Tempest [i.e., in the operatic version] with the disappearing banquet" described by Downes: "one Scene Painted with Myriads of Ariel Spirits; and another flying away, with a Table Furnisht out with Fruits, Sweetmeats and all sorts of Viands;

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Commentary

just when Duke Trinculo and his Companions, were going to Dinner" (quoted. Works, X, 323). 1 2 + s.d. loaden with Fruit. T o be expected, no doubt, but see "loaden with fairest Fruit," Paradise Lost, IV, 147, and VIII, 307. 1 2 + s.d. a Woman, habited like Eve. "A neat device for introducing professional singers without requiring the speaking actors to sing" (Winn, p. 266). See Dryden's description of a later project from which he eventually developed both Albion and Albanius and King Arthur: "a Play, Of the Nature of the Tempest; which is, a Tragedy mix'd with Opera; or a Drama Written in blank Verse, adorn'd with Scenes, Machines, Songs and Dances: So that the Fable of it is all spoken and acted by the best of the Comedians; the other part of the entertainment to be perform'd by . . . Singers and Dancers" (Works, XV, 10). 13-45 T h e spirits are Dryden's inventions. Otherwise he follows Milton's lead and occasionally comes close to him in wording found in other places. 13-20 In saying that " T h e angel's lyrical song . . . virtually dictates a rhythmic setting to the composer," Winn (p. 266) forgets Dryden's own statements that composers dictated to him. See preface to Albion and Albanius and dedication of King Arthur (Works, XV, 10; X V I [Summers, VI, 242]). 15 this fair fruit. Paradise Lost, IX, 731, 763; similarly, 798, 996. 16 Ruddy . . . and . . . gold. Paradise Lost, IX, 578: "Ruddy and Gold." 19 Mother of Mankind. Paradise Lost, I, 36; V, 388; XI, 159. 26 T h e dream induced by Lucifer is consistent with his lying words in IV, ii, 112 (p. 132 above). Dryden does not make his Eve an easy prey; alternatively, he does not make his Lucifer assume that she will be. 40 experience has taught. Paradise Lost, VIII, 190: "by experience taught" (spoken by Adam of the "Mind or Fancy"). 43 Tilley F585, "What is forbidden (baneful) is desired" (first citation 1 573)44 price. Value. 46-117 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 823-1015; "wan" (1. 48) is from IV, 870; "th' Imperial throne" (1. 51) is from VII, 585. 50 Paradise Lost, IV, 830 ("yourselves" instead of "thy self"). 60-78 A further anticipation of the main dialogue on free will in IV, i, 23-120 (pp. 123-126 above). 67-68 Paradise Lost, IV, 50-52: "I 'sdein'd subjection, and thought one step higher / Would . . . quit / T h e debt immense of endless gratitude." Dryden had dealt briefly with ingratitude, a very popular subject, in Tyrannick Love, IV, i, 571-575 (Works, X, 164, 428). 68 upbraided. Nauseous (OED, citing The Wife of Bath her Tale, 1. 458 [Works, VII]). 71-78 Based on Paradise Lost, V, 538-543 (Raphael discussing free will with Adam). 7g This. I.e., take this; a Latinism. 79 lest thou think thy plea, unanswer'd, good. Paradise Lost, VI, 163: "Unanswer'd lest thou boast" (Satan to Abdiel, there meaning "lest you boast that I could not answer you"). 81 Hell bounds. Paradise Lost, II, 644.

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569

81 humane pair. Paradise Lost, V, 227; IX, 197. 83-84 Paradise Lost, IV, 888: "Lives there who loves his pain?" 86 upper Ayr. See note to 1. 104. 87 in fight, sustain'd. Paradise Lost, VI, 423: "sustain'd one day in doubtful fight." 90-91 Paradise Lost, II, 397, 400: "in some mild Zone," "Purge off this gloom." gi-92 Dryden was to imagine something similar in a conversation between Merlin and the infernal spirit Philidel in King Arthur, II, i, 31-32, 35-36 (Works, XVI): "as thy place is nearest to the Sky, / T h e Rays will reach thee first, and bleach thy Soot"; "I bask in Day-light, and behold with Joy / My Scum work outward, and my Rust wear off." 93-96 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 917-923. 96 less hardy to endure. Paradise Lost, IV, 920. g7-g8 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 930-934. 99 new created frame. Paradise Lost, IV, 937: "new created World" (also III, 89; VII, 554; X, 481). See also note to II, ii, 10 (p. 361 above). 101 Paradise Lost, IV, 938-940: "in hope . . . my afflicted Powers / T o settle here." 103 This spot of earth. Paradise Lost, VIII, 17-18: "this Earth a spot, a grain, / A n Atom, with the Firmament compar'd." 104 Middle Ayr. Defined in Paradise Lost, I, 516-517, as the highest heaven of the pagan gods. It was the second of the three regions of the air as then understood (Hughes). At this point, however, Dryden is following a speech of Satan's in which the words are "mid Air" (IV, 940). 110 prove. Experience. See Cymon and Iphigenia, 1. 277 (Works, VII). 113 limitary. "Limited" (Saintsbury, S-S, V, 151). "Boundary protecting" (Hughes); Paradise Lost, IV, 971: "proud limitary Cherub." 114 More. I.e., there is more. Similar syntax occurs again in IV, i, 171 and V, i, 48 (pp. 127, 135 above). 114 the sender than the sent. God than Gabriel; Paradise Lost, IV, 852: "the Sender not the sent" (Gabriel, not Ithuriel and Zephon who have captured him). 117 Dryden's ending of the scene is his own; Paradise Lost, Book IV, ends with Satan seeing the constellation Libra tilt against him, "nor more; but fled / Murmuring," upon which the sun rises. IV, i I-4 Based on Paradise Lost, V, 97-98. 5-10 This passage corresponds to Paradise Lost, V, 308-316 (Adam speaking to Eve), but Dryden reserved his parallels to Milton's language until V, iv, 6-9 (p. 138 above). 1 0 + s.d. For the possibility that the King's Company was contemplating the necessary machinery for this, the most elaborate stage effect in the opera, see headnote (p. 324 above). II-120 For Dryden's purpose in this discussion of predestination and free will, see headnote (p. 329 above). See also Lucifer's words in I, i, 150-151, "to Man T r u t h must be brought / By Sence, and drawn by a long Chain of

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thought" (p. 103 above). There have been anticipations of the discussion in II, i, 29-30, III, i, 70, and III, iii, 60-78 (pp. 106, 115, 120-121 above). 11-16 Based on Paradise Lost, V, 224-245 (God's instructions to Raphael). 13 Th' Apostate Angel. Paradise Lost, I, 125. 16 timely care. Paradise Lost, X, 1057 (God's). 17-110 T h e corresponding place in Paradise Lost is V, 519-543, but Milton wove many statements about and discussions of free will into his epic. T h e points the angels make here, for example, God also makes in Paradise Lost, III, 95-130. T h e points made by Adam and the phrasing of the whole discourse are Dryden's. 17-18 Based on Paradise Lost, IX, 348-363. 18 Ills. T h e presence of a following comma ("Ills,") in Q i and M7 suggests that it was in the archetype and was independently omitted in Q2 and in, or at least in the common ancestor of, all the manuscripts except M7 (for the stemma of the texts see p. 460 below). 19 Natives ofHeav'n. Paradise Lost, V, 790: "Natives and Sons of Heav'n." 23 form'd thee free. Paradise Lost, III, 124: "I form'd them free" (God speaking of the fallen angels). 28-29 Heav'n . . . to do. A clearer exposition of a fundamental understanding in Christianity than Milton's "And good he made thee, but to persevere / He left it in thy power" (Paradise Lost, V, 525-526), or than "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13). 31-32 Based on Paradise Lost, V, 520-521. 39 first mover. Dryden, like Milton, adopts the Ptolemaic system; see II, ii, 46 (p. 109 above). 49 T h e old physics. 50 arbitrary. Probably in the sense of having free will; see note to III, i, 10 (p. 364 above). 52 willing. Probably again in the sense of having free will, rather than in the sense of acquiescent. 56-64 Based on Paradise Lost, III, 117-123, and V, 526-528. 59-60 Presumably these lines have the same meaning as those preceding and following, i.e., "Creation is the effect of [the creator's] power and will, foreknowledge is only the effect of his intellect." 66 long chain. Perhaps an ironic echo of I, i, 151 (p. 103 above), where the "long Chain of thought" is man's way of arriving at truths self-evident to angelic beings. 69 1 Cor. 2:11, "what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" 75-76 Based on Paradise Lost, III, 107-116. Saintsbury glosses 1. 76 as "Suppose that it [Heaven] pre-ordains" (S-S, V, 154). 78 A historical circumstance alluded to by Summers (III, 594) in a note to this line helps us to see how the dialogue, if it had been presented on the stage, might have exhibited increasing irritation in the angelic speakers, climaxing in Raphael's command "obey" in 1. m , and a correspondingly increasing danger to Adam in their irritation. Adam seems here to seek to calm the atmosphere, and we may imagine that the angels responded with benignity, a benignity that vanished again as they heard more of what he

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had to say. An interesting succession of tensions, and an equally interesting picture of Adam's mind to supplement the impressions made on us by his conversations with Eve. John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1563; 1877 ed., V, 559), tells how Queen Catherine Parr found herself in danger of being once more involved in a theological dispute with Henry VIII at a time when he had become peremptory in matters of religion and her enemies were seeking to turn him against her. She saved her life by speaking much as Dryden's Adam does in this line. Foxe gives the tenor of her words as follows: "when I have uttered and said what I can, yet must I, and will I, refer my judgment in this, and in all other cases, to your majesty's wisdom." When the king expressed disbelief, she replied to this effect: "whereas I have, with your majesty's leave, heretofore been bold to talk with your majesty, wherein sometimes in opinions there hath seemed some difference, I have not done it so much to maintain opinion, as I did it rather to minister talk, not only to the end your majesty might with less grief pass over this painful time of your infirmity [he was nearing his end, and his leg was giving him pain], . . . but also that I, hearing your majesty's learned discourse, might receive to myself some profit thereby." The king then embraced her and kissed her, and thereafter protected her from those who sought to put her in the Tower. 85-88 Based on Paradise Lost, III, 98-99. 86 respect. Concern, apply to (OED). gi-96 "We can only identify necessity when we can link causes to effects, so that we can only identify past necessity. It is ridiculous to argue that fate impends in one circumstance because it was fulfilled in another: tell me, which cause, the effective or the assenting, does this argument make necessary? You cannot. You are tangled in your own illogic." Or, as Saintsbury will have it, "Until the event has happened, the argument for necessity is incomplete: when it has happened it is inconclusive. What is not yet cannot be called inevitable; what is, has simply not been avoided" (S-S, V, 154). Or, as K. W. Gransden will have it, "if I am told that I can choose between A or B as the consequences [causes?] of X, and that A is the necessary one, I will choose B; in which case B was the necessary one all the time. It is not until after we have made the choice that the preordained chain comes into being, and that what was future becomes past" ("Milton, Dryden, and the Comedy of the Fall," EIC, XXVI [1976], 131). 97-103 Gransden observes that the argument now involves ethics as well as simple logic. 105-110 Based on Paradise Lost, III, 103-111, and V, 529-534. Behind the argument in 11. 105-106 lie perhaps Paul's words in Rom. 3:5-6, "if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God [bringing it out by contrast], what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who [then] taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) God forbid; for then how shall God judge the world?" Perhaps in the last sentence also Paul was speaking "as a man"; see note to V, iv, 111 (p. 379 below). 107 Eternal justice. Paradise Lost, I, 70. 113-120 Dryden has made Adam's plight intensely human, thereby contravening, as Gransden notes (p. 132), the conventional view of life in Paradise as carefree.

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116 he. T h e spelling "hee" in the first edition may have been in the manuscript and escaped the proofreader's eye, for Milton was very careful to spell the stressed pronoun with two e's (Hughes, p. xlvii, and see note to IV, ii, 124, p. 375 below), and Dryden may have been insensibly drawn to do the same. Dryden's autograph letters indicate that he had given up such spellings for himself long before. 121-134 Based on Paradise Lost, IV, 623-632, and IX, 205-212, with some words taken from each passage. 128 walks. Here the sense is clearly paths in a garden; see note to II, iii, s.d. Walks (p. 362 above). 129 Well has thy care advis'd. Paradise Lost, V, 888: "Well thou didst advise"; probably an accidental likeness. 135-196 Based on Paradise Lost, IX, 212-384. 140 hold. "Withhold it" (Saintsbury, S-S, V, 156). 140 beguile. "Cause to pass insensibly or pleasantly" (OED). 143 Smiles . . . from reason move. Paradise Lost, IX, 239: "smiles from Reason flow." 145-149 Repeating in fresh language the sentiments in III, i, 82-91 (pp. 115-116 above), and so effectively emphasizing the happiness of life in Eden. 148 conversation. Society, way of working, and talk are all possible meanings. 150 Eve's interjection (Dryden's invention) makes the dialogue more conversational. It comes in the middle of Milton's IX, 252. 152 immortal hate. Paradise Lost, I, 107. 164 left the Heav'nly nation thin. Paradise Lost, IX, 142-143: "thinner left the throng / Of his adorers." 166 suspect our happy state. Paradise Lost, IX, 337. 171 Poor. I.e., it is a poor. See note to III, iii, 114 More (p. 369 above). 177 thus warn'd . . . secure. Paradise Lost, IX, 371: "securer than thus warn'd." 182 Paradise Lost, IX, 372: "thy stay, not free, absents thee more." 189-190 Paradise Lost, IX, 373, 374: " G o in thy native innocence," "summon all [thy virtue]." 194-195 Paradise Lost, IX, 380-383: "our trial, when least sought, / May find us . . . less prepar'd, / T h e willinger I go, nor much expect / A Foe so proud will first the weaker seek." 196 Paradise Lost, IX, 332-333: "[we] rather double honour gain / From his surmise prov'd false." 197-204 Dryden's invention. In Paradise Lost, Eve has the last word. igg "It may mean, 'What could be so unjustly denied as my request not to be blamed.' But 'what' might also refer to Eve or even Eve's petition, 'Whose [or what] request could one more unjustly refuse?' " (Saintsbury, S-S, V, 158). IV, ii Although the scene is based on Paradise Lost, IX, 404-833, behind which lies Gen. 3:1-6, the speeches and the ideas therein are almost wholly Dryden's invention. Genesis says: "Now the serpent was more subtil than any

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beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat." Milton's and Dryden's expansions of the narrative have still not drawn from it all its meanings and implications. S.d. four Rivers meet. Gen. 2:10: "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads." S.d. on the right . . . Tree of Knowledge. See note to II, iii s.d. cut out (p. 362 above). 2 immortal fruits. Paradise Lost, III, 67, and XI, 285. 7 - 1 0 Based on Paradise Lost, I X , 62-69, but only in the general idea and a few accidental words; the details are different: e.g., in Paradise Lost, Satan spent three days on the side of the earth opposite the sun, not behind the sun; also, in Paradise Lost, Satan waited eight days before returning to the garden. Dryden's three days brings his opera more closely into conformity with the rule of unity of time; see his remarks in the dedication of Love Triumphant (Works, X V I [Summers, VI, 404]). 10 rais'd. "Excited" (Saintsbury, S-S, V, 159). 12 spiry volumes of the snake. Just as Reynolds's glimpses of English landscape are brown because he copied Italian landscape painters, whose native land was brown, so Dryden's snakes have "spires" or "volumes" and "crests" because Virgil and Ovid use these words, spira, volumen, and crista. Dryden uses "spire" in his translation of Virgil's Georgics, III, 642, and Aeneid, II, 646, etc., "volume" in Aeneid II, 286, V, 113, etc. (Works, V, 230, 399> 387. 490, etc.). "Spire" and "volume" being synonyms, "Spiry volumes" is tautological. See note to Aureng-Zebe, V, i, 402 (pp. 437-438 below). 15 beyond my hopes. Paradise Lost, IX, 424: "Beyond his hope." 18 Thus far, at least. Paradise Lost, II, 22. 19 A sin to look. Cf. "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt. 5:28). 20 to touch. Gen. 3:3: "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." 23-80 Eve's motives are different in Gen. 3:6: "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband." These are the motives of a loving spouse and homemaker. 2 5 + s.d. This stage direction summarizes Paradise Lost, IX, 571-597, 643-645, in which Satan tells Eve about the tree before leading her to it. Dryden's visualization requires that she shall have come to the tree by herself. A child might have acted the part of the serpent, or perhaps a handpuppet would have been used.

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26 great Creator. See note to II, iii, 29 (p. 363 above). 30 curling crest. Dryden has "haughty crest" in Georgia, III, 648, translating sublato pectore, literally, "with raised breast." H e translates pectora similarly in Aeneid, II, 272, a n d sublato pectore in II, 641 (Works, V, 230, 386, 399); but in the present instance Dryden is following Paradise Lost, IX, 633-634: " H o p e elevates . . . his Crest." 31 ruddy . . . gold. See note to III, iii, 16 (p. 368 above). 37 with one look, all nature bless. See dedication, p. 82, 11. 33-34 above: " I am sure You bless all those who see You." 38 Empress. Satan so addresses Eve in Paradise Lost, IX, 568, 626. 46 some other Adam. Dryden's irony; "the last A d a m " is Christ (1 Cor. 15=45)48 this fair field. Paradise Lost, IV, 268: "that fair field"; a commonplace it might seem until one recognizes that Milton's words introduce one of his great passages, "that fair field / Of Enna, where Proserpin gath'ring flow'rs / Herself a fairer Flow'r by gloomy Dis / W a s gather'd, which cost Ceres all that p a i n / T o seek her through the world." 49 this happy place. Paradise Lost, IV, 562; X I , 303. 52 Cf. Paradise Lost, X, 887-888: "thrown out, as supernumerary / T o my just n u m b e r . " 58 spires. See note to 1. 12. 58 fair tree. Paradise Lost, IX, 661 (describing this same tree). 65 A backformulation f r o m Eve's reasoning in Gen. 3:6: "pleasant to the eyes," a n d good to taste, a n d "a tree to be desired to make o n e wise." 69 God-like. Milton a n d Dryden having m a d e the serpent eat of the fruit, which the biblical serpent h a d said would m a k e the eaters "as gods," Dryden can thus embroider his account. Milton h a d called Satan "God-like" in Paradise Lost, II, 511, when describing his "imitated State" in hell. 70 Thought, spake, and reason'd. Paradise Lost, IX, 765: "knows, a n d speaks, a n d reasons." 75 See note to 1. 20. 76 Paradise Lost, IX, 685: "ye shall n o t Die"; G e n . 3:4: "Ye shall n o t surely die." 78 forbid your use. Paradise Lost, IX, 750: "forbids thy use." 79 guilty of. T o blame for ( O E D , citing Milton's At a Vacation Exercise, 1. 96). 86-87, 95 "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good a n d evil" (Gen. 3:5). 86 Knowledge of good. N o d o u b t the phrase is inevitable, given t h e subject matter; the contexts are different where it appears in Paradise Lost (IV, 222; IX, 723; XI, 87). 92-93 Based on Paradise Lost, IX, 703-704. 92 to keep you blindly low. Paradise Lost, IX, 704: " t o keep ye low." 95 you shall god-like be. Paradise Lost, IX, 708 (and Gen. 3:5), have "ye shall be as Gods." 96 as fit to be ador'd. An interesting addition to the biblical narrative. 103-108 Milton has the same thought in Paradise Lost, V, 469-479, where the phrase "more refin'd" (1. 106) also appears (Milton's 1. 475). 105 living creatures. T h e phrase occurs only here in the opera, b u t o f t e n in Milton, e.g., IV, 287; VII, 413, 455.

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109-112 Based on Paradise Lost, IX, 716-720, 729-730. 115 I tasted; yet I live. Paradise Lost, IX, 688: "[I] tasted, yet . . . live." 117-118 petty fault . . . rather will your dauntless virtue praise. Paradise Lost, IX, 693-694: "petty Trespass . . . praise / Rather your dauntless virtue." 123 God-head. No other term is possible, perhaps, in the phrasing here and in 1. 136 below; Milton uses it similarly in Paradise Lost, IX, 790, 877. Dryden's Lucifer goes beyond the biblical story, in which the serpent promises Eve that when she and Adam eat the forbidden fruit they will be "as gods" (Gen. 3:5), not gods themselves. 124-129 Based on Paradise Lost, IX, 764-771. 124 He eats, and lives. Paradise Lost, IX, 764: "hee hath eat'n and lives." 125-126 Paradise Lost, IX, 766-768: "For us alone / Was death invented? or to us deni'd / This intellectual food." 134 in the mid'st. Gen. 3:3: "the tree which is in the midst of the garden." 134 disgrace. "Mar the grace of" (OED). 138-141 Based on Paradise Lost, IX, 811-816, 831; Dryden has moved Eve's well-known question, "Shall I . . . keep the odds of Knowledge in my power?" to V, i, 7-16, p. 134 above. "Bliss" and "share" (1. 141) occur in reverse order in Milton's 1. 831. 142-147 At this point Milton says only, "Back to the Thicket slunk / T h e guilty Serpent" (IX, 784-785) and gives Eve the last word. Having "slunk / Into the Wood" (X, 332-333), Satan observes Adam's fall, then flees when the Son comes to judge the guilty pair, returns to overhear his own condemnation, decides it is not for some time, and so returns to hell in triumph (the return being represented in Dryden's next scene). 142-143 Perhaps the first joke on the phrase, "hardly anyone says thank you nowadays." Lucifer does not like to give thanks himself; see III, iii, 67-70 (p. 121 above). 145 She's now the tempter. A bold analysis. 146 See IV, i, 174 (p. 128 above). V, i This scene is based on Paradise Lost, IX, 834-999, and Gen. 3:6: "[Eve] gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." Once again, Milton's and Dryden's great expansions have not drawn from the biblical passage all its meanings and implications. S.d. a bough in her hand. Paradise Lost, IX, 850-851: "in her hand / A bough." iff. Eve has become a Drydenian dramatic character. He has made her consistent, having prepared for 1. 10 by her words in II, iii, 45, 52-55 (p. 112 above). As Eve is a dramatic character, we need not suppose Dryden was sketching for us his sense of the inborn feminine nature, but his lifelong misogyny suggests that he was. 2 nimble feet. Paradise Lost, IV, 866. 7-16 Based on Paradise Lost, IX, 816-831. 7 I love the wretch. Summers notes (III, 594) that "wretch" as defined by Johnson in commenting on a similar phrase in Othello, III, iii, 90, is "a term of the softest and fondest tenderness. It expresses the utmost degree of

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amiableness, joined with an idea, which perhaps all tenderness includes, of feebleness, softness, and want of protection." Saintsbury (S-S, V, 164) had said the same thing without quoting Johnson. 8-9 already ... Soveraign now. Cf. II, iii, 67 (p. 112 above). 17-28 Based on Paradise Lost, IX, 838-862, with the ideas somewhat rearranged. 22 walks. See note to II, iii, s.d. Walks (p. 362 above). 26 strange . . . the cause was. Paradise Lost, IX, 861-862: "strange / Hath been the cause." 30 flushes. Paradise Lost, IX, 887: "flushing"; Milton's imaginative expansion on the biblical story. 38 fair fruit. See note to III, iii, 15 (p. 368 above). 40 ventur'd boldly. In Paradise Lost, IV, 891, it is Satan who says anyone in hell would "boldly venture" to another place. 41 blush. In ironic contrast with "flushes" in 1. 30. 42 The serpent . . . taught me first the way. " T h e serpent beguiled me, and I did eat" (Gen. 3:13). In Paradise Lost, V, 508, it is Raphael who has "taught the way" to Adam. 44 Gave the dumb voice; gave reason, to the Brute. Cf. "to the mute / My speech is lost; my reason, to the Brute" (II, i, 58-59, pp. 106-107 above). Both passages may reflect Paradise Lost, IX, 748: "Gave elocution to the mute." 45-46 Paradise Lost, IX, 896-897, 900: " O fairest of Creation, last and best / Of all God's Works," "How art thou lost." 48 Pity. I.e., it is a pity. For the construction see note to III, iii, 114 More (p. 369 above). 49 Paradise Lost, IX, 906: "And mee with thee hath ruin'd." 50 Paradise Lost, IX, 908: "How can I live without thee." 53 More wise. In Paradise Lost, IX, 311, Adam says virtuous Eve makes him "More wise" by her influence. 57 Paradise Lost, IX, 910: "live again in these wild Woods forlorn." 61 freely tast. Paradise Lost, IX, 732 (Satan speaking) and 988 (Eve speaking). 62 Godhead. See note to IV, ii, 123 (p. 375 above). 63 Lest diffring in degree. Paradise Lost, IX, 883-884: "Lest thou not tasting, different degree / Disjoin us." 70 Reemphasizing Milton's picture of Adam's uxoriousness. 71 Paradise Lost, IX, 961: " O glorious trial of exceeding Love." 76 See Dr. Faustus, 1. 1330: "Make me immortal with a kiss." 83 Paradise Lost, IX, 989: "fear of Death deliver to the Winds." 87-90 Suggested by Paradise Lost, IX, 1024-1045. V, ii This scene is based on Paradise Lost, X, 229-584, Satan's return to hell, but it seems a very feeble representation of it in comparison. W e may note, however, that it would be dramatic in its own way, as the scene would be drawn to show "Sick nature" (1. 2), i.e., the trees losing their leaves, and

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animals chasing one another; see the last speech in the opera (p. 146 above). Lucifer would look at or point to the scenery as he began to speak. 2-3 Paradise Lost, IX, 782-783: "Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat / Sighing . . . gave signs of woe." "Mother Earth" occurs in a different context in I, 687. T h e underlying text for Milton and Dryden is Rom. 8:19-23. 12 my Legions. T h e supernatural troops are regularly called legions in Paradise Lost, e.g., I, 301, and II, 132, but the word was conventional in this sense. There was no agreement as to the size of these legions (see Works, X, 422). 1 5 + s.d. Paradise Lost, IX, 1001-1002: "Nature gave a second groan, / . . . and muttering Thunder." 17 Engine. Paradise Lost, II, 65, "his Almighty Engine," i.e., thunder. 18 the deep. T h e abyss of hell. T h e term occurs in Luke 8:31, "And they [devils] besought him [Jesus] that he would not command them to go out [of a demoniac] into the deep." 19 Paradise Lost, II, 365-366: "waste his whole Creation, or possess / A l l as our own." V, iii T h e locale changes to that of III, ii (see note to its initial stage direction, p. 366 above), i.e., the scene would have been drawn. S.d. descend. Possibly the angels descend the hill of Eden, rather than fly down from the sky, for they walk off. 1-4 Paradise Lost, X, 23-25: "dim sadness did not spare / . . . Celestial visages, yet mixt / With pity, violated not thir bliss." Milton's "mixt" may account for the incorrect "mixt" in the first edition (1. 4). 7 th' Angelic guards. Paradise Lost, IV, 550. 11 Th' Etherial people flock'd. Paradise Lost, X , 27: " T h ' ethereal People ran." "News" in this line was probably suggested by the same word in X, 21. 15-18 Repeated for emphasis in V, iv, 110-113 and 134-135 (pp. 141, 142 above). 19-22 Gen. 3:22-24: "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever [thereby annulling the death penalty for eating the forbidden fruit]: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." 19 That message is thy charge. Once again, Dryden does not represent the deity—in Milton, the Son—on the stage. V, iv S.d. T h e locale has returned to that of V, ii (see the initial note there), i.e., the scene would have been closed.

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1-107 Based on Paradise Lost, X, 710-965, where Adam condemns Eve, she is penitent, and he forgives her. By turning Milton's three speeches into a series of exchanges, Dryden not only increases the naturalness of the dialogue but produces a quarrel that flares and dies, with considerable advantage to the drama. Dryden's Eve, like Milton's, is the first to repent. 1, 11 hide and hid. See Gen. 3:8: "Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden." 6-9 Based on Paradise Lost, V, 309-311: "Cedar tops" (1. 9) is from VII, 424. 10 shape divine. Paradise Lost, VIII, 295 (God). 17 dark Chaos. Paradise Lost, X, 283: "Chaos damp and dark." 22 seek temptations. Inevitable wording, perhaps; in Paradise Lost, IX, 364, Adam had said to Eve, "Seek not temptation." 45-50 Based on Paradise Lost, IX, 1182-1186. 47 Restraint you will not brook. Paradise Lost, IX, 1184 ("she" instead of "you"). 49-50 Paradise Lost, IX, 1185-1186: "And left to herself, if evil thence ensue, / Shee first his weak indulgence will accuse." 53 I chose a partner. I.e., chose to have a partner; see II, i, 34-61 (pp. 106-107 above). 66-68 Based on Paradise Lost, X, 888-895. 66 wise Creator. Paradise Lost, IX, 938, and X, 888-889, "God, Creator wise." 67 Paradise Lost, X, 889-890, "peopl'd highest Heav'n / With Spirits Masculine." 68 why must man from woman take his birth. Summers (III, 595) finds a parallel in Euripides, Hippolytus, 11. 616-633. Raphael has told Adam how the human species is to propagate (II, i, 14, p. 105 above). 70 This fair defect. Paradise Lost, X, 891. 80-81, 100-101 What we have here is not exactly what the biblical Eve says, viz., "the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat," but is a possible interpretation of it; another interpretation sees her as saying with penitent meekness, "neither God nor man shall father my fault." Notice that Milton and Dryden completely omit the biblical Adam's less than heroic words, "the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat," unless Dryden's 11. 66-68, corresponding, as noted above, to Milton's X, 888-895, are thought to represent them. See Gen. 3:12-13. 94-95 Based on Paradise Lost, X, 710-714. 95 passing . . . glaring. Paradise Lost, X, 714: "Glar'd . . . passing." 100-101 Based on Paradise Lost, X, 831-833. 102-103 Based on Paradise Lost, X, 950-952. 103 bleeding heart. OED (bleeding) cites the phrase in 1597. 104-107 Dryden redeems his Adam. 108-236 Based on Paradise Lost, XI, 9g-XII, 623, in which Michael is the angelic messenger and puts Eve to sleep while he gives Adam a vision of the future history of mankind. Milton's detailed history Dryden omits, but he keeps the discussion of death that follows the vision of Cain and Abel (XI, 466-554). n o - i 13 See note to V, iii, 15-18 (p. 377 above).

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m Ezek. 18:23: "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?" 116 softly. We have no record of how the biblical Adam met his end. Looked back upon, Dryden's Adam appears naive here, for he shortly learns about violent death. 116 native dust. Dryden forgets that Adam and Eve as yet have no conception of death; Milton has Michael show it to Adam in a vision of Cain killing Abel, Adam then asking, "have I now seen Death? Is this the way / I must return to native dust?" (XI, 462-463). Yet Milton had also made Adam say "it were but right / . . . to reduce me to my dust" before he knew what death was (X, 747-748), and Dryden is very likely thinking of this passage rather than or as well as the other, for his 11. 120-123 are based on Milton's X , 743-747120-131 Based on Paradise Lost, X, 743-768. 120-123 See note to 1. 116. 124 plac'd us here. Paradise Lost, IV, 416 (and V, 516): "rais'd (form'd) us from the dust and plac't us here." 126-133 The last appearance of the theme of free will. 127 Terms were propos'd. Paradise Lost, X, 757: "terms . . . were propos'd." 128-129 Job 2:10: "shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" 134-149 Based on Paradise Lost, X, 193-205. 134-135 See note to V, iii, 15-18 (p. 377 above). 135 Paradise Lost, XI, 40-41: "his doom (which I [the Son of God] / T o mitigate thus plead, not to reverse)." 138 lower world. Paradise Lost, XI, 283; the garden is on a mountain (II, ii, 49, p. 109 above). 140 Paradise Lost, XI, 269: "Must I thus leave thee Paradise?" (spoken by Adam). Also IV, 208: "blissful Paradise"; and III, 527: "blissful seat of Paradise." 141-149 Based on Paradise Lost, X, 192-208, which is based in turn on Gen. 3:16-19. 141-142 Thorns and Thistles . . . / Unhid. Paradise Lost, X , 203-204: "Thorns . . . and Thistles . . . / Unbid"; Gen. 3:18: "thorns . . . and thistles." 148-149 Gen. 3:16: "thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Paradise Lost, X, 195-196, says nothing of desire. On the other hand, Dryden says nothing about the pain of childbirth (Gen. 3:16; Paradise Lost, X, 193-195). 153 winged messenger. Paradise Lost, III, 229; VII, 572. 154 glorious Angel. Paradise Lost, III, 622 (Uriel). 158-159 Paradise Lost, XI, 323-324, 326-327: "grateful Altars I would rear / Of grassy Turf," "and thereon / Offer sweet smelling Gums." 159 Gums and . . . Incense. Synonyms. 160-167 Based on Paradise Lost, XI, 335-354, in which, besides smaller verbal influences, "From all the ends of th' Earth" appears in 1. 345. 167 native home. Paradise Lost, X, 1085 (the grave). 168-221 Based on Paradise Lost, XI, 466-554. Dryden omits Milton's description of Sin and Death guarding hell's gate and building a bridge to

3

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earth (II, 648-1033; X, 585-640), evidently feeling that this passage would be sufficient. I n Milton, Eve is asleep at this point; Dryden, wishing to have more conversation for the stage, takes for her some thoughts that Milton gave to Adam. 172-174 Required to replace Adam's learning about death f r o m seeing Cain kill Abel. 177 fate. From here to the end of the work the word means "death"; cf. a letter of Dryden's to William Walsh: "fate without an epithet, is always taken in the ill sence" (Ward, Letters, p. 35). See 11. 180, 196, 202, 211, a n d 234178 kind. T h e word has various meanings, of which "natural" may be the most appropriate here. 181-182 Based on Paradise Lost, XI, 500-501. Outside the Bible the concept of original sin appears first in the later writings of St. Augustine; h e a n d the church that adopted it interpreted the Bible as also teaching it, but of course the Bible had been and can be interpreted differently (see Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent [1988], pp. 109-114). 183-186 Based on Paradise Lost, XI, 502-504. Milton, however, says nothing about man's valuing life. 190-199 Dryden's addition. W i n n (p. 269) believes these lines a n d the preceding stage direction to which they refer are Dryden's serious comment on the T h i r d Dutch War, 1672-1674. T h e y may indeed reflect the national mood that forced the king to seek peace, b u t Dryden makes his King A r t h u r say " W a r is the T r a d e of Kings, that fight for Empire" (King Arthur, II, iv, 25, in Works, XVI), and in his closing speech laud the heroes to follow who will win praise in war. It is dangerous to seek Dryden's thoughts in the words of his dramatic characters, but we know f r o m a letter he wrote near the end of his life that he genuinely admired "the gallantry [in war] of my own C o u n t r y m e n " (Ward, Letters, p. 120). 190 suborn. Unlawfully induce ( O E D ) , b u t OED prefers "prepare, provide, or procure, esp. in a secret, stealthy, or u n d e r h a n d m a n n e r " (sense 3, citing this passage). 206-211 Based on Paradise Lost, XI, 527-534. " T h e r e is" (1. 208) and "by temp'rance taught" (1. 210) are from Milton's 11. 530 and 531. 214-216 Based on Michael's words in Paradise Lost, XI, 535-537. Summers (III, 595) notes that Dryden used similar language later in Oedipus, IV, i, 229, to describe the death of Polybus, who "fell like Autumn-Fruit that mellow'd long" (Works, X I I I , 184). Hughes (p. 374) points to Cicero, De Senectute, XIX, but adds: "the commonplace of being 'made ripe for death by eld' need be sought no farther afield than The Faerie Queene, II, x, 32." 217 Dryden's addition, perhaps needed for the rhyme. " N o t h i n g to my self would owe" presumably means "would die from natural causes," i.e., not f r o m intemperance (see 1. 210), or "madness" (see 11. 191-195), or suicide (see 1. 190). 222 Death you have seen. Moved from Paradise Lost, XI, 466, a n d adjusted to allow for Eve's presence. T h e following and climactic vision is really Dryden's addition. It rests on Paradise Lost, III, 335-338, less than on Rev. 7:9-17: "After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude. . . . These are they which came out of great tribulation, a n d have washed their robes, a n d

Notes to Pages

143-146

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made them white in the blood of the Lamb. . . . T h e y shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, a n d shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." 225+ s.d. Probably the same machine as in IV, i, 10+ s.d. would have been used; see note there (p. 369 above). 226-227 Paradise Lost, XII, 469-470: "O goodness infinite . . . / T h a t all this good of evil shall produce." 231 sincere. Pure, unalloyed, Dryden's usual meaning. 235-236 Based on Paradise Lost, XII, 473-478. Milton gives the idea of a "fortunate fall" to Adam; Dryden divides it between Adam and Eve, perhaps because it fits with the other ideas he had transferred to her from Milton's Adam. Dryden's Eve clearly believes the doctrine; Milton's Adam, though he begins in rapture (see note to 11. 226-227) ends in doubt (XII, 473-478). Scholars have been unable to decide whether Milton himself believed there was anything fortunate for mankind in Adam's sin. Since Dryden's Eve is also an imagined character we cannot tell what Dryden's belief was. For different opinions, see Émile Legouis, "Dryden plus Miltonien que Milton?" Études Anglaises, X X (1967), 370-377, who says both authors express their convictions; and Gransden, "Milton, Dryden, and the Comedy of the Fall," p. 123, who says Dryden brings out more clearly than Milton "the absurdity of Adam's situation at the moment of the Fall." 238-242 Based on Paradise Lost, XII, 626-633. 240-241 wave the flaming sword, j Your signal. Paradise Lost, XII, 592593: "a flaming Sword, / In signal . . . waves." See Gen. 3:24. "Down amain" (1. 241) occurs in Paradise Lost, X, 675. 242 glide, like meteors. Paradise Lost, XII, 629, "Gliding meteorous." 247-256 Based on Paradise Lost, XI, 269-285. 247 happy shades. Paradise Lost, XI, 270: "happy . . . Shades." 250 early care. Probably from "early visitation" in Paradise Lost, XI, 275, rather than "early care" in IX, 79g, the latter being part of Eve's promise, having eaten the apple, to cultivate its tree. 254 nuptial bow'r. See note to III, i, 31-38 (p. 364 above). 257 lower earth. See note to 1. 138. 258-259 Based on Satan's response upon finding himself in hell, Paradise Lost, I, 247: "fardest from him is best." 260-261 T h e onset of winter is not simply a metaphor; Ovid had said that in the golden age the only season was spring (see The First Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, II. 148-149, in Works, IV, 380). Today, no doubt, a drift of leaves would blow across the stage at this point, and Dryden may have envisioned some such effect here. 265 war of nature. Paradise Lost, X, 710-711: "Beast now with Beast gan war, and Fowl with Fowl, / And Fish with Fish." Mark T w a i n was similarly struck with the idea of an outbreak of war among the animals; see Extracts from Adam's Diary (1893) in Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, ir Essays 1891-1910 (1992), p. 102. 266-267 Based on Paradise Lost, XII, 585-587: "then wilt thou not be loath / T o leave this Paradise, but shalt possess / A paradise within thee.

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happier far." Dryden's final couplet gives more hope than Milton's stately ending (XII, 645-649): Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon; T h e World was all before them, where to choose T h i r place of rest, and Providence thir guide: T h e y hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took thir solitary way. Perhaps we have a clue here as to why Dryden did not remain a Puritan.

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Aureng-Zebe W e do not k n o w with any exactitude when Dryden wrote Aureng-Zebe. It has enough similarities to Settle's very popular Empress of Morocco (1673) to suggest that Dryden decided to mine a vein where Settle h a d f o u n d gold, or, since Dryden devoted a pamphlet to attacking Settle's play, that he wrote his own in competition with Settle. 1 According to the L o r d Chamberlain's records, Aureng-Zebe was performed on 17 and 20 N o v e m b e r 1675, though its first night may have come earlier. It was performed at court o n 29 M a y 1676.2 Entered in the Stationers' Register on 29 N o v e m b e r 1675, it was advertised as published in The London Gazette of 17-21 February 1676. 3 Subsequent editions were dated 1685, 1690, 1692, 1694, 1699, a n d 1704. N o t h i n g is k n o w n of other performances in the seventeenth century, except that the Drury Lane company dropped it from its repertory after 1695. 4 In the eighteenth century it was first revived at the Queen's T h e a t e r , as far as w e know, and performed there once each year in 1705, 1706, and 1707. T h e r e after the Drury L a n e company took it u p again and performed it once, twice, or three times a year from 1708 to 1713. T h e company at Lincoln's I n n Fields performed it from 1716 to 1718 (four times in 1716). M o r e sporadic performances are recorded in 1721 (three times), 1723, 1727 (twice), 1729, and 1743. Altered and retitled The Prince of Agra, it was produced in 1774, the year in which " C l i v e of I n d i a " died, together with that rollicking afterpiece The Dragon of Wantley and dancing. 5 It was acted to applause and good reviews and for an extended run in 1934. 6 T h e r e have been recent editions by L. A . Beaurline and Fredson Bowers (1967), by Frederick M . L i n k (1971), and by A n n a Maria C r i n o (1971). J W 5 For a fuller understanding of the M o g u l Empire ruled by Shah Jahan, the o l d emperor of Dryden's play, and his son Aureng-Zebe, we need a brief geographical survey of India and a brief history of the T u r k s . Everyone is familiar with the cone of the Indian subcontinent. Imagine a similar cone base to base with the first and you have a mental picture of the diamond shape of India. T h e northeastern side of the diamond is the valley of the Ganges with the Himalayas beyond. T h e northwestern side is the valley of the Indus, with the frontier m o u n t a i n systems of the Indus and the H i n d u K u s h beyond. ( T h e Indus has its source north of the 1 For Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco (1674) see Works, XVII, 83-184. Winn believes that Dryden was attempting to outdo Settle "by setting a plot full of political treachery in an exotic but contemporary Moslem milieu" (P- 873)2 London Stage, Part I, pp. 240, 244. 3 Macdonald, p. 114. * London Stage, Part I, p. 426. 6 Ibid., Parts II-IV, passim. 6 Michael M. Alssid, Dryden's Rhymed Heroic Tragedies (1974), I, 31 n. 62.

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Himalayas, and at first it parallels the Ganges but flows in the opposite direction.) This huge area, inhabited almost entirely by Hindus, had been completely conquered by Muslims—Arabs, Iranians, Turks—over the period 712-1565. T h e comparatively small number of conquerors, roughly two to five or six in modern times, may also be judged by the size of the nations into which the area is now divided. T h e Muslim nation of Pakistan inhabits the Indus Valley, the Muslim nation of Bangladesh inhabits the area at the diamond's eastern corner. Pakistan and India both claim the former country of Kashmir at the northern point of the diamond (Dryden's fictional heroine is a Kashmiri princess). All the rest is the predominantly Hindu nation of India. T h e Mogul Empire of India, of which Dryden's hero was the last great ruler, extended only a little below the waist of the diamond. Its first capital, Agra, the scene of Dryden's play, was more or less at the center of the empire. Delhi, which became the cocapital, is 150 miles to the north. T h e original homeland of the Turks was the land between Russia and India or, more accurately, south of Russia and north of China's Sinkiang Province, India, Afghanistan, and Iran. Most of the Turks still live there, in the countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. About the year 700 the Arabs began their conquest and Islamization of Iran and Afghanistan, and of the Turks to the north of these countries, but by 1000 the Turks were once more ruling themselves, though they remained Muslims. T h e Mongol Genghis Khan (n6a?-i227) then conquered most of them, driving some west into Turkey, but once again they managed to absorb their invaders and to rule themselves. Timur or Tamerlane ("lame Timur," 1336-1405), a Barlas Turk, captured Smyrna on the west coast of Turkey, almost captured Moscow, and, of more interest to readers of Dryden's play, captured Delhi. Aureng-Zebe was a descendant of Babur (1483-1530), the founder of the Mogul dynasty in India. T h e dynasty gets the name Mogul, which means Mongol, from the fact that Babur, a descendant of T i m u r on his father's side, was also a descendant of the Mongol Genghis Khan on his mother's. His fellow Turks drove him into northern Afghanistan, from which he conquered most of northern India. His son Humayun (1508-1556) nearly lost everything Babur had won, but he managed to recapture Agra and Delhi, which then continued to be the capitals of the empire. Humayun's son Akbar (1542-1605) conquered all of northern India and took southern Afghanistan from the Persians. T h e y recovered it from Akbar's son Jahangir (1569-1627), who also let control of his government fall into the hands of his Persian wife. Their son Shah Jahan (i592?-i666), the old emperor of Dryden's play, failed to recapture southern Afghanistan. T w o of the campaigns were led by his son Aureng-Zebe (1618-1707), who also fought elsewhere for his father. Although Shah Jahan's wars nearly bankrupted his empire, his was the great age of Islamic culture in India. It was he who built the T a j Mahal at Agra as a memorial to Aureng-Zebe's mother. His severe illness in 1657 led to the war of succession among his sons that is the subject of Dryden's play. Shah Jahan, who had revolted against his father (but then made peace) and whose father had done the same, feared a revolt among his sons. He

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therefore sent the three youngest, Aureng-Zebe, Morat, and Sujah (to give them the names they have in the play), to govern border provinces, keeping only the eldest, Darah, with him in Agra. When the severity of his illness prevented him from appearing in public at his usual intervals, rumors circulated that he had died and the brothers in the provinces began to move on the capital. Sujah advanced from Bengal in the east, and Aureng-Zebe and Morat in concert moved up from the Deccan and Gujarat in the south. Shah Jahan sent repeated orders for them to retreat, but they maintained that the messages had been forged by Darah. T h e combined forces of Aureng-Zebe and Morat defeated Darah, captured Agra, and put their father under a kind of house arrest in the fort there, which was also the royal residence. A few weeks later, Aureng-Zebe imprisoned Morat at Delhi. Aureng-Zebe treated his father kindly, except that he continued to keep him under arrest, but he had Morat executed on an old charge of murder. Meanwhile he sent his son to drive Sujah out of the country, 7 and he himself captured and executed Darah. Shah Jahan also had four daughters, who do not appear in Dryden's play. T h e eldest, Begum-Saheb, had a special influence over her father and supported Darah. Aureng-Zebe did not take vengeance on her and allowed her to continue her ministrations to their father. (TW^D

T h e most detailed account of Aureng-Zebe available to Dryden was François Bernier's Histoire de la Dernière Révolution des États du Grand Mogul (1670; English translation 1671) and Suite des Mémoires (1671; English translation 1672), and he seems to have depended on Bernier in the English translation almost exclusively. 8 In theory he could have constructed his play from other sources. T h e English had had an ambassador to the court of the Great Mogul since 1609 and a trading post at Surat in his dominions since 1611; ambassadors and businessmen who had visited India had published their experiences and their advice; news from the East appeared in newspapers and periodicals, English and foreign; travelers abroad wrote home, and those who had returned could be consulted. 9 Also, as Dryden had served in the secretariat of Oliver Cromwell, he presumably had had access to unpublished information transmitted by the ambassadors. Conceivably he took the trouble to check Bernier's account against some of these sources; certainly he drew a few details from them, unless he happened to have imagined these things correctly. Dryden already knew all he wanted to know about Islam, the religion 7 " T h e emperor was not supposed to take the personal command unless the army was large and the campaign important" (William Irvine, The Army of the Indian

Moghuls [1962], p. 202). 8 For evidence that Dryden read the translation see note to III, i, 150 (p. 426 below). 9 See Works, X V , 70, for Dryden's consulting returned travelers. A m o n g the travel books available to him were John Davies of Kidwelly's translation of A . Olearius and J. A . de Mandelsloe's Voyages and Travels to Muscovy and from Persia to the East Indies (1662).

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of the Moguls. 10 He may have looked up a few facts about Iran, but he may equally well have come upon them in the same way he garnered extra details about India. In his dedication Dryden says that the king had read the play before its final revision, "when I receiv'd the favour from him, to have the most considerable event of it modell'd by his Royal Pleasure," and that the king thought it the best of his tragedies 11 —hardly praise of Charles, coming as it does just after the readers have seen Dryden calling all his plays "ill" and shortly before they will see him calling this one a "laborious Trifle." 1 2 T h e reader must decide what the "most considerable event" is, and what it displays of the king's modeling. One scholar thinks it may have been Arimant's death; 13 another thinks it was a choice of denouement, happy or unhappy; 1 4 still another thinks it may have been Nourmahal's dying speech. 15 As an additional motivation to the characters he had taken from history, Dryden supplied love for the captive Kashmiri princess, Indamora, who is wholly imaginary. Also, he imagined, in more detail than history will allow, the wives of Shah Jahan and Morat, and he quite controverted history in making loyalty to Shah Jahan the only political motivation of his hero Aureng-Zebe. If he was not modeling these aspects of his play on Racine's Mithridate, he happened thereby to parallel it very closely. In Mithridate, "an aging Oriental despot whose reign is about to end has two sons, one loyal and affectionate, the other ambitious and indifferent toward his father. Understanding quite clearly their differing natures . . . he nevertheless lets his judgment be disastrously affected by his infatuation with a youthful princess who loves and is loved by his loyal son. Under the influence of this infatuation, the despot conceives and starts to effect the elimination of the loyal son by judicial murder; but before the plan can mature, circumstances intervene, the despot comes to his senses, and a final father-son reconciliation takes place in which the old ruler's reign concludes and the loyal son, now united to the princess with his father's blessing, succeeds him." 1 6 1 0 T h e Koran had been translated into English from French by Alexander Ross in 1649. 1 1 Dedication, p. 155 above. For another of the king's contributions to Dryden's plays see headnote to The Kind Keeper (Works, XIV, 367, 370). !2 Dedication; prologue, 1. 4 (pp. 154, 159, above). This is not the only instance of such contradiction that we can find in Dryden. T h e dedication of Cleomenes (Works, XVI) begins and ends with effusive thanks to the Earl of Rochester for his help in getting the play produced. In the middle of the preface, however, DTyden says he had not cared whether the play was produced or not, and then, in its last paragraph, seeks rather lamely to resolve the matter.

V, i, 489-499 (pp. 242-243 above); see Winn, p. 273. McFadden, p. 196. 1 5 V, i, 640-666 (pp. 247-248 above); see Harley Granville-Barker, On Dramatic Method (1931), p. 146. Barker's reason is his sense that the speech is badly written. i f i T h e summary is William Frost's in "Aureng-Zebe in Context: Dryden, Shakespeare, Milton, and Racine," JEGP, L X X I V (1975), 38. Parallels with Mithridate were first observed by F. Holzhausen, who saw them as evidence of borrowing ("Dryden's heroisches Drama," Englische Studien, X V : i [1891], 14 n. 2). Then, by 13

14

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Langbaine noticed that Dryden drew on Seneca's Hippolytus and on Milton's Samson Agonistes for some of his imagery, and subsequent commentators have refined on and extended his citations. T h e notes to individual lines point out the parallels.17 Dryden gave his characters his own knowledge of classical antiquity. O n the title page of King Arthur (1691) he quoted Horace, Celebrare Domestica facta, which we might translate very loosely but in the spirit of Gray's Elegy as "stick to local color." Either the Horatian passage was not in his mind when he wrote Aureng-Zebe, or he understood it differently. Saintsbury found a good deal of enjambment in Aureng-Zebe's couplets, and in a wild generalization said that when enjambment comes, blank verse cannot be far behind. 18 As an experiment, I chose five passages at random from The State of Innocence and Aureng-Zebe totaling approximately 400 lines from each. In this sample, each play had one enjambed couplet, and within couplets the former had twice as many lines without end stops as the latter. So much for impressions.19 Winn finds an influence of Samson Agonistes on the nature of the short lines in Aureng-Zebe. There are, he remarks, at least six occasions when dividing the play into "forty distinguishable situations in the development of its plot, beyond those which form the initial complex presented in the exposition," Harold F. Brooks was able to find parallel situations in Racine's Bajazet and Britannicus and Corneille's Nicomède and Rodogune as well, besides many verbal correspondences ("Dryden's Aureng-Zebe: Debts to Corneille and Racine," Revue de Littérature Comparée, X L V I [1972], 5-34). But having minced Aureng-Zebe so fine, Brooks could have found such parallels almost anywhere (e.g., he traces the wearing of one character's armor by another, a motif as old as the Iliad, to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar), and the verbal parallels he notes are mostly inevitable as between any two representations of such small bits of action (e.g., "fly" and " f u i r " followed closely by "remove" and "éviter"). He has missed the forest for the trees. Nevertheless, the parallels to Nicomède he points out have led subsequent scholars to remark on them as well. A t the opposite extreme, missing the trees for the forest, stands J. Peter Verdurmen, "Grasping for Permanence: Ideal Couples in The Country Wife and Aureng-Zebe," HLQ, X L I I (1979), 329-347, who says the plays are alike because the hero and heroine meet opposition in both. Frost's Shakespearean parallel is King Lear: he compares Lear with Dryden's emperor and examines the theme o£ kingship in the two plays. As he acknowledges, Anne Barbeau [Gardiner], The Intellectual Design of John Dryden's Heroic Plays (1970), p. 131, had already noted thematic similarities to Lear. He himself is careful to point to differences between the two plays in characters and action (pp. 28-32). 17 Some of the parallels cited by Edward S. Le Comte, "Samson Agonistes and Aureng-Zebe," Études Anglaises, X I (1958), 18-22, demonstrate Le Comte's strong memory rather than Dryden's dependence on Milton. Parallels such as "power resistless" (Samson, 1. 1404) and "resistless pow'r" (II, i, 463, p. 18g above) we have ignored. See Langbaine, pp. »56-157. 18 Saintsbury, Dryden (English Men of Letters series, 1888 ed.), p. 57, repeated in A History of English Prosody (2d ed., 1923, repr. ig6i), II, 368-369. Kirsch, p. 126, and Alssid, Dryden's Rhymed Heroic Tragedies, II, 318, assume that Saintsbury proved his case. !9 W i n n (pp. 277-279) finds an influence of Paradise Lost on Aureng-Zebe in both enjambment and imagery, and he says (p. 284): "Aureng-Zebe is the most flexible of Dryden's rhymed plays, the one in which we are least conscious of the 'Fetters' of rhyme." T h e evidence is against him.

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two short lines appear in close proximity and in balance. 20 In Act I he specifies i, 249 and 257, "At least, thou should'st have ghess'd" and "Nay, now I have confess'd," and 426 and 428, "Both is a sound of joy" and "And his cold hand." 2 1 Such pairs of lines, Winn says, accord with Milton's dramatic practice, not with Dryden's practice before he wrote Aureng-Zebe. Let us take as a comparative example Act I of 1 Conquest of Granada 22 Of its 371 lines, 10 are short ones, the same number as in the first 371 lines of Aureng-Zebe, and two are in close proximity and in balance: 274, "A King intreats you," and 284, "Hence you unthinking Crowd." Again let us take as examples the first act of Aureng-Zebe, which has 470 lines, and the first 470 lines of 2 Conquest of Granada.23 There are very few short lines in the latter but two pairs are in close proximity and balance: I, i, 129 and 132, " T h e Courts of Kings" and "Castille and Arragon," and II, i, 74 and 8i: "Can you forgive" and "But, till I can"—the same number of pairs as in Act I of Aureng-Zebe. McFadden believes that Dryden learned to use alliteration from Milton. 2 * I therefore turned a computer loose on lengthy sections of verse chosen randomly from The State of Innocence, written under the direct influence of Milton, from Amboyna, written earlier, and from Aureng-Zebe, written later. T h e percentage of alliterating consonants and consonant combinations with respect to all the letters is 37.8 in Amboyna, 37.2 in The State of Innocence, and 36.4 in Aureng-Zebe. One need pursue these matters no further except to say that no one can keep in mind enough of such details to avoid mistaken impressions.25 S W J It must be remembered that Dryden was concerned to produce an intriguing play for an audience that was not thoroughly grounded in Eastern matters. He therefore freely varied from historical fact and threw in local color of a shocking nature without bothering to ascertain its accuracy. Yet he does give the flavor of the Mogul court as Bernier represents it, with its fears, factions, deceits, venality, poisonings, sexual undercurrents and indulgences, victories snatched from defeat, and particularly the sudden change in the fortunes of Morat, whose historical original emerged from a drunken sleep to find that the brother who had called him "Your Majesty" earlier in the day now declared him unfit to be king and put him in chains. In some of his history plays, for example, in Amboyna and Cleomenes, Dryden, though he varies somewhat from fact, keeps his plots as simple as 20 Specified in n. 55, p. 585, as I, i, 249, 257; I, i, 426, 428; II, i, 181, 184; II, i, 395, 398; III, i, 21, 26; and IV, i, 81, 84 (pp. i6g, 174, 181, 187-188, 193, 211 above). 21 T h e rhyming of 11. 249 and 257 noted by Winn (p. 278) loses significance when we observe that they also rhyme with 247, 248, and 250, lines of normal length. It is likely that the latter three were composed as a triplet, 249 and 257 being inserted as afterthoughts to adjust the picture of the emperor's thinking, the rhyme being accidental.

22 Works, XI, 23-35.

23 See pp. 162-176 above, and Works, X I , 105-122 (through II, i, 90). 24 "Dryden's 'Most Barren Period'—and Milton," H L Q , X X I V (1961), 283-296.

25 See Works, XI, 467-471.

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the sequence of historical events they represent, but in Aureng-Zebe he multiplies the plot's triangles and peripeties as though he enjoyed his ability to do so, a tendency we observe in The Kind Keeper also, and one that can be traced to the influence of Spanish plays. 26 Nourmahal, the old emperor's wife, lusts after her stepson Augeng-Zebe. T h e emperor and Morat, who has a wife, lust after Indamora. Aureng-Zebe loves her with an honorable passion, and so in a respectful way does Arimant, whom the emperor has made her guardian, and so does Morat's devoted and tormented wife Melesinda. A succession of ambitions, jealousies, ironies, battles, quarrels and inner struggles, narrow squeaks, and reversals of fortune culminates in the whirlwind fifth act, when Morat triumphs in battle, Indamora calms Morat's hatred of Aureng-Zebe but not his lust for her, Aureng-Zebe is reported dead, Nourmahal triumphs in battle and prepares to kill Indamora, Morat loses his life trying to rescue Indamora, Aureng-Zebe triumphs in battle but quarrels with Indamora, Melesinda and Nourmahal commit suicide, and the emperor reconciles the lovers and abdicates in Aureng-Zebe's favor. (TW^T) For his initial cast Dryden chose Charles Hart for his hero, as he had done in Amboyna, and Michael Mohun, who had suffered physical torture as Beamont in Amboyna, for Aureng-Zebe's father the emperor, whose tortures are only mental. Thomas Davies says they "greatly distinguished themselves" in their new roles. For the other major parts among the men Dryden chose Edward Kynaston and William Wintersel or Wintershall. Wintersel, now the gentle Arimant, had been the Fiscal in Amboyna, the chief villain of the piece. Kynaston, who played Morat, the villain in the new play, had been the rapist Young Harman in Amboyna. Dryden chose Rebecca Marshall for the part of Nourmahal, the villainess. She too was showing the range of her characterizations; she had been the heroine Ysabinda in Amboyna. T h e little we know about the acting techniques of these people has mostly been set out in the headnote to Amboyna.27 Cibber, however, has some things to say about how Kynaston acted Morat: "he had a fierce Lion-like Majesty in his Port and Utterance that gave the Spectator a kind of trembling Admirationl" Also, he made the audience laugh when he spoke his rants. 28 Elizabeth Cox (Indamora) had had a smallish part, Violetta, in The Assignation, the next play of Dryden's before Amboyna, but she had been Desdemona in Othello and the heroine Panthea in Fletcher's A King and No King. We have no knowledge of how she acted any of these parts, but we may assume that Dryden would not have chosen her as his heroine if she were an indifferent actor. Susanna Uphill (Zayda) had had a small part, Artemis, in Marriage A-la-Mode, the next of Dryden's plays before The 6See An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (Works, XVII, 37). 27 See pp. 269-271 above, and Works, XI, 547-557. Saintsbury (S-S, V, 184) collected the quotation from Davies. 2 8 See Works, XI, 434-435. The "one 'heroical Rhodomontade' " alluded to there was "I'll do't, to show my Arbitrary pow'r" (IV, i, 175, p. 214 above), in which he apparently accented the first word (see Highfill, IX, 84). 2

Commentary Assignation. Nothing seems to be known about how she fulfilled her roles. 29 Mary Corbet (Melesinda) was new to Dryden's plays and took no other role in them. She had not long been on the stage, did not long continue, and we apparently have no surviving estimate of her ability or manner as an actress. T h i s lack is regrettable, for her part must have been a most interesting one to develop. 5 W J Does a play in which the powers of lust fall before the powers of love, and the powers of usurpation fall before the powers of legitimate succession, reflect the norms or at least the ideals of the time, or does it seek to influence or at least to strengthen them? Between play and milieu, how do we estimate systole and diastole? Does the play breathe in or breathe out? It is "almost certain" that Dryden kept a mistress for a time, indeed at this time, 30 and his letters show that on into the last decade of his life he thought that most women were "bitches." 3 1 W e know also that a few years after writing this play he became an open defender of legitimate succession and to the end of his life remained a political animal. Shall we say the play expresses his political partisanship and not his misogyny? T h e r e can be no final answer to these questions, fortunately for those who enjoy dispute. Individual predilections and sensitivity, and the latter not just to the play but to shifting tides of consensus as well, will govern. O f all the motives and influences that made Aureng-Zebe what it is, the one most consonant with the view of Dryden taken elsewhere in this edition is that he had arrived at a pitch of mastery as a dramatist which led him to wish to experiment, not so much in absolute novelty as in arrangement. 3 2 As he says in his translation Of the Pythagorean Philosophy, "all T h i n g s are but alter'd, nothing dies." 33 Other proposals are "Dryden's thoughtful reading of Virgil, Spenser, and Milton"; and, among "practical reasons," the flood of ridicule accorded his previous heroic plays by Buckingham in The Rehearsal, by the author of Remarks on the Humours of the Touin, by Richard Leigh in The Censure of the Rota, and by Edward Ravenscroft in the prologue to The Careless Lovers, all of 1673; a growing (but, of course, temporary) disaffection with politics; and a sense that the vein he had been mining had been worked out. 3 4 As the last of Dryden's rhymed heroic plays, Aureng-Zebe has received its due share of attention from historians of the drama, as well as a certain amount of praise. It is generally regarded as the best of the series, largely 29 Mrs. Uphill appears in the commentary on the actors in Works, XI, 547, but only as a name in a tabulation of names and we have not tried to expand upon our predecessor's work. When the relevant volume of Highfill is published it may have more information. 30 Winn, pp. 538-539. 31 Ward, Letters, pp. 27, 63. 3 2 See Works, XI, 520. 33 L. 239 (ibid., VII). 34 See Winn, pp. 273-274, 284; J. B. Mishra, "Private Freedom and Public Responsibility: A Study of Dryden's Heroic Heroes," Visva-Bharati Quarterly, XLII (1976-77), 207-209.

Aureng-Zebe because it is the least extravagant in its language. T h e most enthusiastic reader has said that its design "surpasses that of any other d r a m a of the R e s t o r a t i o n in intricacy, tension, balance, contrast, a n d variety. I t deserves a d m i r a t i o n such as we give to a magnificent b a r o q u e reredos like the o n e in the chapel at Chatsworth, or to Wren's brilliant west towers of St. Paul's Cathedral, which play back a n d forth with convex a n d concave lines, columns, volutes, a n d scrollwork, leading u p to a lantern a n d c a p p e d with a n o g e e . " 3 5 Its least enthusiastic reader has said instead that a " t r u e dramatist w o u l d not h a v e attempted the thing at all, but by o n e w h o was not it could hardly have been better done," immediately q u a l i f y i n g what praise there is in his general observation by specifying that the " a c t i o n is mechanical f r o m b e g i n n i n g to e n d , " " t h e characters h a v e . . . little dramatic l i f e , " a n d " U p o n count after count his use of the r h y m e d couplet betrays h i m . " 3 6 I n his dedication Dryden treats the play as wholly serious a n d heroic, 3 7 a n d m a n y readers have so viewed it. J o h n s o n , however, thought parts of the p l a y were unintentionally farcical. 3 8 A n d in the twentieth century, the play has been variously called wholly comic in intent, 3 9 o r satiric, 4 0 or ironic, 4 1 o r all three. 4 2 W e see that all these views are in the eye of the beholder a n d 35 Beaurline, p. 105. 86 Granville-Barker, On Dramatic Method, pp. 143-147. Granville-Barker was a kind of twentieth-century Dryden, a professional playwright who was also a historian and theorist of the drama, a fact that may explain his attitude, whereas the praise accorded Aureng-Zebe has come from academics. Besides Beaurline, an editor of the play like ourselves, we note that Moody E. Prior, for example, says " T h e numerous debates lent themselves perfectly to the brilliant rhetorical possibilities of the couplet" ("Tragedy and the Heroic Play," in his The Language of Tragedy [1947], p. 166, citing Cecil Deane, Dramatic Theory and the Rhymed Heroic Play [1931], pp. 170-171). Eugene M. Waith regards Dryden as progressively refining the plots of his plays, that is, tightening and simplifying them, from The Conquest of Granada through Aureng-Zebe to All for Love (see The Herculean Hero [1962], p. 198; also p. 178). Waith also says (p. 185): " T h e scene of Morat's death is very powerful. It combines the ideas of transcendence [i.e., over lust] and limitation [i.e., unfulfilled happiness] as do the final scenes of Tamburlaine, Bussy D'Ambois and Coriolanus." 37 See pp. 155-157 above. 38 Rambler no. 125, quoted in note to III, i, 1-48 (p. 425 below). 39 D. W. Jefferson, " T h e Significance of Dryden's Heroic Plays," Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Literary and Historical Section, V (1938-43), 128-137. Jefferson cites T . S. Eliot as saying that the emperor's quarrel with his wife is "admirable purple comedy," and that he regards the emperor and the villainous characters as figures of fun because their speeches are absurd, in his (and Johnson's) estimation, and because the other characters easily crush them in repartee. Alssid, Dryden's Rhymed Heroic Tragedies, II, 380-381, agrees that the emperor's quarrel with his wife is comical. 40 T . S. Eliot, John Dryden (1932), p. 41. Alssid, Dryden's Rhymed Heroic Tragedies, II, 379-381, agrees that the play has a satiric element, but in his earlier article, " T h e Design of Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," JEGP, L X I V (1965), 460, he had said that Aureng-Zebe was "Dryden's embodiment of an ideal prince." 41 Robert S. Newman, "Irony and the Problem of Tone in Dryden's AurengZebe," SEL, X (1970), 439-458. Dryden's heroic plays display his "hopeful yet skeptical attitude towards idealized love and honor" (p. 439). 42 Bruce King, Dryden's Major Plays (1966). King's chapter on Aureng-Zebe (pp.

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that they exhaust this particular spectrum of approaches to the play. T h o s e w h o h a v e t a k e n t h e p l a y s e r i o u s l y h a v e s o m e t i m e s s a i d t h a t it presents a H o b b e s i a n v i e w of h u m a n n a t u r e 4 3 a n d a cynical attack o n marriage.44 At other times they have pointed out that the Hobbesianism and libertinism b e l o n g to i n d i v i d u a l characters in particular dramatic circumstances, a n d t h a t t h e h e r o a n d h e r o i n e , h a v i n g s u r v i v e d t h e i r t r i b u l a t i o n s , e m e r g e as m o d e l s o f C h r i s t i a n r e c t i t u d e . 4 5 T h e s e c o n d v i e w is c e r t a i n l y t h e correct o n e . S o m e c o m m e n t a t o r s of t h e l a t t e r s t r i p e s e e t h e h e r o as p r o v i d i n g t h e m o r a l c e n t e r of t h e p l a y , 4 6 o t h e r s , t h e h e r o i n e . 4 7 T h e t r u t h s e e m s t o b e t h a t e a c h is s t r o n g a t t i m e s w h e n t h e o t h e r is w e a k ( w h e n A u r e n g - Z e b e is discouraged or jealous, w h e n I n d a m o r a fears death), a n d so together they m a i n t a i n a n u n b r o k e n t h r e a d of m o r a l h e r o i s m t h r o u g h o u t t h e p l a y . W h e r e a s m o s t of t h e c h a r a c t e r s i n t h e p l a y b e l o n g t o t y p e s f a m i l i a r f r o m D r y d e n ' s o t h e r r h y m e d h e r o i c t r a g e d i e s , A u r e n g - Z e b e is c l e a r l y d i f f e r e n t f r o m t h e u n r e s t r a i n e d l y p a s s i o n a t e A l m a n z o r i n The Conquest of Granada a n d his predecessors.48 B u t commentators d i v i d e over w h e t h e r AurengZebe's s e l f - c o n t r o l m a r k s a n o n s e t of s e n t i m e n t a l i t y o r r e m a i n s w i t h i n t h e c o n c e p t of t h e h e r o i c e m b o d i e d i n S c u d i r y ' s Ibrahim a n d ArtameneA$ Dry-

116-132) quotes the passages he variously interprets as farcical, comical, satiric, or ironic. W e have not annotated our text correspondingly, b u t we note that our edition has elsewhere said "the critical debate [over King's and similar interpretations] should not be closed, but left open" (Works, X I , 435). 4 3 Namely, that reason controls the passions only in the sense of subordinating the greater to the lesser evil. Richard Leigh's The Censure of the Rota (1673) says that in the earlier heroic plays Dryden "represented Men in a Hobbian State of W a r " (James and Helen Kinsley, Dryden: The Critical Heritage [1971], p. 55). For Aureng-Zebe, see W o l f g a n g Mann, Drydens heroische Tragödien (1932), p. 15; Mildred Hartsock, "Dryden's Plays: A Study in Ideas," in Seventeenth Century Studies, 2d ser., ed. Robert Shafer (1937), pp. 71-176. King, Dryden's Major Plays, also sees a strong Hobbesian element in Aureng-Zebe, but he says emphatically that Dryden was only satirizing Hobbesian views, not accepting or promoting them (e.g., pp. 14-15, 117, 119). 44 Works, IX, 326; the passage in question is II, i, 207ff. (pp. i82ff. above). 45 John A. Winterbottom, " T h e Place of Hobbesian Ideas in Dryden's T r a g edies," JEGP, L V I I (1958), 665-683; Mishra, "Private Freedom," pp. 209, 214215. 46 See Barbeau [Gardiner], Intellectual Design, p. 140: " T h e essential design of Aureng-Zebe . . . is the testing of a virtuous man to see if he is worthy of succeeding to the throne." Somewhat similarly, Alssid, Dryden's Rhymed Heroic Plays, I, 134, says the theme of the play is "chaos—restoration [of order]—succession." Newman ("Irony and the Problem of T o n e , " p. 440) will have it that Aureng-Zebe triumphs partly in spite of his ideals and because of the lack of ideals in his opponents. 4 7 John A. Vance, "Beneath the Physical Beauty: A Study of Indamora in John Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," Essays in Literature (Western Illinois University, Macomb), V I (1979), 167: "Indamora is the moral force behind the p l a y " and so has heroic stature. 4 8 A s Scott points out (S-S, I, 131-132), objection to the sameness of the characterizations in Dryden's heroic plays goes back to Martin Clifford's Notes upon Mr. Dryden's Poems in Four Letters (1687). 4 9 A r t h u r C. Kirsch, " T h e Significance of Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," ELH, X X I X

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den's n o t i c e of Artamene i n his dedication h a r d l y suggests that h e shared the S c u d i r i a n v i e w of heroism, 5 0 b u t it seems very d o u b t f u l that h e h a d set himself a p a t h away f r o m heroism as he h a d previously r e p r e s e n t e d it. It is true that All for Love a n d Cymon and Iphigenia can b e p l a c e d f u r t h e r a l o n g such a p a t h , 5 1 b u t to suppose that D r y d e n h a d m a p p e d it o u t is to f a l l i n t o the error of post quod ergo propter quod. D r y d e n , i n m o r e m o d e r n terms, flies by the seat of his pants, n o t on a u t o p i l o t . 5 2 A u r e n g - Z e b e has n o rants, b u t D r y d e n never lost his c o n v i c t i o n that rants m a d e g o o d theater; h e simply b e g a n to distribute t h e m to d i f f e r e n t characters. I n Tyrannick Love, he h a d h a d perforce to give t h e m to the v i l l a i n of t h e piece, for they w o u l d h a v e b e e n i n a p p r o p r i a t e i n the m o u t h of t h e h e r o i n e St. C a t h e r i n e . I n Aureng-Zebe, also, he gave the rants to the villains M o r a t a n d his m o t h e r N o u r m a h a l . I n The Kind Keeper h e was to g i v e t h e m to o n e of the comical characters and, i n Cleomenes, to a b o y . I t is true that at a later time D r y d e n a p o l o g i z e d for the rants he h a d g i v e n his earlier (1962), 160-174, reprinted in his Dryden's Heroic Drama, emphasizes the play's "sentiment and piety" (p. 171) and says the transference of the rants from the hero to the villain subverts "the heroic ethos" (p. 163). Similarly, Waith (Herculean Hero, pp. 179-187) says Dryden has split the normal heroic character between Aureng-Zebe and Morat, leaving Morat "the more brilliant creation" and AurengZebe on the road to sentimental drama. Leslie Howard Martin, " T h e Consistency o£ Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," SP, L X X (1973), 306-328, maintains that Aureng-Zebe's prudence, temperance, piety, and jealousy are to be found in the romances of Scudery. It seems hardly correct to say with Martin that the villains of the piece are not really villainous but examples of flawed virtue (p. 320), yet, as Waith had pointed out, Morat's character does change for the better under the influence of Indamora (pp. 183-184). Ann Straulman, "Zempoalla, Lyndaraxa, and Nourmahal: "Dryden's Heroic Female Villains," English Studies in Canada, I (1975), 41-44, feels that the last of the three is mistreated by her husband, a chaotic thinker, and powerless. Powerless she certainly is not, since for a moment she usurps the throne, but Straulman's other ideas are worth consideration when estimating Nourmahal's character and the tone of the play. 50 See p. 156 above (Mandana). Derek Hughes, Dryden's Heroic Plays (1981), pp. 2-4, maintains that Dryden's analyses of the heroic play in terms of the classical epic were only window dressing, and that he always intended to include readers of the French romances among his audience. Richard Law, " T h e Heroic Ethos in John Dryden's Heroic Plays," SEL, X X I I I (1983), 389-398, takes a path trodden more lightly by many others when he argues that Dryden was sincere in seeing Renaissance theory of the epic as his model, and that Aureng-Zebe is what Dryden said it was in his dedication. 51 Martin, " T h e Consistency of Dryden's Aureng-Zebe" (pp. 307-308) observes that the seventeenth-century "epic" tradition as embodied in the French romances included the triumph of love over raw valor, a civilizing process. T h e civilizing power of love, this time with respect to a mere lout, is to be found in Boccaccio's Decameron, in the first tale of the fifth day, of which Cymon and Iphigenia is a translation. See Works, VII. 5 2 A more acceptable analysis of new directions taken is B. J. Pendlebury's that in Aureng-Zebe Dryden begins to change his mind as to tragedy's aim, that is, not to rouse "admiration and concernment," as he had said in An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (Works, XVII, 30), but "fear and pity," as he was to say at the beginning of The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy (Works, XIII, 229); see Dryden's Heroic Plays (1923), p. 125.

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heroes, 53 but, on the one hand, he was always as careful to praise his goal of the moment as he was quick to deny that he had attained it, and o n the other he knew his actors and audience thoroughly. A n d anyone w h o has seen a member of the O l d Vic burst on stage with a hundred-decibel shriek as J o h n de Stogumber in St. Joan, or a member of the R o y a l Shakespeare C o m p a n y with mucus trailing from his nose as he weeps passionately for the dead k i n g his father in 2 Henry IV, will recognize that the English still e n j o y exaggeration on the stage. 54 It must also be remembered that Aureng-Zebe the real person professed very m u c h the same devotion to his father as Aureng-Zebe the character does. T h e only difference is that the real person did not take the risk that his father would abdicate in his favor. W i t h o u t any r a n t i n g speeches, then, Aureng-Zebe becomes the same sort of hero as T o w e r s o n in Amboyna, a fact usually overlooked because it has not been recognized that Dryden conceived Amboyna as a serious tragedy, not a potboiling propaganda piece. A g a i n , Dryden never gave u p the idea that wars and bravery were right. H e will make his K i n g Arthur, "the British W o r t h y , " say: " I count not W a r a W r o n g : W a r is the T r a d e of Kings, that fight for E m p i r e . " 5 5 In other words, Aureng-Zebe is one more experiment in variation on the warriorhero. 5 6 Dryden also experimented with his female characters, thereby, as he tells us in his dedication, coming under some criticism from the ladies in his audience. 5 7 Indamora, the female lead, is afraid to die; Melesinda kills herself for love not, like Cleopatra, by a nice clean snakebite, but by a messy self-immolation that Dryden or the acting company decided not to show o n the stage. 58 W e k n o w that Dryden regarded Melesinda's suicide, at least in the abstract, as deeply moving. 5 9 W h e n it did not have the same effect on his female audience, he offered in the dedication to rewrite her part and Indamora's too. W h e t h e r the offer was serious we cannot say. O n e might argue that had he seriously regarded the criticism he w o u l d have rewritten the parts before publishing the play. O n the other hand, rewriting was not usual with h i m even in works a n d parts of works h e himself condemned. I n the present instance, he simply walked away from the play a n d continued his experimentation in the next one. 6 0 53 See dedication of The Spanish Fryar (Works, XIV, 100-101). 54 Kirsch forgot 2 Henry IV when he cited Aureng-Zebe's weeping as evidence of a new sentimentality in the age. 5 5 See note to The State of Innocence, V, iv, 190-199 (p. 380 above). 5 6 Aureng-Zebe's willingness to sacrifice his interests is a version of the magnanimity found in other heroic plays. See Kirsch, pp. 46-65, and Works, IX, 301302. Pp- 155-157 above. 58 i.e., by drawing the scene to reveal it, like the torture scene in Amboyna (p. 71 above). 59 See last lines of the "Connection" prefixed to The Twelfth Book of Ovid's 57

Metamorphoses (Works, VII). «0 He had revised The Wild Gallant between its first and second runs, was to revise The Kind Keeper extensively before publication, and had added part of a scene to 1 Conquest of Granada while it was in press. T o these examples, we may

add the later Albion and Albanius and King Arthur.

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Indamora's and Melesinda's contrasting attitudes toward death distinguish their characters. (Dryden has, of course, created opposite tensions for them—Indamora besieged by unwanted suitors, Melesinda abandoned by her husband—but the different causes produce the same result, grief.) Later he used the same device of different attitudes toward death to contrast the characters of Cratisiclea and Cleora in Cleomenes. In the dedication of Aureng-Zebe he tells us that he also intended Melesinda as a contrast to Nourmahal in their love or lack of it for their husbands. 61 In the play, Dryden also contrasts Nourmahal with her son Morat in the matter of their rants. Indamora's appeal to Morat's better nature turns him into a kind of junior Aureng-Zebe, but Nourmahal gets more fierce and wild with every line. T h e method of arriving at distinct characters by contrast and confrontation Dryden may have learned from Shakespeare or Jonson. 6 2 While Dryden was proud of his ability to create distinct character, 03 he also liked to make parallels between his men and his women, of which The Kind Keeper is the extreme example. In Aureng-Zebe, besides the more obvious parallels, we see that both Arimant and Melesinda find their love unrequited, but that they die heroically for an ideal. Commentators have also given some attention to the image sets in the play. 6 4 As to whether these, or any one of them, controls the direction of the play, or whether the play's direction calls for them, Dryden's theory of literary composition 65 indicates that the latter is the more likely. But all such discussions, however fascinating one finds the general subject and particularly the aesthetic question of consistency versus diversity, that is to say, of judgment by classical versus romantic standards, must fall short of finality. Consistency is automatic if the subject admits of only a few parallels. Otherwise, we cannot tell whether consistency is deliberate or reflects a limited imagination. Dryden seems to have had a very active imagination, but one hesitates to say more. In the prologue, as noted above, Dryden calls his play a "laborious Trifle," a judgment, as far as "trifle" is concerned, that we need give no more credence to than his statement that Amboyna was "mean." But "laborious" it may indeed have been because of its rhyming. He then announces his 61

P. 156 above. 62 The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy: "no man ever drew so many characters [as Shakespeare], or generally distinguished 'em better from one another, excepting only Johnson" (Works, XIII, 239). Defence of the Epilogue: "Let us ascribe to Jonson the height and accuracy of Judgment, in . . . his choice of characters, and maintaining what he had chosen, to the end" (ibid., XI, 217). Winn (p. 279) suggests Racine as an additional model. 83 See dedication of Love Triumphant (Works, XVI). M Prior, "Tragedy and the Heroic Play," pp. 158-177; Alssid, "The Design of Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," pp. 452-469; Frost, "Aureng-Zebe in Context," pp. 27-28. Alssid contradicts himself in one respect by saying (p. 455) that "Dryden accommodates the sun images to the literal events of the play," but his real thesis, as he says on p. 456, is "that Dryden's basic structural design . . . is conceived in terms of the sun analogy." 85 Discussed in headnote to The State of Innocence (pp. 335-340 above).

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growing sense that rhyme is not fit for representing emotion. I n his dedication, however, which we may safely assume was written later, while still talking about his " i l l Playes" he says instead, " I f I must be condemn'd to R h y m e , I should," to paraphrase, prefer to write an epic poem. 6 6 It would seem also that he was trying at this time to get a post at O x f o r d . 6 7 I n short, he was passing through a restless period (he was approaching the age of thirty-five, at the midpoint, as it turned out, of his life), and writing rhymed plays seemed to him at the moment to be just too difficult. H e wrote no more whole plays in rhyme, it is true, but he never really gave u p his former conviction, normal for a poet in his day, that rhyme was the best medium for expressing emotion. I n his last plays, the most intense emotions, particularly in confrontations and "repartie," continue to find expression in rhyme. 6 8 Still other reasons have been put forward f o r Dryden's dissatisfaction with rhyme, for example, that he "recognized that the age of the rhymed heroic play was over," that he could see from the ludicrousness of Settle's Empress of Morocco the danger of seeking to outdo himself, and that he was coming under the influence of Milton. 6 9 B u t we see that in the later preface to All for Love Dryden no longer condemned what he there calls " m y former w a y " of rhyme. 7 0 Granted that a simple explanation of a person's motives may well be incorrect, still, when we consider that in later years Dryden continued to write scenes in rhyme, a three-act opera in rhyme, and, as his last contribution to the stage, a masque in rhyme, we prefer to view him as having simply decided that five acts of rhyme were too much to write. Only in 1700 w o u l d he say he had practiced rhyme so long that it was as easy for him to write as "the other H a r m o n y of Prose." 7 1

In lines 2 3 - 2 4 and 37-38 of the prologue to the play Dryden complains of a restricted income from the theatre, both as writer and as shareholder. 7 2 I n the dedication he asks for a government grant, to be recompensed after the fact by the writing of an epic poem honoring the Stuarts. 7 3 Shortly after Aureng-Zebe was produced, dissension within the acting company reached so high a pitch that performances were suspended, to be resumed by royal order about the time the play was published. 7 4 Dryden may well have been worried about his income in 1676 and glad to have two payments of £ 1 0 0 of his back salary as poet laureate and historiographer royal. 7 5 W i t h i n his 66

P. 154 above. 67 Winn, p. 270. 68 One may guess that Dryden's fondness for rhymed repartee (dedication of The Rival Ladies, in Works, VIII, 100-101, etc.) goes back to games of capping verses in Westminster School. 69 Winn, pp. 259-260, 267-268. 70 Works, XIII, 18-19, noted by Winn, p. 300. 71 Preface to Fables, toward end of second paragraph (Works, VII; Kinsley, IV, 1446-47). 72 See pp. 159-160 above. 73 P. 154 above. 74 London Stage, Part I, p. 242. 75 See Winn, pp. 289, 529.

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wife's family there were worries of a different kind, ultimately of much more importance for h i m than financial problems. T h e Earl of Danby, w h o h a d succeeded Dryden's patron Lord Clifford as L o r d Treasurer, had persuaded the king to comply with the T e s t Act, and Dryden's brother-in-law, the Catholic Earl of Berkshire, was concerned lest D a n b y go further and introduce a bill in parliament that would exclude Catholic peers from the House of Lords. D a n b y did indeed introduce such a bill in 1675, but it was eventually dropped. 7 6 Berkshire, however, was shortly to involve himself so deeply in the Popish Plot against the king that he fled abroad and died in Paris. 7 7 A n d after W i l l i a m I I I came to the throne, Dryden, now himself a Catholic, suffered from the provisions of the T e s t A c t for the rest of his life. Written, then, at a time when England was approaching a constitutional crisis that had some similarity to the crisis faced by the emperor in the play, Aureng-Zebe has o f t e n attracted political interpretation, and will continue to do so, no doubt, as long as readers maintain an interest in Dryden's politics. W e may say, however, that such interpretation has already reached its extreme and can now be only a long, withdrawing roar. T h e extreme view will have it that all the characters provide guidance for Charles II and his brother, their good characteristics commending the Stuarts' good traits a n d their bad characteristics warning them of traits to reform or to avoid. Such an interpretation in effect denies the enduring value of the play as a structure of ideas. 78 A m u c h more moderate view w i l l have it that AurengZebe "presents no sustained obvious parallel to the current English situa t i o n . " 7 9 B u t can it be only an accident that a determined seeker can find so many parallels between the play and the politics of its day? Dryden seems Winn, p. 272; Macaulay, 1,212-213. i t Winn, pp. 321, 373. 78 McFadden, pp. 194-199. Two passages, taken by themselves, could stand as a more moderate position: " T h e central political idea of Aureng-Zebe concerns the position and attitude of the Duke of York with regard to the succession. . . . James was content for years to be the second gentleman in the nation and a model of loyalty and obedience to the King" (p. 194). " T h e evident parallel between [the actions of Aureng-Zebe] and the political situation in England at the end of 1675 may be stated, simply by stating in political terms the subject of Aureng-Zebe: the government of the reigning monarch, though threatened by ambitious pretenders and rendered unpopular by unwise indulgence of women, is adequately supported by a loyal and obedient prince, who stands ready to fill any power vacuum that may develop and fill it legally, so that obedience and power will continue to go hand in hand, rather than being fatally divided" (pp. 197-198). T h e more extreme view seriously underestimates the number of parallels between Dryden's play and the facts of Indian history. 79 Winn, p. 273. Although Anne Barbeau [Gardiner], Intellectual Design, begins by saying the "design of Aureng-Zebe might be summed up as the problem of the Indian succession" (p. 129), she modifies this view by repeated statements that the "play dealfs] with private, moral issues, rather than political ones" (p. 134) until she arrives at the position quoted above that the "essential design . . . is the testing of a virtuous man" (p. 140). This is perhaps the place also to mention that King says the "main theme of Aureng-Zebe is the disquieting effects of the imagination," because the "force that drives [the characters] is the desire to fulfil impossible fancies" (p. 119). But, as noted above, King thinks the play is essentially comic, whereas McFadden does not. 76

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to have read Bernier with so deep an interest that a myriad of details sank into the "deep w e l l " of his mind for later conscious or unconscious use (the phrase is J. L . Lowes's, speaking of Coleridge and The Ancient Mariner). Surely Dryden was equally imbued with contemporary politics and thus m a y have been, consciously or unconsciously, aware of the many parallels between East and West, India in 1658 and E n g l a n d in 1675. Also, h e was shortly to display his ingenuity in finding contemporary and English parallels to the biblical stories of David's court and Absalom's rebellion. T h e best evidence that Dryden had a political purpose in Aureng-Zebe comes from the players. Cibber had reasons for believing that Dryden intended Morat's rants to be comic, namely, as noted above, that Kynaston, who created the part, had spoken them so as to raise a laugh, and that Dryden had probably coached him in the part. 80 A n d when Barton B o o t h , w h o acted Morat from 1708 to 1713, during which time succession to the throne was once more an issue, was asked why he spoke so tamely the line "I'll do 't, to show my Arbitrary pow'r," he replied: " I t was not through negligence, but by design, that I gave no spirit to that ludicrous bounce of Morat. I know very well, that a laugh of approbation may be obtained from the understanding few, but there is nothing more dangerous than exciting the laugh of simpletons, w h o know not where to stop. T h e majority is not the wisest part of the audience, and therefore I will run no hazard." 8 1 B u t we must also note that in 1740 C i b b e r wrote that Booth's way of speaking the rants was an aesthetic rather than a political choice: " B o o t h thought it depreciated the Dignity of T r a g e d y to raise a Smile in any part of it." 82 So Dryden may have had a political purpose in writing his play, and it may have had a political influence. In answer to the question, " C a n a movie make a difference in the way people think and behave?" Michael Moore said of his Roger ir Me, the most acclaimed documentary film of its year, "It's not going to change things tomorrow. B u t it's a small piece of w h a t I h o p e is a much larger mosaic of people becoming active in the 1990s. T h a t ' s something I would really like to see happen. A n d if I or this film can play a small part in that, it would be great." 8 3 T h e pressing need of the 1990s, as in 1675, 1680, 1685, 1688, and all time, is the development of processes for the peaceful transfer of power. R a p i d , wholly unexpected, and largely bloodless melting away of tyrannies in many parts of the world has taken place before our eyes. Perhaps the reading of Aureng-Zebe can give the play a small share in developing the attitude we need today in politics (and 8 o See Works, XI, 434-435, a n d for Dryden's coaching of his actors see W a r d , Letters, p. 54. Bi Quoted in S-S, V, 184. See n. 28 above. 82 Apology, quoted in Works, XI, 434. Similarly, W a i t h , Herculean Hero (pp. 187188), taking Cibber's two pictures of Kynaston in t h e role as inconsistent—on t h e one h a n d saying h e m a d e the rants ludicrous and on t h e other saying " h e h a d a fierce Lion-like Majesty in his P o r t and Utterance t h a t gave t h e Spectator a kind of trembling Admiration"—thinks the latter the m o r e likely. According to Cibber, however, as we have seen, it was t h e contrast between his look a n d t h e way h e delivered t h e line t h a t raised the laugh. 83 Interview with David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor, 16 J a n u a r y iggo, p. 11.

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human interactions of all sorts). Aureng-Zebe trusted that his father's desire to do right would reassert itself. Perhaps those who read of his trust will remember it, when their policies have proved wrong or too unpopular, and will be more willing to wait, and to work on in peace, until circumstances change and their guidance once more seems valuable. O n e need not always take the view that Dryden's beliefs cannot be determined from the speeches of fictitious persons whose thoughts he has imagined. But neither need one suppose that the play has no message other than a political one. In its complexities it constitutes an extraordinarily wide survey of love, friendship, and respect, alone and when confronted by hate, lust, disdain, abandonment, jealousy, and death, conflicts that in the deepest analysis must be resolved before the good qualities find their full expression in politics. Dryden may well have had the larger purpose of reflecting and encouraging the best thinking about life in all its aspects that his age could manage. Some scholars think of this larger interest as the onset of sentimentality, 84 but to do so is to trivialize Dryden as a moralist. W e should read the play with our moral antennae quivering to find every moral nourishment it can provide, even if we cannot agree with all its ideas. It is too much to call the play Dryden's 1 Corinthians chapter xiii, but if we do not put it down with more courage to go forward, more willingness to put self aside, more determination to love and foster good everywhere, we have read it in vain.

TITLE PAGE Royal Theatre. In Drury Lane. Servant to his Majesty. As poet laureate, historiographer royal, and shareholder in the King's Company of actors. Sed, cum fregit. . . . Agaven. " B u t when his verses have brought down the house, poor Statius will starve if he does not sell his virgin Agave to Paris [a dancer]" (Juvenal, Satires, VII, 86-87; Loeb). It would appear that the reference is to the dedication (p. 154 above), where Dryden calls himself "the Sisyphus of the Stage." Licenced Roger L'Estrange. L'Estrange (1660-1704) was licenser of the press 1663-1688.

DEDICATION P. 149 John Sheffield, third Earl of Mulgrave, born in 1648, became earl on the death of his father in 1658. Charles II made him Gentleman of the Bedchamber in 1673 and Knight of the Garter in 1674. It was he who finally provided the monument for Dryden's grave in Westminster A b b e y in 1720, by which time he had become Duke of Buckingham and Normanby. H e died in 1721. From Johnson's Life of Sheffield {Lives of the English Poets, ed. George Birkbeck Hill [1905], II, 167-179) we learn that Mulgrave was largely self84 E.g., Kirsch, "Significance of Aureng-Zebe" pp. 118-119.

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educated: "Such a purpose, formed at such an age [twelve or earlier by Johnson's calculation] and successfully prosecuted, delights as it is strange, and instructs as it is real" (p. 167). Possibly Dryden intends to compliment Mulgrave on this self-education by the unusually large amount of Latin in the dedication, if he was not instead following the example of Montaigne, who figures so largely in the piece. Johnson continues: "His literary acquisitions are more wonderful, as those years in which they are commonly made were spent by him in the tumult of a military life or the gaiety of a court." His first published poems had appeared in 1672 in A Collection of Poems, Written upon Several Occasions by Several Persons. He was subsequently to write An Essay upon Poetry (1682), various works in prose, including The Character of Charles II (i6g6), and speeches to the House of Lords, one of which he put to the press. Johnson says he was "intimately known" to James Duke of York, "by whom he thought himself beloved" (p. 170). Winn then deduces that Dryden was showing his own enduring commitment to the king's brother by this dedication (p. 254). For more information on Mulgrave's long friendship and once collaboration with Dryden see Works, II, 278-279, 382; IV, 541; VI, 941. Winn (p. 254) is inclined to attribute Dryden's break with the Earl of Rochester to Mulgrave's influence. In 1677 Mulgrave intervened somehow to help Dryden in getting his salary and in obtaining the permission of the Earl of Danby to accept the dedication of All for Love (Winn, p. 303). On the other hand, Mulgrave's unpublished poem, "An Essay on Satire," may have been attributed to Dryden, who may have suffered a beating in Rose Street, Covent Garden, because of that attribution. W h o assaulted Dryden, and consequently why, has never been established (see headnote to The Kind Keeper, Works, XIV, 375 and n. 67). 149:2-5 'Tis ... our own. Summers (IV, 47g) identifies Dryden's reference as being to Montaigne's Essais, III, ix, De la vanité, "Les princes . . . me font assez de bien quand ils ne me font point de mal" (Essais, ed. Pierre Villey [1978], II, 968; Complete Works, trans. Donald M. Frame [1958], p. 739). Various passages in III, i, De l'utile et de l'honneste, might also be cited; see note to 1. 14. 149:6 Censure. Summers (IV, 479) says the meaning here is simply "opinion" (OED), but in the last word of the sentence Dryden calls it a complaint (1. 9). Hence Saintsbury (S-S, V, 188) says the meaning is "criticism." 149:7 congratulate to. OED, citing this passage, shows the construction in use from 1607 to 1710. 149:10 wholely. I.e., counting his being a shareholder in and the writer for the acting company as made possible by the king, who was its patron. 149:11 Montaign. In fact, Montaigne says hardly anything about his king and nothing that is certainly pejorative. Summers (IV, 479) therefore proposes that Dryden had in mind not Montaigne's king but his court. But Dryden in his next sentence distinguishes between king and court. W e can only suppose, then, that Dryden misremembered Montaigne, or that he had in mind Essais, II, xxxii, Défence de Seneque et de Plutarque, at the beginning of which Montaigne speaks of Charles I X as "poor": "nostre pauvre feu Roy Charles neufiesme" (Essais, I, 721; Complete Works, p. 545). Géralde Nakam, Montaigne et Son Temps (1982), pp. 137-138, in her analysis of "nostre

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p a u v r e feu Roy," maintains that "Montaigne a de l'attachement p o u r Charles IX." 149:14 Montaign. Summers (IV, 479-480) cites Essais, I, xlii, De l'inégalité qui est entre nous, a n d III, viii, De l'art de conférer. T h e former says that king a n d peasant are fundamentally the same, moved by cowardice, irresolution, ambition, spite, a n d envy (Essais, I, 260; Complete Works, p . 191). T h e latter says that most of Montaigne's acquaintances dissimulate a n d reject criticism (Essais, II, 924; Complete Works, p. 705). L i n k refers only a n d instead to III, i, De l'utile et de l'honneste, which says that some public offices require wicked actions of those who fill them, o n the o n e h a n d , a n d o n the other advises against letting personal bitterness influence one's actions a n d against "fishing in troubled waters" (Essais, II, 791, 794; Complete Works, p p . 600, 602). 149:16 describes them such, whose Ambition. Saintsbury regarded t h e construction here as "inelegant, if not positively incorrect. . . . But it may be traced to talis qui, which, though not very common, is good L a t i n " (S-S, V, 188). See note to 149:17. 149:16 Interest. Dryden seems to have h a d the play very m u c h in m i n d , perhaps subconsciously, as he wrote the dedication. "Interest" is a n important theme in the play, a n d Dryden returns to it in the dedication in 11. 2 5 26 a n d 152:21-22. Aureng-Zebe's setting aside of his interest distinguishes h i m f r o m all the other characters except Arimant. See also note to 152:22. 149:17 seems. All the texts collated have "seem." OED points o u t (s.v. or) that " W h e n singular subjects (sb. or pron.) are co-ordinated by or, strict logic a n d the rules of modern grammarians require the vb. a n d following p r o n o u n s to be singular; but at all times there has been a tendency to use the plural with two or more singular subjects when their m u t u a l exclusion is not emphasized." Dryden h a d become a grammarian, as we see f r o m the Defence of the Epilogue a p p e n d e d to The Conquest of Granada (1672; Works, XI, 207-211); f r o m his revisions in the 1684 edition of An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (see ibid., XVII, 332, 489-499); a n d f r o m a letter to William Walsh in 1691 (Ward, Letters, p p . 33-36). B u t he tells us in the dedication of Troilus and Cressida (1679; Works, X I I I , 222) t h a t when he was in d o u b t about grammar he translated his English i n t o Latin. In Latin, "seem" would have been normal (J. B. Greenough et al., Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar [1916], p. 194 [sec. 317b]). 149:22-24 But somewhat . . . discerning Judges. A n e n d u r i n g conviction of Dryden's. See W a r d , Letters, p. 72: "we . . . are at the Mercy of W r e t c h e d Scribblers: A n d when they cannot fasten u p o n our Verses, they fall u p o n o u r Morals, our Principles of State a n d Religion" (about March 1694). 149:22 Specious. " H a v i n g a fair or attractive appearance or character, calculated to make a favourable impression o n the mind, b u t in reality devoid of the qualities apparently possessed" (OED, citing this passage). See also V, i, 428 (p. 240 above), where it is a tower that is "specious." 150:11 Grains for its Allowance. T h i s passage is the first citation in OED for "allowance" u n d e r the definition "fig. T h e taking into account, or consideration, of mitigating, extenuating, or excusing circumstances." A grain is the "smallest English a n d U.S. unit of weight" (OED). 150:20-23 no more quarter . . . with safety. Dryden's continual dislike

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of the Dutch has been surveyed in the headnote to Amboyna (pp. 265-268 above). Mulgrave's service in the second and third Dutch wars may have suggested the present outburst. 150:21-22 strike Sail. Furl topsails. See Amboyna, V, i, 269 (p. 70 above). 150:22 murder. Amboyna recounts the principal example. 150:26 a Master of it. In the general sense of a master workman, this praise is not an exaggeration; "it" can mean wit or satire or both. 150:30-31 lowness of my Fortune. This from the person who held the highest positions in government that a mere author could hold may reflect the fact that Dryden had not been paid his salary for the preceding year (see Winn, p. 529). Note that Dryden partly contradicts himself in 151:30-32. 151:2 A popular man. Winn (p. 312) thinks Dryden has Shaftesbury in view. Certainly he was to say in Absalom and Achitophel, 1. 689, that Monmouth, under the influence of Shaftesbury, bowed "popularly low" (Works, II, 26). 151:5-7 Even Cicero . . . succeeding Ages. T h e anacoluthon could be avoided by omitting "he." 151:8 Consul. It was while Cicero was consul, in 63 B.C., that he accused Catiline in the Roman senate of conspiring to seize the government, drove him from Rome, and obtained the execution of his coconspirators. Cicero's fellow consul Antonius brought Catiline to bay, and though Antonius refused to lead the troops in the battle, Catiline died fighting. 151:11 vanity. As Summers notes (IV, 480), Cicero himself acknowledged that the members of the Pontifical College blamed him "for being too boastfull in sounding [his] own praises" (Pro Domo Sua, X X X V ) . Summers also notes that Dryden was to repeat his criticism of Cicero's vanity in the Discourse of Satire (Works, IV, 7). 151:12 Brutus. Brutus did indeed keep his conspiracy against Caesar from Cicero, though they were close friends, but according to Plutarch's Life of Cicero (XLII, 1) it was because the conspirators were afraid his nature and his age would make him fainthearted. For Brutus's conspiracy with Cassius to murder Caesar see Plutarch, Life of Caesar, L X V I , 3-7. 151:13 A Modern Wit. Montaigne, as Summers notes (IV, 481). Dryden rephrases the second sentence of Considération sur Cicéron (Essais, I, xl): "[Cicéron et Pliny] sollicitent, au sceu de tout le monde, les historiens de leur temps de ne les oblier en leurs registres; et la fortune, comme par despit, a faict durer jusques à nous la vanité de ces requestes, et pieça [= depuis longtemps] faict perdre ces histoires" (Essais, I, 249; Complete Works, p. 183). Link cites Cicero's Ad Familiares V, xii, 3. 151:15 his Friends, the Historians. As Summers notes (IV, 481), these were the Roman Pomponius Atticus and the Rhodian Posidonius (see Ad Atticum, II, 1). 151:18-24 How much . . . returning it. It is possible that Dryden here writes in defense of Mulgrave. Scott (S-S, V, 187), following Malone (III, 425-426), recorded the opinions of John Macky and Jonathan Swift that Mulgrave was hypocritical, proud, and insolent, not esteemed or beloved, influential at court but not elsewhere, and quotes Macky's Secret Services: " H e is of a middle stature, of a brown complexion, with a sour lofty look."

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Johnson wrote of him: "His character is not to be proposed as worthy of imitation" (II, 174). 151:2a tenderness. This may be the source of part of Johnson's characterization: "He is said, however, to have had much tenderness" (idem). 151:28 choice of Friends. Winn (p. 254) thinks Dryden probably alludes to Mulgrave's antipathy to Rochester. 151:30 care. What this care was is unknown, but its general nature may be guessed at from Mulgrave's subsequent efforts on Dryden's behalf. See biographical sketch (p. 400 above). 151:32 my own modesty and Laziness. Perhaps in not stirring himself more to get his salary paid, i.e., through the influence of relatives or friends (see note to 150:30-31). Dryden returns to this aspect of his character in above. 152:2-10 From this constancy . . . for a Friend. The matter of forgiveness and reconciliation is a major theme in Aureng-Zebe, and it provides a last tension when Aureng-Zebe, triumphant over all his enemies, cannot forgive what he supposes is unfaithfulness in Indamora. 152:3-5 Resentments . . . restrain'd by . . . good Nature and Generosity. This may be the source of Johnson's characterization: "He is said . . . to have been very ready to apologise for his violences of passion" (II, 174). For the meaning of "Generosity" and its importance in the play see note to I, i, 90 (p. 415 below). 152:10 Italians. Winn (p. 254) speculates that Dryden is indirectly complimenting Mary Beatrice of Modena, who had recently become the second wife of the Duke of York, and to whom he would later dedicate The State of Innocence (see pp. 81-85 above). 152:11-12 To forgive . . . a Fool. Apparently a version of Tilley M424, which quotes the form in Giovanni Torriano, Piazza universale di proverbi italiani, or A Common Place of Italian Proverbes (1666), no. 28, p. 119: "A wise man may be deceived once, a fool many times." Perhaps Dryden learned his version from someone in the entourage of the Duchess of York. Jeremy Collier, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698), pp. 67-68, said the proverb was lewd and blasphemous. Winn (p. 353) glosses: "In a nominally Christian society, forgiveness toward one's enemies was supposedly a shared value; in a violent and retributive society, . . . it was also folly." He adds that Dryden therefore attacked his enemies in satire; that in Astrea Redux, 11. 256-259 (Works, I, 29), he points to what happened to Charles I, who forgave his enemies; and that in his dramas his characters suffer similarly. Yet, as Winn also notes (pp. 428-429), Dryden forgave Prior and Montagu for The Hind and the Panther Transvers'd and made no reply to the other attacks on him in 1687, as if accepting the words of the Hind, III, 302-305 (Works, III, 170). 152:15-25 A Prince . . . sepulcro. Scott and Saintsbury (S-S, V, 192) objected to what they felt was flattery here; McFadden (p. 131) believes Dryden was sincere. 152:18-19 Si fractus . . . ruina. "Were the vault of heaven to break and fall upon him, its ruins would smite him undismayed" (Horace, Odes, III, iii, 7-8; Loeb).

Commentary 152:22 Cabals of Factions. Another theme in the play; see I, i, 18-19 (P162 above) and note to Persons Represented, Factions (p. 411 below). 152:24-25 Ille meos . . . sepulcro. "He, who first linked me to himself, has taken away my heart; may he keep it with him, and guard it in the gravel" (Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 28-29; Loeb). 152:33 common Sea-men. Apparently a reference to Mulgrave's volunteering aboard a flagship of the English fleet at the beginning of the Second Dutch War (1665), when he was in his teens. As Johnson notes (II, 167), on that occasion contrary winds separated the fleets before they could engage. Later Mulgrave was transferred to command a cavalry unit guarding the coast (II, 168). He volunteered again at the beginning of the Third Dutch War (1672), and this time he not only served aboard the Victory at the battle of Sole Bay, 28 May, but was rewarded for his bravery by being given command, says Johnson, of "the Katherine, the best second-rate ship in the navy." (A "second-rate ship" is of the next to the largest type.) Scott adds: "This vessel had been captured by the Dutch during the action, but was retaken by the English crew before she could be carried into harbour. Lord Mulgrave had a picture of the Katharine at his house in St. James's Park," now, remodeled, Buckingham Palace (S-S, V, 193; see also GEC, II, 398). 153:2 Conduct. See note to dedication of The State of Innocence, 82:28 (p. 345 above). We may add here that in The Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses, 11. 541-542 (Works, VII), Ulysses says "Art / And Conduct" are "of War the better part." See also notes to I, i, 48 and 98-101 (pp. 414, 415 below). Linking of "conduct" and "courage" was or became conventional; see, e.g., dedication of the Fables (Works, VII; Kinsley, IV, 1441, 1. 112). 153:4 one of your Noble Ancestors. Edmund, first Baron Sheffield. Horace Walpole, Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England (Works [1798-1825], I, 306), says Sheffield "had his brains knocked out by a butcher in an insurrection in Norfolk." Scott and Summers retell the story in progressively more elegant language. Scott says Sheffield "fell with his horse into a ditch" in a battle with rebellious peasants under Robert Ket in 1548 or 1549 "and was slain by a butcher with a club" (S-S, V, 193, citing Dugdale's Baronage, II, 386, and Holinshed, p. 1035). Summers (IV, 482) has "a huge partisan" instead of "a club" and adds "as some say." 153:10 Adjunct. "Non-essential attribute" (OED). 153:10 Propriety. "Essential quality" (OED). 153:10-13 The Academicks . . . Greatness. The play explores these matters in the character of Morat. 153:10 Academicks. Plato and his followers, who taught in the Academy, a gymnasium in a grove sacred to the hero Academus near Athens. 153:11 Goods of Fortune. If Dryden means wealth, he is wrong about Plato, who urged a simplicity of life in which there were no rich and no poor, because wars to gain or keep wealth had torn apart the Greek cities he knew (see, for instance, Republic, II, 373E [Loeb, p. 163]; also The Dictionary of the History of Ideas, III, 629; IV, 175). 153:13 Greatness. Like "interest," a theme word in the play; see III, i, 166; IV, i, 193, 377; IV, ii, 27, 108; and V, i, 83, where at last true greatness is defined (pp. 197, 215, 220, 222, 224, 230 above). 153:13-15 Neither am I . . . retirement. Dryden has just exempted Mul-

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grave from the general condemnation, but, to make sure Mulgrave will recognize the fact, he speaks explicitly and at length in 11. 25ff. 153:14 admire. See the praise of Clifford in dedication of Amboyna (pp. 4-5 above). 153:14 covet. Presumably the retirement Dryden coveted was from writing for the stage, so as to compose an epic (see p. 154 above). 153:15-18 I naturally . . . the danger. It is always interesting to speculate on the personal experience that may lie behind such images. Was Dryden really afraid of heights? Where had he stood on a precipice? On the south coast? At the Cheddar Gorge? Had he memories of some cathedral gallery, or had he been invited to climb to the top of the Monument in London, then building? 153:21-24 Suave mari . . . suave est. "Pleasant it is, when on the great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation: not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive what ills you are free from yourself is pleasant" (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, II, 1-4; Loeb). 153:25 his Master Epicurus. As Summers notes (IV, 482), Epicurus conducted his philosophical school in Athens in a garden he had purchased. Lucretius, who was an Epicurean, gave an exposition of Epicurus's philosophy in De Rerum Natura. 153:25 my better Master Cowley. Cowley wrote an essay, The Garden (with an appended poem), in which he praised retirement; see his Essays, Plays and Sundry Verses, ed. A. R. Waller (1906), pp. 420-428. See note to the Apology prefixed to The State of Innocence, 94:1-5 (p. 350 above). 153:27-28 those unhappy People, . . . we call the great. Another draught on the play (see note to III, i, 172-173, p. 427 below). When Dryden found it possible to dedicate works to great personages he forgot all about this commonplace, and he ignored the second part of the proverb " T h e great would have none great and the little all little" (Tilley G435; only citation 1640). 153:28-31 True greatness . . . centring on it self. Such is the Christian doctrine: "whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant" (Matt. 20:26-27, Mark 10:43-44, Luke 22:26). 153:32-154:2 Omnis enim . . . opibus. "For the very nature of divinity must necessarily enjoy immortal life in the deepest peace, remote from care and fear, itself mighty by its own resources" (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, II, 646-650; Loeb, adjusted). Instead of "remote from care and fear" Lucretius has "far removed and separated from our affairs; for without any pain, without danger" (Loeb). Dryden's change, more radical than usual with him, turns the quotation from a fragment into a complete sentence. Scott remarks (S-S, V, 195): "Dryden ingeniously applies, to the calm of philosophical retirement, the Epicurean tranquillity of the deities of Lucretius." Paul Hammond, " T w o Echoes of Rochester's A Satire against Reason and Mankind in Dryden," NirQj 233 (1988), 171, observes that in 1673, in a letter to Rochester, Dryden had quoted the whole of the last line that he breaks off here (Ward, Letters, p. 9).

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154:4-7 I can be contented . . . Pinacle of it. See Eccles. 7:16: "Be not righteous over much; . . . why shouldest thou destroy thyself?" 154:8-9 Despicere unde. . . . qutzrere vita. "Whence you may look down upon others and behold them all astray, wandering abroad and seeking the path of life" (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, II, 9-10; Loeb). 154:10-14 The truth is, . . . Play-house. Winn (pp. 260-261) interprets this passage as follows: "Dryden implies that writing rhymed drama is the act of a fool. . . . Dryden's willingness to expose himself to the laughter of others by acknowledging that he was 'a sufficient Theater to [him] self of ridiculous actions,' a remarkably unguarded statement for a printed dedication, probably owes something to [his attempt to court Rochester, who had now attacked him, and his liaison with Anne Reeves, for which he had been lampooned by Buckingham] and other personal follies, but as a literary statement, it springs from the same perception about the potential for unintended comedy in rhymed drama that led to the slapstick epilogue to Tyrannick Love and the vigorous satiric prose aimed at Settle [in Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco]." Dryden is, however, no more unguarded here than in many another dedication or preface or prologue or epilogue. See headnote to Amboyna (p. 276 above). And as the headnote to Aureng-Zebe points out (p. 396 above), Dryden never really disbelieved that rhyme was the best vehicle for intense emotion. 154:12 a sufficient Theater. Summers (IV, 482) notes that Dryden quotes Seneca, Epistles, I, vii, n , who says he is quoting Epicurus: "we are each a sufficient theater for the other." 154:14-16 'Tis on this account . . . others. Dryden refers to comedy. See also 11. 23-24. 154:15 Lazars. Summers (IV, 482) notes that Dryden thinks of lepers as appearing in paintings not only here but in the preface to Tyrannick Love (Works, X, 110), and, we may add, in A Defense of an Essay of Dramatique Poesie (Works, IX, 7). Contra Summers, the word "Lazar" is not common in Dryden but rare, possibly appearing nowhere else. 154:20 proverb. Tilley S885 (first citation in English, 1536-1537; it is also in Erasmus's Adagia). 154:27 an Heroique Poem. In the Discourse of Satire (Works, IV, 22) Dryden said he was doubtful as to whether his epic should concern King Arthur or the exploits in Spain of the Black Prince, eldest son of Edward III and father of Richard II. As he describes his project here, he seems to have had the latter in mind, and Scott (V, 196) and Summers (IV, 483) so conclude. Summers quotes Johnson: " H e mentions his design in terms so obscure, that he seems afraid lest his plan should be purloined." 155:5 the unsettl'dness of my condition. See note to 150:30-31, and headnote (p. 396 above). 155:8 Poverty. " T h e common tradition related . . . that in his old age [Homer] was blind and poor" (SCD). 155:12 Macenas. A patron of Virgil and Horace, whom they made famous. Dryden later introduced his name into All for Love, I, i, 52 (Works, XIII, 25; see also p. 15). It was formerly supposed that, as a confidant of Augustus, he was able to restore to Virgil "his farm, which had been appropriated by the soldiery in the division of lands in B.C. 41" (SCD), a view

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now rejected both because Maecenas is not mentioned in the Eclogues, the first of which is about the loss of the farm, and because Georgia, I, 198-199 implies that the loss was permanent. Be that as it may, Dryden certainly wishes Mulgrave to intervene with the king and the duke. 155:15 the Heroes. Probably in the same way that Virgil represents Augustus in Aeneas by giving Aeneas some of Augustus' characteristics. 155:17 Achilles is said to be rous'd. Iliad X V I I I suggests that it was not so much the battle itself as the death of his friend Patroclus in it that roused Achilles. Watson (I, 191) notes that Dryden is apparently thinking of Book X V I , where Achilles says he will not fight until the Trojans win through to his own ships but lets Patroclus wear his armor in the defense of the other ships. McFadden (p. 170) believes Dryden may have thought he ought not to stir up warlike tendencies in his rulers. He notes that in the dedication of All for Love (1678; Works, XIII, 6) Dryden would write, "we cannot win by an Offensive War," but he neglects to note that Dryden was siding with his dedicatee in the matter of going to war with France (see Works, XIII, 392395) and that in King Arthur, he makes his hero, whom he had originally modeled on Charles II, say: "I count not War a Wrong" (see headnote, p. 394 above). 155:19-20 the advantage of my Reputation. Dryden had yet to produce the kind of poetry that would inspire confidence in his ability to bring off an epic, though we see later that Blackmore, a much lesser poet, produced two. 155:22 the nearest. I.e., very near. Latin, Italian, and English all allow the superlative form to mean "very." 155:24-25 Some things .. . your amendment. Dryden seems to have made a practice of submitting his work to others for approval. 155:25-33 You were ... by my Writing. Dryden forgets that he has lumped together all his dramas as "ill Playes" in 154:27; later he describes AurengZebe as "what my meanness can produce" (157:30). See headnote (p. 399 above). 155:28-29 the most considerable event of it modell'd by his Royal Pleasure. Shortly after this time Charles had some similar part in "one of the designes" in The Kind Keeper (Ward, Letters, p. 12). W e do not know in either play what it is that Dryden refers to, but see headnote (p. 386 above). 155:32 my private opinion. In strict logic, Dryden's estimates here and in 157:30 are not contradictory; see also his statement in 156:27-28: "[I] am too well satisfi'd of my own weakness, to be pleas'd with any thing I have written." 156:8 a practicable Virtue. So much is ironic in this passage that one cannot be sure how serious Dryden is here. Much later, in the character of Cratisiclea in another history play, Cleomenes, he would present a woman who was utterly fearless, as attested by Plutarch. 156:9-10 I have made my Heroine fearful of death. W e may guess that Dryden felt Indamora became thereby a more interesting character, for in Cleomenes (1692) he was once more to explore fear of death in a woman, Cleora, the hero's wife. 156:10 neither Cassandra nor Cleopatra. Dryden is amusing himself. His

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female critics knew of these women as the heroines of novels they had read, not as they appear in classical literature. As Summers notes (IV, 483), Cassandra and Cleopatra are novels by Gautier de Costes de La Calprenède. 156:12 Mandana. T h e heroine of Artamène, ou Le Grand Cyrus, by Magdeleine de Scudéry (Scott, S-S, V, 198). Summers (IV, 483-485) quotes the relevant passages. Mandane, a Median princess, loves Artamène (Cyrus the Great of Persia), and is loved by him, by Philidaspes (Labinet, king of Assyria), and by Anaxaris (Aryante, king of the Massagetae). Anaxaris carries her off, and Philidaspes, who first catches up with the fugitives, does battle with him. Philidaspes falls and when Mandane comes close to him "il la prit par sa Robe." She supposes that he has killed Cyrus, but he assures her to the contrary. Anaxaris's guards then set about killing him. Having sought in vain to dissuade them from their purpose, Mandane, "touchée d'vne extreme compassion," sits on the grass nearby to watch the end, and when Philidaspes staggers over and falls into her lap, she allows him to take her hand "respectueusement" as he dies. (The scene opens Part IX, Book I.) Leslie Howard Martin, in " T h e Consistency of Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," SP, L X X (1973), 316, notes that Morat resembles Labinet. Dryden models Morat's death on Philidaspes' (pp. 237-240 above), but makes much more dramatic use of it as the scene continues. 156:21-22 Indian Wives are loving Fools. Possibly Dryden is thinking of the Hindu custom of suttee, which he represents Melesinda as following; see V, i, 610-634 (pp. 246-247 above). Later Dryden wrote: "In death undaunted as an Indian wife" ( T h e Hind and the Panther, I, 442 [Works, III, 136]). 156:23 Arria. T h e wife of Caecina Paetus. Paetus was ordered by the emperor Claudius to commit suicide. When he hesitated, Arria stabbed herself and handed him the weapon, saying it did not hurt (Summers, [IV, 485] refers to Pliny, Epistles, III, 16; Martial, I, 14; and Dio Cassius, IX, 16). 156:24 Portia. T h e wife of Marcus Brutus, who committed suicide, when her husband died, by swallowing live coals. Her death is thus more like the custom of suttee than Arria's (Summers [IV, 485] refers to Valerius Maximus, IV, vi, 5; Plutarch, Life of Brutus, 53; and Dio Cassius, X L V I I , 49). 156:32 a transient Presentation. This ironic excuse, if seriously considered, would be contradicted by what Dryden was to say in the dedication of The Spanish Fryar: "a judicious Reader will discover in his Closset that trashy stuffe, whose glittering deceiv'd him in the action [on the stage]" (Works, XIV, 99-100). 156:33-35 The most judicious . . . to be deceiv'd. Cf. the Apology prefixed to The State of Innocence, p. 87 above. 157:4 Homo sum . . . puto. "I am a man, I hold that what affects another man affects me" (Terence, Heautontimorumenos, 1. 77; Loeb). 157:6-9 Our minds . . . to be. W i n n (p. 498) quotes Jeremy Collier's Short View, p. 68: " T h e meaning is, he suspects our Souls are nothing but Organiz'd Matter: Or, in plain English, our Souls are nothing but our Bodies; and then when the Body dies, you may guess what becomes of theml T h u s the Authorities of Religion are weaken'd, and the prospect of the other World almost shut up." Winn notes (p. 13) the "physical determinism" in

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this passage and finds (p. 176) some similarity in Annus Mirabilis, 11. 125140 (Works, I, 64-65). 157:10 Montaign. Summers (IV, 485) remarks that Dryden is not quoting but paraphrasing things said often in the Essais, and in particular II, xii, Apologie de Raimond Sebond, where Montaigne quotes the passage from Cicero that Dryden gives just below (Essais, I, 564; Complete Works, p. 424). Link says Dryden is probably thinking of III, xiii, De l'expérience. 157:12-13 who is so proud of a reasonable Soul. While recognizing that Dryden is paraphrasing Montaigne, Hammond, "Two Echoes of Rochester's Satire," p. 171, believes that his language reflects a memory of Rochester's Satire against Reason and Mankind, 1. 7. 157:16-17 Tales sunt . .. lampade terras. "The thoughts of a man change with the growth-bringing light that the father himself, Jove, had shed abroad on the earth." If Dryden did not take this fragment of Cicero from Montaigne (see note to 157:10), then, as Summers notes (IV, 486), he found it in Augustine's City of God, V, viii. Summers notes that it is a translation of the Odyssey XVIII, 136-137. I have translated the Latin in the light of Dryden's text, his context, and Homer, which, contra Summers, is not badly represented by Cicero. We may guess from Dryden's quoting Cicero rather than Homer that Mulgrave knew no Greek. 157:19 more modesty than usual. See 151:5-11 above. 157:19-20 Nos in diem . . . id dicimus. "I live from day to day; I say anything that strikes my mind as probable" (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, V, xi, 33; Loeb). 157:20-23 'Tis not . . . fair Criticks. Though Dryden did not in fact change his play as printed, the possibility certainly existed, at least in revivals, for Congreve or the players altered The Double Dealer under similar pressure after it had been printed (Ward, Letters, pp. 63, 113). 157:25 Lover in Petronius. Summers (IV, 486) notes that Polyaenos in Satiricon, 130, asks pardon of Circe, "whom he had failed at a critical moment." 157:27-28 Summa excusationis . . . permiseris. "My apology amounts to this—I will do your pleasure if you allow me to mend my fault" (Loeb). 158:3-10 De ipsis . . . judicem. "As regards my subject, I often fear, Brutus, that I shall meet with censure for writing upon this topic to you, who are yourself so great an adept in poetry, and in the highest branch of poetry. Did I assume the attitude of an instructor, such censure would be deserved. But nothing could be farther from me. I dedicate my work to you, not to teach you what you know extremely well already, but because your name gives me a very comforting sense of support, and because I find in you a most impartial judge and critic of the studies which I share with yourself" (De Finibus, III, ii, 6; Loeb, adjusted because, as Dryden notes, Cicero has philosophia instead of poesi and philosophiae instead of poeseos). 158:13 DRYDEN. Malone (I, ii, 431) notes that this unique instance of Dryden's omitting his first name is "in the French mode" sometimes adopted by his friend Sir William Davenant.

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PROLOGUE

Winn (p. 276) notes that here Dryden reverses the position he had taken in the epilogue to 1 Conquest of Granada, 1. 22: "Well he may please him self, but never you" (Works, XI, 99). 7-10 Paul H. Fry, "Dryden's Earliest Allusion to Longinus," ELN, XIX (1981-82) 22-24, believes these lines are probably dependent on Longinus VIII, 4, in view of what he sees as a more certain dependence in 11. 19-20; see note there. 8 weary. See headnote (pp. 395-396 above). 9-10 Winn (pp. 149, 284) regards these lines as "graciously yielding" to the arguments Sir Robert Howard had offered in his epistle to the reader in Four New Plays and in his dedication of The Duke of Lerma (see also Works, XVII, 346-348). Crites, who may have been intended to represent Howard, argued similarly in An Essay of Dramatick Poesie [Works, XVII, 64-68). 10 flies him like Enchanted Ground. Link says "flies" means "evades." Dryden uses a similar phrase in V, i, 102-103 (p. 230 above), and in Religio Laid, 1. 28 (Works, II, 110). 12 correct. "In its adherence to the unities" (Winn, p. 284). Similarly Noyes (p. 952), who refers to the opening lines of the epilogue, p. 249 above. 13-18 Winn (p. 287) thinks the praise of Shakespeare may indicate that Dryden was already planning to write in his manner. Kinsley (IV, i860) is more inclined to see here Dryden's desire to write an epic; see p. 154 above. For a survey of Dryden's other estimates of Shakespeare see Works, IV, 5; VIII, 99, 270; X, 326; XI, 204-217; XIII, 369-370, 504-505; XVII, 341-342. 413-414. 15 Romans. Noyes (p. 952) points to the possibility that this is a singular possessive, with reference to Antony. 17 See Defense of the Epilogue to 2 Conquest of Granada (Works, XI, 805), and preface to Troilus and Cressida (ibid., XIII, 225). 19-20 Fry ("Dryden's Earliest Allusion to Longinus," p. 22) identifies these lines as dependent on Longinus XIII, 4, which Dryden later quoted in the preface to Troilus and Cressida (Works, XIII, 228). Dryden, of course, had already laid his hands on The Tempest, and went on to challenge Antony and Cleopatra with All for Love and to adapt Troilus and Cressida. 22 first. With reference to his age, not his eminence (Saintsbury, S-S, V, 201). 23-26 Dryden was a shareholder in the King's Company, and so did not receive the third night's profits but was instead subject to calls for his money when the company's income fell below expenses. Apparently, the company was already not doing well (Winn, p. 376). 27 Clergy. "The swipe at the clergy may reflect Dryden's failure to secure a post at Oxford [which normally would have meant taking orders] and his envy of the lucrative parish livings enjoyed by men less eloquent and educated than he" (Winn, p. 276). Osborn notes, however, that anticlericalism is common in satirists of all periods (p. 97). It certainly runs throughout Dryden's writings. 27 Bar. Winn (p. 276) thinks Dryden may have been turned against

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lawyers by what had happened when he had arranged for the painting of a scene in Tyrannick Love. Isaac Fuller, the scene painter, sued the principals of the King's Company for nonpayment, and they replied by a countersuit alleging failure to fulfill the contract, with loss of income to the company (Works, X, 380-381, 539-547). But again, lawyers have always attracted satire. 28 Dull Heroes. W i n n (p. 276) supposes that preparations for war with France had given Dryden reason for criticizing soldiers. At the time of writing, presumably, Dryden did not know he was going to dedicate the play to Mulgrave, who had not only been a brave fighter for his country but had been rewarded for his bravery. See note to 153:33 (p. 404 above). 29 Southern Vices. W i n n (p. 277) thinks these "doubtless include the Italian music and French opera that had made theatre audiences unlikely to relish a more simply mounted play." Link (p. 14) rather believes the reference is to sexual practices and diseases. See Amboyna, II, i, 292-298, 326-328 (pp. 28, 29 above), and note to 1. 328 (p. 296 above). 37 our Neighbours. T h e other playhouse (Saintsbury, Kinsley, Noyes). " T h e first wave of operas in the 1670s . . . cost both theatres dearly" (Winn, P- 443)-

PERSONS REPRESENTED

T h e old emperor represents the historical Shah Jahan. Aureng-Zebe and Morat were the third and fourth of his sons; the others, Darah and Sujah, are mentioned in the play. Dianet gets his name from a khan whom AurengZebe made governor of Kashmir; Solyman, his from Soliman-Chekouh, Darah's oldest son; Mir Baba, his from one of Aureng-Zebe's foster brothers, whom he made governor of Allahabad; Abas, his from a shah loyal to Morat (Abas is accented on the second syllable); and Fazel Chan, his from Shah Jahan's vizier (Bernier, I, 8-g, 11, 58, 74, 155-156; II, 147). Dryden had to get the name Asaph Chan, who was the vizier of Shah Jahan's father Jahangir, from some other source. It is possible that Arimant, the governor of Agra, got his name from one of the names of Aureng-Zebe's mother, which Summers (IV, 486) gives as Arjmand Banu (Noble Princess). I n Bernier, she is called T a j Mahal instead (Bernier, I, 9-10, etc.). Bernier does not give the name of the governor of Agra under Shah J a h a n ; Aureng-Zebe gave the post to Shah Hest Khan (Bernier, I, 155-156). Indian Lords or Omrahs. Bernier: "Omrahs or Lords of that Court" (I, 8). Omrah, though used as a singular by various European writers of the time, is, strictly speaking, the plural of Amir. Factions. Bernier: "Chah-Jehan, some years before the troubles, finding himself charged with these four Princes, all come to Age, all Married, all pretending to the Crown, Enemies to one another, and each of them making secretly a Party [i.e., a faction], was perplexed enough as to what was fittest for him to do, fearing danger to his own person, and foreseeing what afterwards befell him" (I, 27-28). Nourmahal gets her name, nationality, and political power and ability

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from Shah Jahan's mother, and she has touches of Aureng-Zebe's eldest sister Begum-Saheb, of the maharanee of Jodhpur, and of Darah's wife (Bernier, I, 9-10, 20-26, 89-91, 235; III, 62). Bernier does not say Nourmahal was a Persian, but cf. Enc. Br., 12:867. T h e other women are almost entirely Dryden's creations, though Melesinda has a touch of the maharanee of Jodhpur also. Her name may be a variant of Melisendra, said in Don Quixote (Part II, ch. 26) to have been a daughter of Charlemagne. Indamora's name may mean "lover of India," that is, of Aureng-Zebe, or "beloved by India," that is, by the old emperor, both his sons, and Arimant. Zayda's name Dryden shortened from Benzayda, a Muslim woman in The Conquest of Granada. Bernier gives the meaning of most of the names of the real persons. Shah Jahan means King of the World, Darah is Darius, Sujah means Valiant, Aureng-Zebe means Ornament of the Throne; Morat's full name was Murad Bakhsh, meaning Desire Accomplished; Arimant means Noble, Dianet means Faithful, Solyman is Solomon, Mir Baba means Great Father, Fazel Chan means T h e Perfect Knight, Nourmahal means Light of the Seraglio (Taj Mahal means Crown of the Seraglio). "The reason, why they give such kind of Names to the Great Ones, and not Names from their Land or Dominion (as is usual in Europe) is, because all the Land being the Kings, there are no Marquisates, Earldoms and Dutchies, of which the Grandees might bear their Names; all consists in Pensions, either of Land or ready Money, which the King giveth, increaseth, retrencheth, and takes away, as seems good unto him" (Bernier, I, 10-11). Dryden makes no use of these meanings except in connection with Nourmahal, who is Shah Jahan's wife in the play (see notes to II, i, 224, and V, i, 248, pp. 422, 436 below). Those who see the play as referring to political events in England in 1675 generally identify the old emperor as Charles I I and Aureng-Zebe as James Duke of York. Agra. It is important to the plot that Agra was both a city and a fort, as it was historically and as Bernier mentions. the Year 1660. The date is presumably Dryden's guess, based on Bernier's saying that the war between Shah Jahan's sons lasted "from 1655 or thereabout, to 1660 or 1661" (I, 258). That is, Dryden assumed that the war ended sooner after Aureng-Zebe's accession than it actually did; he came to the throne in 1658. I, i 1 East. I.e., east of Mecca. 2 success. Summers (IV, 486) notes that the meaning here is outcome of any kind, to which we may add that it has the same meaning in 1. 264, and that "good success" in 1. 205 is therefore not redundant. On the other hand, in II, i, 387 and 556 (pp. 187, 192 above), the word has its usual meaning. In V, i, 414 (p. 240 above), the meaning is ambiguous. 3 Their. The lack of an antecedent for the pronoun is perhaps a mark of imperfect revision. 7 ambitious Youth. See note to 1. 33.

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8 pompously. With pomp but not with ostentation, as Summers notes (IV, 486). 13 our wide Empires Bounds. The Indus and the Ganges more or less marked the northern boundary of the Mogul Empire, and the Godavari more or less its southern boundary, but Dryden is more likely thinking of the mouths of the two former, at the northwest and northeast corners of the Indian subcontinent, i.e., the whole line means "from west to east." 18 See note to Persons Represented, Factions. 19 Cabals of Women. Bernier says Begum-Saheb, Shah Jahan's favorite daughter, "stuck entirely to Dara, her Eldest Brother, espoused cordially his part, and declared openly for him; which contributed not a little to make the Affairs of Dara prosper, and to keep him in the affection of his Father" (I, 22). But her sister Rauchenara Begum "addicted herself wholly to AurengZebe, and consequently declared herself an Enemy to Begum-Saheb and Dara" (I, 27). There were two other sisters, but Bernier does not mention them. 23 distant Province. Bernier: "fearing lest [his sons] should cut one anothers Throat before his Eyes, if he kept them still at Court, [Shah Jahan] at last concluded to send them away. And so he sent Sultan-Sujah, his second Son, into the Kingdom of Bengale [east]; his third, Aureng-Zebe, into Decan [south]; and the young[e]st, Morad-Bakche, to Guzaratte [southwest]; giving to Dara, the eldest, Cabul and Multan [Afghanistan and to the northwest]. The three first went away very well content with their Government; . . . As to Dara, because the Eldest, and designed to the Crown, he stirred not from the Court; which that he should not do, seemed also to be the intention of Chah-Jehan, who entertain'd him in the hopes of succeeding him after his Death" (I, 29-30). 27 seventy. Bernier: "At my arrival" in India "Chah-Jehan [was] above seventy years of Age" (I, 6); a disease "little sutable to a Man of above seventy years of Age," i.e., brought on by sexual indulgence, led his sons to mobilize their armies (I, 48). 29-31 Sickness . . . Mortal. Bernier: "he was fallen into a great sickness, whence it was believed he would never recover" (I, 7). 32 impiously. In the Latinate sense of "without filial affection." 33 streight the Sons prepare. Bernier: "[Shah Jahan's sickness] had occasioned a great division among these four Brothers (all laying claim to the Empire) and had kindled among them a War which lasted about five years" (I. 7)37 Parricides. Committers of treason (OED). T h e word occurs again in this sense in IV, ii, 170, and V, i, 44, 77 (pp. 226, 229, 230 above). 41 the younger Sons are doom'd to die. Bernier: "for they all very well knew, that there was no hopes of quarter, that there was no other way, than to vanquish or dye, to be King or undone" (I, 50-51). Had Dryden followed his source exactly we would read "vanquished" instead of "younger" here. 47+ s.d. Agah. Bernier speaks repeatedly of "my Agah" (e.g., II, 19, 44), who was Danechmend Khan (Learned Knight), "the most knowing Man of Asia, who had been Bakchis or Great Master of the Horse, and was one of the most powerful and the most considerable Omrahs or Lords of that

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Court" (I, 8). Bernier was Shah J a h a n ' s a n d D a n e c h m e n d Khan's physician. Agah is a military title. 48 Express. Express messenger (OED). 48 all Agra does afright. Bernier: "These two Armies thus joyned m a d e a Body considerable enough; which begot a great noise at Court, a n d gave cause of thoughtfulness, not only to Dara, b u t to Chah-Jehan himself, who knew the great parts a n d subtle Conduct of Aureng-Zebe, a n d the Courage of Morad-Bakche; a n d who foresaw very well, that a Fire was a kindling, which it would be very h a r d to q u e n c h " (I, 71). 49 Bernier describes the battle, in which Aureng-Zebe a n d M o r a t defeated Darah (I, n o f f . ) . Dryden has suppressed reference to Morat for the purposes of his plot. 53-59 W i n n (p. 273) says "the f r e q u e n t sibilants imitate the sound of whispering," a n d also that the speech "probably reflects Dryden's observation of the continually shifting alliances in Charles's court a n d Parliament." Dryden h a d himself shifted his alliance f r o m Rochester to Mulgrave, a n d he, though deriding "statesmen" in his plays (e.g., I l l , i, 544, p. 208 above), flattered the diplomats a n d courtiers to whom he dedicated them. T h e contrast is especially marked in Cleomenes. Dr. Susan J a n e Owen has p o i n t e d out to us that criticism of court corruption is common even in "loyalist" plays, such as Crowne's The Ambitious Statesman, T a t e ' s The Loyal General, a n d Otway's The Orphan, which exemplify loyalty to the ruler in the face of unfairness a n d mistreatment. 56 deaf murmurs. A very common k i n d of image in Dryden, who knew of t h e m f r o m Ovid. T h i s particular image occurs also in Meleager and Atalanta, 1. 221, a n d see note to Sigismonda and Guiscardo, 1. 112 (Works, VII). "Deaf" in this sense means "muffled." 61 Rabble. Dryden's characters praise or blame the rabble as the plots of his plays demand, so that n o t h i n g of his own beliefs can be gained f r o m them. For another example of rabble praised see The Spanish Fryar, IV, ii, 160-168 (Works, XIV, 172). O n the contrary side, see II, i, 390 of AurengZebe (p. 187 above). 65 Int'rests. T h e first appearance of a m a j o r theme in the play. See note to dedication, 149:16 Interest (p. 401 above). T h e word occurs again in this act in 11. 96, 223, a n d 224. 68 Unmov'd, and brave. Bernier: "Concerning Chah-Jehan, when he plainly saw the resolution of Aureng-Zebe, a n d Morad-Bakche, a n d that there was n o hope left to make t h e m t u r n back, he was in such a perplexity, that he knew not what to resolve, a n d foreseeing some great calamity, he would fain have hindered the last decisive battel, for which he saw Dara prep a r i n g himself with great eagerness. But what could he do to oppose it? H e was yet too weak of his sickness, a n d saw himself still in the h a n d s of Dara, whom, as I have said, h e trusted not m u c h " (I, 94-95). 74-75 T h e s e lines contradict the preceding ones a n d so may b e overlooked remnants of a n earlier version of the play in which the emperor was represented more historically (see note to 1. 68). 79 Valour . . . in blooming Youth. Bernier: "he that should be Conquerour, would rid himself of all the rest, as formerly Chah-Jehan h a d done of

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his Brothers" (I, 51). But then Shah Jahan "had reigned above fourty years without considerable Wars" (II, Letter to Colbert, p. 61). 87 See notes to 11. 27 and 68. 89 See note to 1. 41. 90-93 Bernier: "Dara, the Eldest Son, wanted not good Qualities. He was . . . exceeding Civil and L i b e r a l . . . . Besides he was apt to be transported with passion, to menace, to injure, to affront, even the greatest Omrahs or Lords; but all passed over like a flash of Light" (I, 1 1-12). 90 generous. A term for any appropriate good quality or conjunction of qualities (see note to 11. 90-93), but often the specific meaning is brave or noble. It is a kind of theme word in the play, also, "generosity" being an antonym of "interest." 94-97 Bernier: "[Sujah] cast himself into the Religion of the Persians" (I, 15), which Bernier goes on to explain was Shiite, whereas the father and other brothers were Sunnis. "It was by reason of State that Sultan Sujah had embraced this latter Sect, considering that all the Persians being Chias, and most of them, or their Children, having the greatest power at the Court of Mogol, and holding the most important Places of the Empire, he had most reason to hope, that, when occasion served, they would all take his part" (I, 17). It was, however, Darah who called Aureng-Zebe a bigot (Bernier, I, 19). 98-101 Bernier: "[Morat] gloried in it, that he kept nothing secret; he despised Cabals; and he bragg'd openly, that he trusted only in his Arm and Sword: In short, he was very Brave, and if this Bravery had been accompanied with some Conduct, he would have carried the Bell from all his Brothers, and been King of Indostan" (I, 20). 98 Brave. Bully, from the Italian bravo, not yet commonly applied to American Indians (OED). 100-101 Dryden has transferred to Morat a characteristic of AurengZebe, who, according to Bernier, was responsible for the failure of Shah Jahan's second attack on Kandahar, refusing to make an attack that Darah, who was absent with his father, had planned (Bernier, II, 144-146). Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (1973-1974), rejects the story recorded by Bernier, saying that Shah Jahan commanded the retreat from Kandahar (I, 89-92)102-107 Dryden extends his characterization of Aureng-Zebe in lines 219-224 and 282. He modeled it on scattered remarks by Bernier rather than on his set description, and he ignores the fact that the historical Aureng-Zebe was anything but a loyal son. Bernier: "forasmuch as [Shah Jahan to abandon his attack on Golconda, Aureng-Zebe, though knowing Reign than any of the rest, he had always (as they said) some particular correspondence with him" (I, 31). Receiving peremptory orders from Shah Jahan to abandon his attack on Golconda, Aureng-Zebe, though knowing that his father had been influenced by Darah, "never discover'd any resentment of it, saying only, that he ought to obey the Orders of his Father" (I, 42). "Mean time let us take notice of his courage and resolution" (I, 115). ". . . obliging Letters, full of respect and submission, which he often wrote to his Father, consulting him often as his Oracle, and expressing a

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thousand cares for him" (II, 100). But "[Aureng-Zebe] sometimes return'd sharp answers" (II, 101). For example, he once said, "the greatest Conquerours are not always the greatest Kings. . . . He is a great King, that knows to acquit himself worthily of that Great and August Employment and Charge of Kings, which is, to dispense Justice to their Subjects" (II, 105). Dryden gives his reason, or what he says was his reason, for his picture of Aureng-Zebe in the epilogue: "He thought that, if his Characters were good," as the rules required, he would please (11. 1-3, p. 249 above). 104 Atlas. T h e first example of classical knowledge attributed to the Moguls. 109 his Fortune bears. Upholds his (the emperor's) rulership. 113 Cassimere. Kashmir, "that Earthly Paradise of the Indies" (Bernier, II, 148). "The Women especially are very beautiful; and therefore all Strangers, that are new-comers to the Court of Mogol, are furnished from thence, that so they may have Children whiter than the Indians, and which by this means may pass for true Mogols" (IV, 95-96). "For, to be esteem'd a Mogol, 'tis enough to be a stranger white of Face, and a Mahumetan" (I, 6). But Shah Jahan had not conquered the country; it was his grandfather Akbar who had (IV, 91). 114-121 Abas, we find later, is a traitor, a supporter of Nourmahal in her rebellion. He is already stirring up fear. 115 The neighb'ring Plain. Bernier: "the difficulty of the way embarassed and retarded [Darah] much; he meeting also with some resistance even from those disordered Horse of the Enemy, that cover'd all high and low places where he was to March" (I, 117). 116-117 Summers (IV, 489) traces the imagery to Ovid, Metamorphoses, III, 110 (some of Cadmus's men having been killed by a dragon, he kills it and sows its teeth, from which springs up "a brass grainfield of men" armed with spears), and Heroides, XII, 48 (Jason is bidden to sow seeds that will grow into "a harvest" of men). "Lances" (1. 117), however, shows that Dryden is thinking of cavalry, not infantry, and though we see from Bernier that Dryden has also omitted to mention the artillery, Bernier is emphatic that the Mogul army had comparatively few foot soldiers (I, 107; II, Letter to Colbert, pp. 24-55). Bernier also explains how the armies were financed and victualed (II, 50-55; IV, 54-57). 121 Castl'd Elephants. A war elephant did not carry a "castle" on its back but a platform, as Bernier says ("howda," explained in the English translation as "dais"; I, 123), with seats over which there was a canopy. It had armored sides two or three feet high (William Irvine, The Army of the Indian Moghuls [1962], p. 176). Bernier describes castles later: "the Mikdember, being a little square House or Turret of Wood, is alwaies painted and guilded" (IV, 36). "Ladies s i t . . . four and four in Mik-dembers" (IV, 40). i2i o'r-look. Dryden has said the area is a plain (1. 115), so his audience, familiar with the elephant recently imported into England and on exhibit in London (see note to The Kind Keeper, III, i, 345, in Works, XIV, 406), would presumably imagine that Agra was mostly a collection of one-story houses. 124-127 This exposition increases the tension, but how does Arimant know of the conspiracy, and why does he say nothing of it when he tells the

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emperor of Aureng-Zebe's latest maneuver against Morat? (See 11. 204-207.) 124 Empress with her Son. T h e historical Morat's mother was T a j Mahal. As observed in the headnote, she was also the historical Aureng-Zebe's mother (Bernier, I, 9). She died before the assumed date of the play. 131 Surat he took. Abas was the general who captured the city, but Morat, who had raised the army, got the credit. Bernier: "The reduction of this Town did much advance his design, Fame proclaiming immediately throughout these Countries, that Morad-Bakche had taken Suratte" (I, 67). 134 were spent. By Nourmahal and her husband, as we see when he enters. 135 Cittadel. Bernier: " T o pass to the description of Agra, you have the Idea of it, if you have well taken that of Dehli; at least in respect of its scituation, which is also upon the Gemma [sic], and in regard of the Fortress, or Royal House, and of most of the Buildings" (III, 79). Bernier describes the fortress at Delhi in detail (III, 31-68), so that the scene painters would have known what to represent if they did not have drawings or paintings to follow. See also Don Sebastian, III, i, s.d. (Works, XV, 126). 150-159 Bernier: "It was to no purpose to write Letters upon Letters, signifying that he was well, and giving Order that they should turn back to their respective Governments, and expressing also, that he would forget all that had passed hitherto. All his Letters were not able to hinder there [s«c] advance; and as the sickness of Chah-Jehan did still pass for mortal, there being no persons wanting to bring and spread such News, they still continued to dissemble, giving out, that they were Letters counterfeited by Dara; that Chah-Jehan was dead indeed; but that, in case he were alive, they would go to kiss his Feet, and deliver him from the hands of Dara" (I, 71-72). 163 yields his Arms. There are several ways to interpret the words, but there are no real differences among them. 171 in Bands. T h e ambassador exaggerates, as we see later, but it would not have been out of character for the time and place if Morat's wife were a hostage for his good behavior. When the king of Golconda fled from his palace at Aureng-Zebe's approach, the latter "seized at the same time on the Royal House, taketh all the rich and good things he finds there; yet sending to the King all his Wives (which over all the Indies is very religiously observed)" (I, 41). On the other hand, Aureng-Zebe kept with him his own son's wife, the daughter of the king of Golconda, and Emir Jemla's only son, when he sent husband and father to fight Sujah, "making in the mean time Emir Jemla to consent, that his only Son, Mahmet Emir-Kan, should stay with him, for a good Education, or rather for a Pledge of his Fidelity; and Sultan Mahmoud, that his Wife should remain in Agra (which was the Daughter of the above-mention'd King of Golkonda) as too troublesome a thing in an Army, and in such an expedition" (I, 188-189). T h e historical Shah Jahan did not detain Morat's wife, but he kept the wife and children of Emir Jemla, in spite of the latter's objections. When the emir went over to Aureng-Zebe, Darah wanted to kill the hostages, but Shah Jahan would not agree, and eventually Aureng-Zebe reunited them with their father (Bernier, I, 36-38, 46-48, 92-94; II, 106-108). 180-181 T h e historical Shah Jahan dealt similarly with a Persian ambassador who spoke contemptuously to him (Bernier, II, 70-77).

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184-185 Bernier: "God save your Majesty" (I, 123), spoken to Darah. Dryden thinks, for example, of Nehemiah at the Persian court: "Let the king live for ever" (Neh. 2:3). 186 Gemna. Jumna. Bernier: "[Aureng-Zebe] did advance with great diligence towards Agra, to gain the River of Gemna, and there without trouble, and at his ease, to enjoy the water, to fortifie and to fix himself well, and so to expect Dara. The place where he encamped is but five leagues from Agra, it was formerly called Sarnonguer, and now Fateabad, which is to say, place of victory. A little while after, Dara also came to encamp there, nigh the bank of the same River, between Agra and the Army of Aureng-Zebe" (I, 105-106). 189 fourty thousand. Aureng-Zebe's army was 40,000 strong (Bernier, I, 96) and he lost all but 500 or 1000 (I, 115). Many of the troops were only put to flight and rejoined him later. Darah's army was 120,000 at the lowest estimate, but his men fled when they thought Darah had been killed, and Aureng-Zebe won the day (I, 96). Bernier does not estimate the number of the dead. These were immense armies by European standards, as Bernier points out (I, 127-128). 190-191 The historical Aureng-Zebe had imprisoned Morat and was pursuing Darah to the west when Sujah came up behind him. The battle was a surprise to neither side. Aureng-Zebe won and Sujah fled (Bernier, I, i 74 ff.). 204 duteous care. When Darah's son Soliman-Chekouh, from whom Dryden's Solyman took his name, went out to fight Sujah, Shah Jahan sent the maharaja of Jaipur along with orders to prevent a battle if he could by inducing Sujah to withdraw. He could not, but he let Sujah escape, a solution coming as close as possible to Shah Jahan's wishes (Bernier, I, 74-79). 209 Himself comes first. Bernier; "Aureng-Zebe . . . had left his Army behind" (I, 168). 211 hence. The emendation of "hence, hence" is not strictly necessary, but see "may may" and "and and" in uncorrected copies of the first edition of Amboyna, outer E (pp. 34, 41 above). 232 See note to III, i, 465 (p. 429 below). 240 all. I.e., the right of rebellion, in which he will succeed. 244 Tilley P261: "Deceive not your physician, confessor, or lawyer" (first citation 1573). 247 Tilley C606: "A guilty conscience is a self-accuser (feels continual fear)" (first citation 1598). 248 bearded. Saintsbury (S-S, V, 211) and Summers (IV, 490-491) note that the meaning is "barbed." 256 own'd. Acknowledged, praised (OED). 266-267 deaf to all my prayers, / As Seas and Winds. See Samson Agonistes (11. 960-961): "more deaf / T o prayers, than winds and seas." 271, 319 generous. See note to 1. go. 280 jealous. The word may have its common meaning or mean "suspicious" or combine both meanings, here and elsewhere. 299 sincere. The antonym of "imperfect" in 1. 301 (OED). 307 Father. Bernier: "At his arrival, Aureng-Zebe courted [Emir Jemla] in the highest degree [he was seducing him from allegiance to the King of

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Golconda], treating him no otherwise than with the name of Baba and Babagy, that is, Father, Lord-Father" (I, 58). Similarly, meeting the maharaja of Jaipur, who had a larger force with him, and wondering if he might have been sent to capture him, "Aureng-Zebe, without any alteration of his countenance, marcheth directly towards the Raja, and as far off as he could see him, maketh signs to him with his hands, importing that he should make hast to a nearer approach, crying out to him with a loud voice, Salamed Bached Rajagi, Salamed Bached Babagi, treating him with the Titles of Lord Raja, and Lord Father" (I, 168-169). 318 Crowns .. . regard. Bernier: "Aureng-Zebe continuing always, during the March, in the protestations of Friendship and in his Courtship to MoradBakche, treating him never otherwise, whether in publick or private, but with the title of Hazaret, that is, King and Majesty" (I, 70). 323 the Bird of Night. Milton so describes the nightingale in Paradise Lost, VIII, 518. 336 license. Dismiss (OED, citing this passage). 351 a second Bed. Shah Jehan did indeed have more than one wife, but all at once; he had a zenana. 359-360 as at . . . take flight. Muslims do not entertain such a belief, though some of their beliefs about Jinns are similar. Dryden subsequently introduced a similar passage into The Hind and the Panther, II, 651-653 (Works, III, 158). 360 Birds obscene. From Virgil, Aeneid, III, 262, obscenaeque volucres, "and ill-omened birds" (Loeb), translated "Birds obscene" in Dryden's 1. 341 {Works, V, 429). 363-364 Although astrological language came naturally to Dryden, who cast his son's horoscope (Ward, Letters, p. 94), it was appropriate for this play also. Bernier: "Most people of Asia are so infatuated by Judiciary Astrology, that they believe there is nothing done here below, but 'tis written above (for so they speak)" (II, 87; see also III, 9 - 1 1 ) . 365 disastrous. Summers (IV, 491) believes Dryden was thinking of the root meaning, "opposed by the stars." 372 good Opinion. I.e., "good, which opinion." 380-381 Link sees here, it would seem correctly, a reference to the Mohammedan Paradise with houris. 402 turn the Perspective. I.e., look through the other end of the "Glass" (OED, perspective). Saintsbury's interpretation, "alter the focus" (S-S, V, 216), does not seem so satisfactory. 406 prevent. Anticipate. 413 if known. Saintsbury: "A semi-classical idiom of compression" (S-S, V, 217). 421-422 withstand / Your own mishap. Apparently the positive form of the following negative, "unhappy by your own Decree." No definition of "withstand" in OED fits exactly; sense 2b, "prevent," was apparently long obsolete. 427-429 Aureng-Zebe is using the conventional language of love, as he does often in the play, but in IV, ii, and V, i, thinking that Indamora has accepted Morat in his place, he prepares to abandon her, not to commit suicide. By contrast, Melesinda, who says she cannot live if Morat disdains her

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(and he does), follows him in death through the fire of the burning ghat. In another contrast, Indamora says she will die if Aureng-Zebe rejects her and when she believes him dead says she wishes to die also, but when Nourmahal prepares to kill her she proves to be afraid of death. And in still another contrast, when the emperor decides to kill Aureng-Zebe so as to have Indamora to himself, Aureng-Zebe says he will accept death at his father's hands, and this time apparently means it. In Amboyna, the determination of the heroine not long to outlive the death of the hero contrasts with his execution and the execution of several others in the play; intentional death contrasts with unintentional. In Aureng-Zebe the contrast is between pose and real purpose. In Amboyna, the contrast is implicit. In Aureng-Zebe, the contrast is still in a sense implicit, but so many of the characters say so many times, "I will die" or "take my life," that one can hardly avoid noticing it. For a list of Dryden's heroines who threaten or commit suicide, see the commentary in Works, XI, 499. Cleopatra's name could be added. 437 impious. See note to I. 32. 439 A statement no longer accepted as true; see the Nuremberg trials. 460 T h e question of whether hero and heroine are worthy of each other will provide the last tension in the play. 462 Interpreters differ as to whether this line reflects temperance or selfrighteousness. See Robert S. Newman, "Irony and the Problem of T o n e in Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," SEL, X (1970), 446-447, citing Arthur C. Kirsch, " T h e Significance of Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," ELH, X X I X (1962), 160-174, and Michael M. Alssid, Dryden's Rhymed Heroic Tragedies (1974). 463-464 Various interpreters see here the central theme of the play. See Anne Barbeau [Gardiner], The Intellectual Design of John Dryden's Heroic Plays (1970), p. 140: " T h e essential design of Aureng-Zebe . . . is the testing of a virtuous man to see if he is worthy of succeeding to the throne"; Alssid, I, 134: the theme of the play is "chaos—restoration [of order]—succession"; John A . Winterbottom, " T h e Place of Hobbesian Ideas in Dryden's Tragedies," JEGP, L V I I (1958), 672: Dryden is saying that man can control his passions, as Dryden's friend Walter Charleton had said in The Natural History of the Passions (1674), pp. 172-173, and as many other writers on the subject had said. 467 jealousie. I.e., the emperor's. See note to 1. 280. 468 Because I have too much care and tenderness for the emperor I have lost you. 469-470 For Orpheus and Eurydice, see Virgil, Georgics, IV, 455-527 (for Dryden's translation see Works, V, 261-263). II, i S.d. Betwixt the Acts. Summers (IV, 491): "It should be noted that here we have a continuance of the Elizabethan stage methods." 9 conduct. See note to dedication, 153:2 (p. 404 above). 13 Omrah. Some unspecified commander, not Morat. 16 Wives and Children rescu'd. See note to I, i, 171 (p. 417 above), for evidence as to the treatment of captives ("the prey" means "being captured" [0£Z>]).

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17 int'rest. T h e theme appears again; and again in 11. 33 and 350. 20 twenty thousand hands. Bernier: "Aureng-Zebe, the more to animate his Souldiers, bragged openly, that he had thirty thousand Mogols at his devotion in the Army of Dara" (I, 93). 26 like Gods. Not an Islamic comparison; nor is "a God" in 1. 82 (the latter is contemporary English slang). 40 Terras Walks. Bernier: "[The zenana at Delhi] is full of Parterres, pleasant Walks, shady Places, Rivolets, Fountains, jets of Water, Grotta's, great Caves against the heat of day, and great Terrasses raised high, and very airy, to sleep upon in the cool" (III, 50). T h e scene painters thus knew what they ought to represent. See also Don Sebastian, III, i, s.d. {Works, XV, 126). 48 another Name. Perhaps lover rather than husband. One would expect Arimant to have been a eunuch, but see Bernier: "an accident [i.e., incident, in the zenana] . . . disabused a great many, that could as hardly believe as my self, that Eunuchs, though they had their Genitals quite cut away, could become amorous as other men. . . . sometimes [castration] turneth to an admirable fidelity and gallantry [in battle]" (II, 29-30, 32). 66 Were I no Queen. A commonplace, accounting for much of the tension in Love Triumphant as well, but see Bernier: "[Darah] had promised [his sister Begum-Saheb], that assoon as he should come to the Crown he would Marry her [i.e., find her a husband]; which is altogether extraordinary, and almost never practised in Indostan" (I, 22). 89-90 Summers (IV, 491) notes the phrase "Starrs that twinckle in a winters night" in 2 Conquest of Granada, III, iii, 174 (Works, XI, 153). 108 Ascendant. Summers (IV, 491) sees an astrological metaphor. See note to I, i, 363-364 (p. 419 above). 113 As it happened, Aureng-Zebe, who reinstituted taxes and exactions that Akbar had abandoned, found himself at the end of his reign faced with revolts throughout his kingdom. 126-127 Ovid gives an account of generation from mud in the Metamorphoses, I, 416-437 (for Dryden's translation see Works, IV, 392-393). 130 Bernier: "[Aureng-Zebe] also made the King [of Golconda] consent, that all the Silver Money, that should be Coined for the future in that Kingdom, should bear on one side the Arms of Chah-Jehan" (I, 43); but the parallel is most likely accidental, as Dryden could have hit on the metaphor without any knowledge of India. 150 jealous. Suspicious (cf. "Distrust" in 1. 151). 152 There is no rhyming line; perhaps it was lost by accident. 159-160 See note to Amboyna, IV, ii, 28-29 (PP- 3°4 - 3°5 above). 161-166 See Tilley F586: "There is a great force hidden in a sweet command"; L487: "It is better to obtain by love than force"; L4gg: "Love cannot be compelled (forced)," etc. 161 generous. See note to I, i, 90 (p. 415 above). 169 golden Fruit. Alluding to the apples of the Hesperides, which it was Hercules' eleventh "labor" to obtain (see Ovid, Metamorphoses, IX, 190). 175-176 esteem'd above / Your other Sons. Bernier: "Chah-Jehan, though Dara shew'd him great Observance and Affection, always harbour'd some diffidence, fearing above all things the Morsel [i.e., poison]; and besides,

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forasmuch as he knew the parts of Aureng-Zebe, and thought him more capable to Reign than any of the rest, he had always (as they said) some particular correspondence with him" (I, 30-31). 180 shock. Offend, disgust (OED). Summers (IV, 491) notes that Johnson's dictionary cites this passage as an example of the meaning. 187-188 Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (I, 7) notes that Aureng-Zebe had been going on military expeditions since he was sixteen. 189 Summers (IV, 491) notes that "piety" has a Latinate sense here, so that it is either a synonym of "duty" in the next line or means "filial love." 200 fond dotage. As the words are ironic, the exact meaning is not clear; perhaps "strong affection," i.e., a tautology for emphasis (see OED, fond, dotage). 201 prove. Link finds different meanings for the word in its various occurrences in the play (see 11. 207, 232, 374; V, i, 549, pp. 183, 187, 244 above). T h e common meaning may be read in all places, but here Saintsbury says the meaning is "experience, undergo" (S-S, V, 227). 209-210 Nourmahal reasons from the fact that her husband no longer visits her bed (1. 215), she has not seen Indamora. After she sees her, she speaks differently of herself in V, i, 284-287 (p. 236 above). 224 serenely shine. As noted above, the name Nourmahal means "Light of the Seraglio." 228 Eastern. See note to 1,1, 1 (p. 412 above). 232 Summers (IV, 492) finds a very farfetched parallel to "faint kisses" in Joannes Secundus, Basiorum IX, 9-11: "when I ask nine kisses you hold back seven, and the two you give are neither long nor moist." But Dryden may indeed have remembered Secundus, whose Epithalamium he had translated in part in Amboyna (see p. 300 above). 252 bloudiest. A swear word in Dryden's day also (OED). 255-256 Not true, as we see later. 256 no shadow. Nothing obscuring her reputation. 257-267 Alex Lindsay, "Juvenal, Spenser, and Dryden's Nourmahal," NirQ, 230 (1985), 184, sees the source of these lines in Juvenal's Satires, VI, 166-169 (H- 242-247 in Dryden's translation, Works, IV, 163), and sees 11. 1 7 8 - 1 8 0 (Dryden's 11. 258-260), as "also relevant." 258 cursed. Summers (IV, 492) sees a double meaning here, "damnable" and "shrewish" (see OED), but all his citations for the latter are of the phrase "curst and shrewd." 270 Bernier: "Chah-Jehan, who did not hate the sex" (III, 60). 304 Nice. Reluctant (as in 1. 512), probably, balancing "Eager" in the line above, but "effeminate" is also possible (see note to III, i, 180-189, p. 427 below). 3 1 2 - 3 1 3 Hercules died from a shirt he had asked his wife to send him which she, innocently supposing thereby to bind him to her, had dipped in blood that had been poisoned with the bile of the Hydra. When he began to sweat, the shirt not only transferred the poison to his body but stuck to his skin, which he tore off with it. Nevertheless, "cleaving mischiefs" may have come from Samson Agonistes, 1. 1039, "cleaving mischief," which Mer ritt Y. Hughes supposes may be a reminiscence of Hercules (John Milton,

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Paradise Regained, the Minor Poems, and Samson Agonistes [1937], p. 587). 321 She wishes what historically happened. 333 Zelyma. A fictitious character; see note to I, i, 124 (p. 417 above). Zulema, a man, is one of the Moors in The Conquest of Granada. 335 Persia. The historical Nur Mahal was from Persia, but Bernier does not say so. She was, of course, the historical emperor's mother, not his wife, so Dryden may have simply imagined the birthplace of his Nourmahal. 336 Candahar. Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. Bernier: "Ekbar, that great King of the Indies, took it by force from the Persians, and kept it during his life. And Chah-Abas, that famous King of Persia, retook it from Jean-Guyre, the Son of Ekbar. Afterwards it return'd to Chah-Jehan, Son of Iohn Guyre, not by the Sword, but by means of the Governour Aly-Merdankan, who surrendered it to him. . . . The same City was beseiged and re-taken afterwards by the [grand]Son of Chah-Abbas, and since that beseiged twice again, yet without being taken, by Chah-Jehan" (II, 142-143). 346 your Sexes head. Echoing the words of St. Paul, 1 Cor. 11:3. 347 Canon. Law, authority. 348 In Bands of Iron fetter'd. I.e., rather than silver. Bernier: "At the entry of the Gate, the chains were taken from [Morat's] feet, leaving those he had about his hands, which seemed gilt [i.e., silver gilt]" (I, 239). The Histoire Générale de l'Empire du Mogol, by François Catrou, is more specific, saying that the fetters and handcuffs were silver and that Aureng-Zebe had prepared them some time before and used to show them to his son as a warning not to rebel, but Catrou's work was not published until after the play (first edition, 1705; see p. 211 of the 1715 edition). In contrast, as Catrou says, a eunuch captured with Morat was put in iron fetters. (The information about Catrou is from Archibald Constable's translation of Bernier, 2d ed. rev. [1934], pp. 105 n. 3, xiii.) 371 The Grace is vanish'd. A key to Nourmahal's character; another person might have felt everlastingly grateful for grace that remitted punishment. 391 Mirzah. The historical Mirzah (called Jesseigne by Bernier) was the maharaja of Jaipur and was strongly attached to Shah Jahan. Aureng-Zebe had to bribe him to his side, trusted him for a while, but then doubted or seemed to doubt again (Bernier, I, 72-77, 167-172, 200-207, 2 1 1 - 2 1 3 ; II, 154-157). I do not know how Dryden came upon his name. 400-401 Balasor . . . Bengale. As Summers notes (IV, 492), Balasor was a port city in Bengal (now in Rissa), but the rest of the sentence is not historical: Bengal was conquered by Akbar, Shah Jahan's grandfather. Bernier speaks of Bengal as a kingdom (IV, 148-149) and he visited Balasor (IV, 154), but the only historical information he gives about the city concerns European settlements there. Quite likely Dryden wrote from a general knowledge of Indian history and geography without seeking to be more true to life. Balasor and Bengal have bold sounds and alliterate. 402-403 rear / His Trunck. Bernier: "the Elephants in the combat have this malice, that they strive above all things to strike with their trunk, and to pull down the conductor of their adversary" (III, 67). Bernier was describing elephant fights arranged for the pleasure of the emperor; he does not describe elephants in war, except as mounts for the commanders.

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403 Castles. See note to I, i, 121 (p. 416 above). 410 Star. For belief in astrology see note to I, i, 363-364 (p. 419 above). 419 Summers (IV, 492) sees a parallel between "Tongue-kill'd" and "Tongue-batteries" in Samson Agonistes, 1. 404, but as there is no other verbal parallel between the two passages, Milton's influence here seems only a remote possibility. 422 Conduct. See note to dedication, 153:2 (p. 404 above). 424 jealousie. See note to 1. 150. 431 fear. Apparently, "fear that it is." 446-450 Another conventional speech (cf. I, i, 427-429), but as the note to the former speech points out, not everyone in the play speaks merely conventionally about giving up one's life. 451 Pow'rs. See note to 1. 26. 467 youngest. Saintsbury (S-S, V, 235) emends to "youngest's" to provide a verb. 468 yielding. Saintsbury (S-S, V, 235) notes that the word, "somewhat by stretch of English grammar, goes with 'you,' not 'I.' " 502-511 For those who interpret the play as carrying a special political message in 1675, this is "a crucial soliloquy" (Winn, p. 275). Winn supposes that Dryden had in mind what had happened to his earlier patrons Clarendon and Clifford and that he feared the same for supporters of the Duke of York. 505 Pious. Obedient to God's laws, here signifying laws of obedience to the king (e.g., Prov. 24:21, "fear thou the Lord and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change"). 507 Tilley V81: "Virtue is its own reward" (first citation 1596). 508 Winn (p. 275) regards this line as the first signal that Dryden had come to dislike Shaftesbury. Mildred Hartsock, "Dryden's Plays: A Study in Ideas," Seventeenth Century Studies, 2d ser., ed. Robert Shafer (1937), pp. 92-93, regards it as a Hobbesian view of life which Dryden espoused. Winterbottom ("Hobbesian Ideas in Dryden's Tragedies," p. 672) responds that it reflects only a momentary frustration in Aureng-Zebe; it is not a comment on human life. See also note to I, i, 463-464 (p. 420 above). 508 impious. Probably the reverse of "Pious" in I. 505, rather than meaning "without filial affection" as in I, i, 437 (see note to I, i, 32, p. 413 above). 5 1 1 Shakespeare also speaks of Justice's conventional appurtenances of balance and sword: "You are right, Justice [i.e. Chief Justice], and you weigh this well, / Therefore still bear the balance and the sword" (2 Henry IV, V, ii, 102-103). 512 nice. See note to 1. 304. 519 Market-place. Bernier, who, as noted above, says that Agra was so like Delhi as to need no separate description, remarks that in front of the fort or royal residence at the latter place was a square where the omrahs in attendance at court pitched their tents and where there was a bazaar (III, 8). 524 forbear. Tolerate (OED). 529 Cf. Samson Agonistes, 1. 475: "vindicate the glory of his name." 532-535 See commentary in Works, VIII, 296-297. 539 Summers (IV, 493) refers to I, i, 40-41 (p. 163 above); the present

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passage is a more accurate representation of what Bernier says than is the former. 539 Indostan. T h e ruler of Hindustan. Cf. " I am dying, Egypt, dying" (Antony and Cleopatra, IV, xv, 41). 541 Summers (IV, 493) notes that in 2 Conquest of Granada, V, iii, 50, Dryden says instead that "frank gamesters" will not play when they cannot trust the game (Works, X I , 189). 543 Blank . . . pulls. A blank is "a lottery ticket which does not gain a prize" (OED). "Pull" in this sense of drawing at a lottery appears also in Amboyna, V, i, 463 (p. 76 above), and Cleomenes, V, ii, 256 (Works, XVI). 553 Emp'ric. Experimental, probably, rather than quack (OED, which cites this passage under the definition " = empirical," does not solve the problem, because empirical also has the two meanings). Ill, i 1-50 In Rambler no. 125, Johnson remarked: "In this scene, every circumstance concurs to turn tragedy to farce. T h e wild absurdity of the expedient; the contemptible subjection of the lover [one remembers Johnson and his wife-to-be riding their horses to the church on their wedding day]; the folly of obliging him to read the letter only because it ought to have been concealed from him; the frequent interruptions of amorous impatience; the faint expostulations of a voluntary slave; the imperious haughtiness of a tyrant without power; the deep reflection of the yielding rebel upon fate and free-will; and his wise wish to lose his reason as soon as he finds himself about to do what he cannot persuade his reason to approve, are surely sufficient to awaken the most torpid risibility." Johnson felt such scenes were typical of Restoration tragedy. 31 score. Apparently a synonym of "advantage" in 1. 6 (11. 6-7 and 3 1 - 3 3 having much the same sense), rather than meaning "what I owe you." 34 int'rest. In this scene the theme word occurs also in 11. 125, 245, 350, 424, 455, and 481. 37 Bellerophon arrived at the court of Iobates with a message intended to cause the messenger to be put to death (see Iliad, VI, 155s.). T h e rest of the story of Bellerophon is immaterial to Dryden's simile. Summers (IV, 493) notes the image in Plautus, Bacchides, IV, 7. 50 last Trumpet. Summers (IV, 493), apparently drawing on Thomas Patrick Hughes, A Dictionary of Islam [1885], pp. 540-541, says that Muslims believe there will be three "last trumpets," but Dryden is more likely to be referring very loosely to the "last trump" of 1 Cor. 15:52, at the sounding of which "the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed," death having been swallowed up in victory. 51-56 Harley Granville-Barker, On Dramatic Method (1931), p. 149, observes that these lines "never could have sounded anything but comic" and asks: "Is it perhaps that the English language itself refuses to be gracefully and correctly null?" Dryden felt otherwise: "Our language is noble, full and significant; and I know not why he who is Master of it may not cloath ordinary things in it as decently as the Latine; if he use the same diligence in his choice of words. . . . One would think Unlock the door was a thing as

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vulgar as could be spoken; a n d yet Seneca could make it sound high a n d lofty in his Latine. . . . Set wide the Palace gates." H e proceeds to justify such expressions because they occur only rarely in a play, are necessary, a n d one hears their substance rather t h a n their form, because "they are alwayes the effect of some hasty concernment, a n d something of consequence depends on t h e m " (Works, XVII, 78). 57 Turtle. Summers (IV, 494) thinks Dryden h a d in m i n d Pliny's statem e n t in his Natural History, X, xxxiv, that doves do not leave their nests unless they are single or widowed. 69 Foreshadowing her suicide in Act V (pp. 246-247 above); see dedication, 156:21-22 above: " T h o s e Indian Wives are loving Fools." 72-102 Foreshadowing Act V. 75 Cf. Samson Agonistes, 1. 728: "Like a fair flower surcharg'd with dew, she weeps." 85 Tamerlain's Successors. Bernier: "[Shah J a h a n ] was the Tenth of those that were descended f r o m that Timur-Lengue, which signifieth t h e Lame Prince, commonly a n d corruptly called Tamerlan" (I, 5; see also II, 103). 116 Cf. Samson Agonistes, 1. 1551: "in the sad event too much concern'd," b u t the parallel may be fortuitous. 118 publick scorn. Bernier: "[Darah] was p u t o n an Elephant. . . . I t was an old Caitiff [i.e., wretched] Animal, very dirty a n d nasty, with a n old torn cover, a n d a p i t t i f u l seat, all open. . . . All his dress was a Vest of course linen, all dirty, a n d a T u r b a n t of the same, with a wretched scarf of Kachmire over his head like a Varlet. . . . I n this miserable posture he was m a d e to enter into the T o w n , 8c to pass through the greatest Merchant-streets, to the end that all the people might see h i m " (I, 226-228). 126 Cf. 1. 458. Melesinda's innocent assurance is ironic, for it is I n d a m o r a who makes Morat speak as he does. 128-133 More foreshadowing. 132-133 Dryden may have h a d in m i n d what Virgil says of the appearance of the m o o n when a storm impends. See Georgics, I, 427-429 (11. 575-580 in Dryden's translation, Works, V, 174). 1 3 3 + s.d. re-enter . . . into the Chamber. I.e., exit . . . i n t o the [women's] sleeping quarters, the zenana or harem. 149-156 A rant, b u t based o n Bernier's characterization of Morat; see note to I, i, 98-101 (p. 415 above). 150 Sable. Saber. T h e historical Morat wore one to the b a n q u e t when he fell into the hands of Aureng-Zebe; it was taken f r o m h i m when he became d r u n k a n d went to sleep. T h e French here is "sabre," a spelling to be f o u n d in The Kind Keeper, III, i, 22g, a n d V, i, 147 (Works, XIV, 45, 80), a n d in The Hind and the Panther, II, 412 (Works, III, 151), a n d hence presumably normal for Dryden. W e may then reasonably conclude that the spelling "Sable" here comes f r o m the English translation he was using, which says that Morat's "Zabel a n d Ponyard were taken f r o m about h i m " (Bernier, I, 160). I n other respects, Morat's boast in 11. 149-152 depends o n a n o t h e r passage in Bernier; see note to I, i, 98-101 (p. 415 above). 165 shoot 'em, as they flie. Summers (IV, 494) notes the figure in T a t e ' s p a r t of 2 Absalom and Achitophel (1. 1032, Works, II, 92). A b o u t this time,

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the accuracy of firearms having sufficiently advanced, it was coming to be regarded as unsportsmanlike to shoot a sitting bird. 168 while Glory's race they run. See Samson Agonistes, 1. 597: "My race of glory [has been] run." 172-173 A commonplace, "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," but note Bernier: "As if you knew not by the experience of more than forty years of your reign, how heavy an Ornament a Crown is, and how many sad and restless nights it passeth through" (II, 103), in a letter from AurengZebe to his father. Bernier tells us that Aureng-Zebe spoke similarly at another time (II, 28). 174 The Fort I'll keep. As noted above (pp. 385, 424), it was also the royal residence. 180-189 Dryden has inverted the historical Shah Jahan, who said: "And yet this Effeminate Man [i.e., Aureng-Zebe, with whom he was angry] would disswade me from taking pains, and dehort me from watching and sollicitude for the Publick; and carry me, by pretences of Health, to the thoughts of an easie life, by abandoning the Government of my People, and the management of affairs to some Vizir or other. . . . W e have natural inclination enough to a long, easie. and careless life, and there need no Counsellors to shake off business and trouble... . Our Wives, that lye in our bosom, do too often, besides our own genius, incline us that way" (Bernier, II, 28-29). Shah Jahan refused to give in to an inclination to ease. 184 a God. I.e., God. 185 Emmets. Ants (OED). Summers (IV, 494) notes the word also in Oedipus V, i, 191 (Works, XIII, 203), to which we may add Don Sebastian, I, i, 79 (Works, XV, 83). 187 second Causes did the work of Fate. Here "Fate" means "Providence," God, the great first cause (see The State of Innocence, IV, i, 55, p. 124 above). Second causes are natural causes in the universe God created. 192 a Queen. I.e., she will assume the government when the emperor retires from it; her desire to do so corresponds to the takeover of effective power by the historical Nur Mahal. Bernier: "Nor did this Jehan-Guire ever think on any thing, but a good cup and merriment, leaving the management of the State to his Wife, the renowned Nour-Mehale, or Nour-JehanBegum, which he used to say, had wit enough to govern the Empire without his giving himself any trouble about it" (III, 62). 193 youthful. Scott emends to "faithful"; Saintsbury, rejecting the emendation on the grounds that "youthful" may be ironic, nevertheless suggests an alternative emendation, "slothful" (S-S, V, 244). 205 a shame to you, a pride to me. Morat's pomp is a shame to him; Aureng-Zebe's unconcern at the pomp is a matter of pride to him. 216 Brachman. Brahmin. Bernier (I, 53-54) paraphrases a letter from Aureng-Zebe to Morat in which he said "that, as for himself, he laid no claim at all to the Crown; that he might remember, he had all his Life time made profession of a Fakire." Fakirs are Muslims and Brahmins are Hindus, but rather than seeing here another mistake on Dryden's part, Beaurline thinks that Dryden intended a doubly derogatory epithet. 217-220 See note to I, i, 318 (p. 419 above). 225 Historically true. One of the commentators finds some significance

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Commentary

in the fact that Darah and Sujah are both alive at the end of Dryden's play, but he overlooks the fact that Aureng-Zebe intends their death (1. 230 below). 239 Proteus-like. For Proteus's efforts to free himself from Aristaeus see Virgil, Georgics, IV, 440-442 (11. 631-640 in Dryden's translation, Works, V, 260). 243 gaining time, the Masterpiece of War. Dryden may have been thinking of the successes of Quintus Fabius Maximus against Hannibal. Fabius was "named the Cunctator [Delayer], from his caution in war" (SCD). 244 Is Aureng-Zebe so known? Summers (IV, 494) notes a parallel in Aeneid II, 44, Sic notus Ulixes? "Is Ulysses so known?" (1. 57 in Dryden's translation. Works, V, 381.) 278 Fort. See note to 1. 174. 282-287 Again the theme of willingness to die. 292 deadly draught. Darah's son Soliman-Chekouh "told [Aureng-Zebe] with resolution enough, T h a t if he were to drink the Poust, he intreated him that he might die presently [cf. 1. 295]. . . . This Poust is nothing else but Poppy expressed [i.e., crushed], and infused a night in Water. . . . This is the first thing that is brought them in the morning, and they have nothing given them to eat, till they have drunk a great cup full of it; they would rather let them starve. This emaciates them exceedingly, and maketh them die insensibly, they loosing little by little their strength and understanding, and growing torpid and senseless" (Bernier, I, 240-242). Summers (IV, 494495) quotes some of the same passage. Poisoning by opium was carried out at the fortress-prison of Gwalior, about fifty miles from Agra; for the purposes of his drama Dryden moves it to the capital (see III, i, 313-316, and IV, i, i6off., pp. 201, 214-215 above). 300 Stars. See note to I, i, 363-364 (p. 419 above). 304-307 W i n n (p. 274) notes the contrast with the well-known passage in 1 Conquest of Granada, I, i, 207-209 (Works, XI, 30): free as Nature first made man 'Ere the base Laws of Servitude began When wild in woods the noble Savage ran. Those who see in Almanzor's words the influence of Hobbes on Dryden's theories of human nature (see Works, XI, 417) are interested in its absence here. 308 if Transmigration be. Most Hindus believe in reincarnation and that one's next kind of body depends on the character of one's current life. See also notes to 11. 479-480 and to V, i, 614 (pp. 430, 440 below). 313 dreaming Priest. See note to 1. 216; Brahmins are priests, fakirs are not; this is another example of Dryden's casualness with regard to the religions of India. A commentator has noted the derogatory use of "dreaming" as applied to religious fanatics in Absalom and Achitophel, 1. 529, "dreaming Saints," i.e., preachers (Works, II, 21). Add to this "dreaming Platonists" in The Hind and the Panther, I, 341 (Works, III, 133). 336 stifl'd. We see from IV, ii, 146 (p. 225 above) that Nourmahal means she will smother Aureng-Zebe with her kisses. 352 incestuous. Lev. 18:8 includes among incestuous relationships that of a man with a second wife of his father's. 359 who was ere in love, and wise? Tilley L558. Tilley notes that Erasmus

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in his Adagia quotes Publius Syrus, Sententiae 15, and that the proverb appears again in Erasmus, Dicta Sapientum, translated by Thomas Berthelet, c. 1526, sig. Biv. Tilley also notes the appearance o£ the proverb in Palamon and Arcite, II, 364-365 (Works, VII). There Dryden is loosely translating "Who may been a fool, but if he love?" (Knight's Tale, I, 1799). Summers (IV, 495) knew of Syrus, either directly or through Noyes's note on Palamon (p. 1028). 361 The figure here Dryden was later to condemn expressly as a "boyism" in Ovid (preface to Fables [Kinsley, IV, 1451]; cf. note to Cinyras and Myrrha, 11. 72-73, in Works, VII). 370-371 Tilley E202, first citation in English in Richard Taverner, Proverbes (1539), fol. gv: "Better it is to remedy the begynnynges then the endes. Stoppe a disease (sayeth the poete Ouide) whyle it is in the comynge." Summers (IV, 495) recognized that Ovid so said in Remedia Amoris, 11. 91-92. 386 The Under-Provost of the Fort. Abas. 406-411 Morat's attitude toward Melesinda will completely change by 11. 486-492, but Dryden manages the peripety gradually (see 1. 458), a technique he speaks of in his epilogue, 1. 7 (p. 249 above) and was to insist on in The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy prefixed to Troilus and Cressida (1679): " 'Tis necessary therefore for a Poet, who would concern an Audience by describing of a Passion, first to prepare it, and not to rush upon it all at once" (Works, XIII, 242). 406 my Captive. I.e., my captive wife. 427 Stuards. McFadden (p. 192) identifies the word as a play on the royal name and thinks the speaker (Mrs. Cox) must have addressed the speech directly to the king at the court performance on 29 May 1676. 429-430 See note to The Spanish Fryar, III, iii, 254 (Works, XIV, 463464). 448 better part. A phrase much used by Dryden, though more often in the form "better half" (Tilley H49, first citation 1590). See, for instance, Amboyna, IV, v, 19 and The State of Innocence, I, i, 67, and II, iii, 5 (pp. 54, 100, 110 above). 449-450 Indamora's conventional language proves to be just that; she is afraid to die, as we see in V, i, 2oofI., 518 (pp. 233-237, 243 above). 452 suspect. Believe (OED). 461 Piety. Fraternal affection (see note to II, i, 189, p. 422 above). 463 Eastern. See note to I, i, 1 (p. 412 above). 465 our Prophet. Indamora speaks as one Muslim to another. She is a princess of Kashmir, but even a careful reader of Bernier will fail to find a clear statement that the Kashmiris were Hindus; Bernier mentions mosques there several times. Muslim theologians do not teach that Mohammed looks down from heaven and sends retribution on evildoers, but perhaps Dryden had heard of some popular belief; cf. Darah's last words as reported by Niccolao Manucci, "Mohammed gives me death, and the Son of God and Mary will save me," but Manucci's report, as paraphrased by François Catrou, was not published until after the play and itself remained in manuscript until 1907-1908 (Bernier, Constable-Smith edition [1934], pp. xii, 101 n. 1). 467 Avenging Furies. Figures of classical mythology, but Muslims believe

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in evil Jinns who do harm, and one of the names of God in Islam is alMuntaqin, "the Avenger." See also IV, i, 373 (p. 220 above). 476 generous. See note to I, i, 90 (p. 415 above). 479-480 our Prophet's care / . . . to spare. Summers (IV, 495) notes that Dryden puts almost the same words into the mouth of the Muslim Abdelmelech in 1 Conquest of Granada, I, i, 176-177 (Works, X I , 29). Dryden may have known that cruelty to animals was forbidden in Islam, but Summers rather supposes that Dryden thought Muslims had the same belief as many Hindus with respect to reincarnation. See Bernier: "[Hindus] all agree in one Doctrine, which is that of Pythagoras concerning the Metempsychosis or Transmigration of Souls, and in this, that they must not kill or eat of any Animal. However there are some of the second Tribe [the warrior caste] that may eat of them, provided it be neither Cows nor Peacocks-Resh" (III, 145-146). As noted above, we now recognize that Hinduism is a collection of similar religions (Hans Kiing, et al., Christianity and the World Religions [1986], pp. 141-143) and that not all Hindus believe in reincarnation. 504 As a Muslim living in accordance with canon law Morat may have four wives, but Dryden seems either to forget the fact or to suppose that Morat takes seriously the Koran's rule, "if you fear you will not be equitable, / then [marry] only one" (see Kiing, p. 81). 526 For. As for. 544 States-men. See note to I, i, 53-59 (p. 414 above). 546 Pageant. Empty show (OED). 551 Juvenal's Satire X, on the vanity of human wishes, considers last the sorrows of beauty (for Dryden's translation, see Works, IV, 233-239). IV, i 3-4 Cf. The State of Innocence, I, i, 1 1 5 - 1 1 8 (p. 102 above). 7 the Persian King. Interpreters differ as to whether Dryden did or did not have a particular Persian king in mind. Thus Summers (IV, 495), who supposes the reference is merely general, says that perhaps the best-known reference to Persian luxury in the classics is Horace's remark: " I hate Persian pomp" (Odes, I, xxxviii, 1). But Dryden presumably would also have known of contemporary Persia: "Under Shah Abbas II (1642-66), Persia recovered some of its glory, and the pomp and pageantry of the court dazzled European envoys and travellers" (Enc. Br. 17:573). Bernier has an account of the magnificent gifts presented by a Persian ambassador to Aureng-Zebe, who as he examined them "several times . . . extolled the Generosity of the King of Persia" (II, 66). Perhaps, instead, as Leslie Howard Martin believes, Dryden may have been referring to the king in William Cartwright's The Royall Slave (1639, 1640, 1651) or to the historical person behind the king. In the play, the Persian king intends Cratander to be a human sacrifice, but, asking him for a last wish and being told he would like to be king, puts him on the throne. Behind this imagined incident, Martin observes, is a true one in the life of Shah Abbas the Great of Persia, who, learning from an astrologer that his life was in danger, enthroned a substitute who in due course lost his life, and then resumed his place. See Leslie Howard Martin,

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"Aureng-Zebe and the Ritual of the Persian King," MP, L X X I (1973-74). 169-171. 14 Interest. T h e theme word again. 33-44 Winn (p. 277) says the speech "surely draws on [Dryden's] own despair" as recorded by him in the prologue, 11. 23-30 (p. 159 above), but is Dryden to have no imagination? 43 Chymic. Sought for by alchemists, as noted by Summers (IV, 495). 66 Genius. We are more used to the form "genie," one of "a class of spirits (some good, some evil) supposed to interfere powerfully in human affairs" (OED). 74 Fate. Death. See note to The State of Innocence, V, iv, 177 (p. 380 above). 76-78 The metaphor of sympathetic vibrations was common enough. Dryden lifts it out of the ordinary by the companion metaphor in 11. 125-126. 82-83 Apparently the meaning is "You may ask heaven to reward me rather than yourself for I do not expect a reward." Perhaps Dryden was thinking of the doctrine of James 2:15-16: "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?" 94 Tilley E3, first citation 1578. 98-110 Alex Lindsay ("Juvenal, Spenser, and Dryden's Nourmahal") sees a parallel between these lines and the enchantress Acrasia in The Faerie Queene, II, xii, 73, 77. Once more we observe Dryden attributing knowledge of classical antiquity to his Indians. 100 Myrtle. Symbolic of love. See note to Amboyna, III, i, 26 (p. 300 above). 101 Sabean Springs. Spring seasons in Saba (biblical Sheba), Arabia Felix, now Yemen, from which came frankincense. See "Sabcean Smoke" in Dryden's translation of Virgil's Aeneid, IV, 86 (Works, V, 453), and "Sabcean Fields" in his translation from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Cinyras and Myrrha, 1. 323 (Works, VII). Summers (IV, 496) gives some other parallels in Latin and more could be cited. 102 Indian Jasmine, or the Syrian Rose. OED notes that Cowley had coupled the jasmine and the rose in the fifth stanza of the poem appended to the essay that Dryden alludes to in 153:25-26 (see note, p. 405 above): "Who, that has Reason, and his Smell, / Would not among Roses and Jasmin dwell." Summers (IV, 496) identifies Dryden's "Indian Jasmine" as "Chameli, or Jasminum grandiflorum." "Syrian Rose" is a poetical variation of "damask rose," Damascus being the capital of Syria. OED (damask) says the original variety appears to have been Rosa gallica damascena, but that the name has been variously applied. 105 Nourmahal begins here to act what she describes. 110 humid kisses. Probably a commonplace, but see note to II, i, 232 (p. 422 above). 118 incestuous. See note to III, i, 352 (p. 428 above). 119 niceness. Reluctance. See note to II, i, 304 (p. 422 above). 127-130 Langbaine (pp. 156-157) recognized that Dryden was imitating

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speeches by Hippolytus in Seneca's play, 11. 671 if.: "Great ruler God, are you so slow to hear of wickedness, so slow to see? Do you ever send lightning with relentless cruelty if you are now serene? [For so much Dryden could equally well have a biblical source in Hab. 1:2, 13.] Let transfixing fire reduce me at once to ashes, I am the criminal, I deserve death, I have pleased my step-mother" (Loeb). Alssid, Dryden's Rhymed Heroic Tragedies, II, 368, sees the whole episode of Nourmahal's attempt to seduce Aureng-Zebe as taking its inspiration from Seneca. 126, 127 thunder / Thunder. T h e noun means "thunderbolt," i.e., lightning (see note to 11. 127-130), and the verb means to send it. 139 piety. See note to II, i, 189 (p. 422 above). Scott (S-S, V, 262) says it was believed in Dryden's time that some Indian tribes ate their parents as a sign of respect. Summers (IV, 496) cites Montaigne, Essais, II, xii, Apologie de Raimond Sebond, where we are told that the ancients who ate their parents regarded it as piety, giving them the best possible burial (Essais, ed. Pierre Villey [1978], I, 581; Complete Works, trans. Donald M. Frame [1958], p. 438). 142 Incest. See note to III, i, 352 (p. 428 above). 148-150 Langbaine (p. 156) noted that these lines (starting with "I love my Husband") have a parallel in Seneca's Hippolytus, 11. 646-648, where Phaedra says, "Theseus' features I love, those former looks of his which once as a youth he had, when his first beard marked his smooth cheeks" (Loeb). 157 Convention elevated to theatricality. Nourmahal knows Aureng-Zebe will not stab her. 162 Cup. See note to III, i, 292 (p. 428 above). 163 Philtre. Aphrodisiac (OED). 166 Socrates. Summers (VI, 497) quotes Plato, Phaedo, LXVI, to the effect that Socrates was going to pour out a libation from the cup of hemlock, but when told there was only enough to kill him, he did not. Muslims do not make libations. 168 stay. Await (OED, sense 19 of the first verb). 199-202 Harley Granville-Barker remarks of these lines that their presence in a play whose text Charles I I had approved "says something for the royal sense of h u m o u r " (On Dramatic Method [1931], p. 144). T h e king approved the play before Dryden added the last touches to it (see headnote, p. 386 above), but his licenser passed it afterward (see title page reproduced on p. 148). 212 T h e first suspicion of Indamora's "inconstancy" (1. 225) enters Aureng-Zebe's mind. Dryden prepares for Aureng-Zebe's change of attitude toward Indamora, fully expressed in the next scene, in the same way that he prepared for Morat's change of attitude toward Melesinda in Act III (see note to III, i, 406-411, p. 429 above). We may note that Morat changes his mind only once, Aureng-Zebe, four times, for Indamora wins him to her again in the next scene, loses him once more in the middle of the last act, and wins him finally at the very end of the play. For the third of these changes there is again a preparation in IV, ii, 154 (p. 225 above). 216 if you'll spare my farther crime. Saintsbury (S-S, V, 265) glosses: "if you wish to prevent my committing a crime later."

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224-228 Again the question of convention versus real intent. Morat has put off Aureng-Zebe's death a single day. Does the latter really mean he will commit suicide if not executed in twenty-four hours? 226 Apparently the meaning is "the respite is costing me all my peace of mind." 234-235 Melesinda will prove that she does not speak merely conventionally here and in 11. 258-261 and 268-269, even though after the latter words she obeys her husband's heartbreaking command. 273 sin. See note to III, i, 504 (p. 430 above). 291 Counter-time. OED, citing this passage, says this is an image from fencing, where the word means "a pass or thrust made at a wrong or inopportune moment." But here it would seem to mean no more than "contrary, opposite," assuming that "Fate" is a synonym of "Fortune" in the line above. 301 pompous. See note to I, i, 8 (p. 413 above). 336 like new Wine. Although Muslims are not supposed to drink wine, Dryden knew that Morat and others indulged in it even to excess; see headnote (p. 388 above). 340 Historically, the problem was Shah Jahan's illness, which, says Bernier, "was little sutable to a Man of above seventy years of Age, who should rather think on preserving his strength, than to ruin it, as he did" (I, 48-49). 357 jealous. Probably "suspicious" (see note to I, i, 280, p. 418 above), but the meaning may be "jealously guarded, permitting no near access," as Summers glosses the word here (IV, 497). 361 Link points out that Dioscorides and Pliny said yew trees poisoned those who stayed under them. Summers (IV, 497-498) thinks Dryden refers to upas trees, supposed to grow in Java (upas is Javanese for poison). T h e latter name does not appear in OED until 1783, but Summers thinks Dryden read about Javanese poisons in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for 11 March 1666, n.s. (1667), p. 117, and notes that these stories were known to George Everard Rumpf, a botanist who died in 1693. 363 Semele, pregnant with Dionysus by Jupiter, asked to see him in his form as god of thunder; the lightning consumed her, but Jupiter saved the baby. Dryden has slightly altered the fable. 364 Rack. Storm clouds, as noted by Summers (IV, 498). But in IV, ii, 139 (p. 225 above), it means "wreck." 373 Pow'rs Divine. See note to III, i, 467 (pp. 429-430 above). 377-378 Since ... I Above. Not the Muslim Allah, obviously, but the gods of classical antiquity, the children of Jove the son of Uranus. 382 Late Fruit. Such images are not based on thorough analysis. Dryden at one time intended to have the hero of The Kind Keeper say in vindication of his determination to put off marriage, "Our family is good winter fruit: true bon Chretien [a variety of pear]" (see Works, XIV, 418). Cf. note to The State of Innocence, V, iv, 214-216 (p. 380 above). IV, ii 20 Eyes which give me death. Probably the meaning here is not that Aureng-Zebe will kill himself because (as he supposes) Indamora has come

434

Commentary

to love Morat, b u t a n o t h e r convention, namely that she has "killing glances," or in terms Dryden uses in The Spanish Fryar, The Duke of Guise, a n d Love Triumphant, that she is a basilisk or cockatrice (see Works, XIV, 457). See n o t e to 1. 43. 26 Interest. Again the theme word. 43 dying. T h e convention pervades this scene, recurring in 11. 6 1 - 6 2 (in a kind of ironic contrast to 1. 59, where Aureng-Zebe refers to his death at Morat's hands), 91, 123 (where "Fate" means "death"), 140, 143, 156-159, a n d 174. All contrast implicitly with the real t h i n g in Arimant's words in 1. 217. 45 Summers (IV, 498) notes Fielding's burlesque, " T o m T h u m b , T o m T h u m b , T o m T h u m b , you love the n a m e " (II, x). 46-47 Summers (IV, 498) notes that Steele objected to the rhyme, in Spectator no. 80, 1 J u n e 1 7 1 1 . 50 jealousie. As "suspitions" in 1. 1 1 7 makes clear, the m e a n i n g is once again "suspicion"; see n o t e to I, i, 280 (p. 418 above). 53 fond. Saintsbury glosses as " f o n d l e " (S-S, V, 273). Summers (IV, 498) notes its use in Dryden's translation of Virgil's Aeneid, I, 962 (Works, V, 373)66 take place. Be accepted ( O E D , place, sense 27b of the noun). 100 Traitress. T h e parallel to Samson Agonistes, 1. 725, "my Traitress," may be significant in the light of those noted just below. 103-104 Cf. Samson Agonistes, 11. 1025-1027: Is it for that such outward o r n a m e n t Was lavish't on thir Sex, that inward gifts W e r e left for haste unfinish't; judgement scant. See also V, i, 280-281 (p. 236 above), where there is n o influence of Milton in the expression. 1 0 5 - 1 0 7 Cf. Samson Agonistes, 11. 1030-1033, . . . oftest to affect the wrong? Or was too m u c h of self-love mixt, Of constancy n o root infixt, T h a t either they love nothing, or not long? Dryden may have been struck by the rhyme. As W i n n notes (p. 283), " T h o u g h following Milton's language closely, Dryden puts it to a n entirely different dramatic use," viz., Milton wishes us to sympathize with Samson, Dryden with I n d a m o r a (since Aureng-Zebe's remarks are false as applied to her). 123 Fate. See note to 1. 43. 134 end my pain. Die (see 1. 140). But, as noted above, when I n d a m o r a really comes face to face with death she is afraid. 135 Distrust. His distrust of her, not hers of him. 146 stifle. See note to III, i, 336 (p. 428 above). 149 Raving. Delirious (OED). 154 Give me cause no more. T h u s Dryden prepares for a n o t h e r change of m i n d on Aureng-Zebe's part; see note to IV, i, 212 (p. 432 above). 163 T h e historical Abas was one of Morat's loyal generals (Bernier, I, 67, 163). 164 Fate. T h e same meaning as in 1. 123; see note to 1. 43.

Notes to Pages

221-230

435

170 Paricide. See note to I, i, 37 (p. 413 above). 217 afford. Be able (OED). 222 See note to IV, i, 98-110 (p. 431 above). V, i 6 draws the . . . Scene. Theatrical imagery. 9 distinguish'd. Clearly [OED). 11-12 Not a historical parallel; Aureng-Zebe and Morat did not attack Agra. Instead, Aureng-Zebe's son approached the fortress pretending to have a message for Shah Jahan. When he was admitted, he overpowered the guard. Shah Jahan, after trying to win him over by a bribe, handed the keys of the city to him (Bernier, I, 139-150). 16 for. Instead of; i.e., the slaughter was so great that the remnant surrendered in sorrow and despair. 20 Eastern. See note to I, i, 1 (p. 412 above). 24 live, or die. Conventional language, as we see later in the scene. 44' 77 Paricide. See note to I, i, 37 (p. 413 above). 51 Inspired perhaps by the way Aureng-Zebe captured Morat; see headnote (p. 388 above). 55 sounding Cymbals aid the lab'ring Moon. Bernier's only reference to an eclipse in India is to the eclipse of the sun at Delhi in 1666 (III, 103108), and he mentions only ritual bathing at that time. Tavernier, whose Six Voyages were published after the play, says that the ceremonies were the same for eclipses of both sun and moon and that the bathing was preceded by a "terrible noise . . . made with drums, bells, and large disks made of similar metal to that of our cymbals, which they strike one against the other" (II, 248). Dryden's source, whatever it was, must have informed him similarly, or else he simply wrote what he knew was true in classical antiquity (see his note 29 to Juvenal, Satire VI, Works, IV, 202). 57 Scythian Bowe. Summers (IV, 499) believes Dryden remembered the same words in Ovid's Letters from Pontus, I, i, 79, which he may well have done, for the Cretans, not the Scythians, were the best bowmen of antiquity (Virgil, Loeb ed., I, 179 n. 1). "Cretan Bowe" would fit the meter equally well here. 63 discontent. See note to III, i, 180-189 (P- 4 2 7 above). 71-72 Not having as many recorded words of Morat as of Aureng-Zebe, Dryden, who contrasted the two characters, was able to turn some of the latter's sentiments upside down to make speeches for the former, here a remark by the historical Aureng-Zebe that "the greatest Conquerors are not always the greatest Kings; that we too often see a Barbarian making Conquests, and that those great Bodies of Conquests do ordinarily fall of themselves, and by their own weight" (Bernier, II, 105). 73 of course. Inevitably, naturally. 77-78 David seems to have had the same principle in mind in twice sparing the life of Saul and executing the man who claimed to have killed him (1 Sam. 24, 26; 2 Sam. 1:1-16). 91-93 Eugene M. Waith, The Herculean Hero (1962), p. 154, compares

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Commentary

with Abenamar's description of Almanzor in i Conquest of Granada, V, i, 206-208 (Works, XI, 88). 96 lighten'd. Cleansed of "vapours" (1. 94), probably. 102-103 like inchanted ground, / Flies from my sight. T h e same image occurs in the prologue, 1. 10 (p. 159 above). 104-111 McFadden (pp. 191-192) is inclined to see here the influence of Longinus, ch. v; see headnote to The State of Innocence (p. 333 above). 120 to halves. Imperfectly (OED). 123 See note to III, i, 504 (p. 430 above). 153-156 The language of convention only, as the second couplet makes clear. 157 T h e historical Mir Baba was one of Aureng-Zebe's generals, and, as noted at IV, ii, 163 (p. 434 above), the historical Abas remained loyal to Morat. But we can hardly demand that Dryden pay attention to the historicity of his minor characters when he varies so much from the historicity of his protagonists. 172 devoted. Cursed. A common word in Dryden's later poetry; see, e.g., the tautological "Curse my devoted Head" in The Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses, 1. 505 (Works, VII). 183 The last conventional speech before we see the real Indamora. 187 int'rest. The last occurrence of the theme word. 189 would her self Usurp the State. See note to III, i, 192 (p. 427 above). 192 Tilley (S656) cites Romeo and Juliet, III, v, 59, "Dry sorrow drinks our blood." 205-222 There is a similar contrast between a fearful and a fearless woman in a longer dialogue between Cleora and Cratisiclea in the last act of Cleomenes (Works, XVI). Dryden explores the contrast between Indamora's use of conventional language and her real fear of death in further dialogue with quite a different woman, Nourmahal, in 11. 274-322. 205-208 See dedication, p. 156 above. 207 Cf. 1. 320 (p. 237 above). 225+ s.d. This is rather an exit; at 1. 255 Zayda also "Goes in"; then, after 1. 260, they "Re-enter." 230-231 Bernier: "Morad-Bakche [was] blinded with an excessive ambition to Reign" (I, 69). 239 Summers (IV, 499) notes the parallel in Amboyna, V, i, 210: "there is no Sex in Souls" (p. 68 above). 248 Empress of the World. Bernier: "the Wife of Jehan-Guyre, who hath so long Govern'd the State, whilst her Husband minded nothing but Drinking and Divertisements, was first called Nour-Mehalle, and afterwards, NourJehan-Begum, the Light of the Seraglio, the Light of the World" (I, 10). As noted above, Shah Jahan, the name of the historical old emperor, means King of the World. 250 Drudge. Aureng-Zebe. Dryden almost always uses noun and verb in a sexual sense, e.g., in Amboyna, II, i, 293 (p. 28 above), and see note to The Kind Keeper, II, i, 14 (Works, XIV, 395). 253 Love. Nourmahal uses the word loosely. 257 Summers (IV, 499) finds a source in Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1. 689, where Helen is called ship-destroying, the first letters of the adjective in

Notes to Pages

230-239

437

Greek being those of her name. Dryden is more likely to have been thinking of the famous exclamation in Dr. Faustus. 258 set the World on fire. Judging from the witty use of the phrase at the end of Prior's The Female Phaeton, it was already becoming proverbial. 284 Gods. Forgetting that his Nourmahal is Iranian, a Muslim, Dryden makes her speak as a Hindu, and he does so in a similar way in 11. 342-345. 303 Once again Dryden has forgotten that his Nourmahal is a Muslim. Hindus who believe in reincarnation sometimes also believe in a final dissolution of the soul (Kung, Christianity, p. 216). 310 Do me reason. [Let the dagger] drink to me. Saintsbury notes that Dryden introduces "the common phrase for pledging a health" (S-S, V, 288). Dryden had first used it in The Wild Gallant, I, iii, 4 (Works, VIII, 21), where Trice, playing backgammon with himself, drinks to himself. T h e commonness or crudeness of the phrase makes it more forceful in the present context, but, contra Link, I see no pun here. 312 drudgery. The language of sexual intercourse (see note to 1. 250). Dryden was familiar with the fact that in certain persons the inflicting of pain gives sexual stimulation, as there was in his time a class of prostitutes who allowed themselves to be whipped. 321 Cf. 1. 207 (p. 233 above). 328 The way Morat meets his death may have been suggested by Bernier, who records that Aureng-Zebe, having brought his army to Agra and having been invited by Shah Jahan to visit him, did not do so because "he apprehended . . . that several of those lusty Tartarian Women, which serve in the Seraglio, were armed to set upon him as soon as he should enter" (I, 143; also p. 152). 329 whether. Whither, in the sense of "to what result." 330+ s.d.-437 Cf. the scene in Scudiry's Artamine summarized in note to dedication, 156:12 (p. 408 above). 342-346 A mixture of non-Islamic ideas; see notes to 11. 284, 303 and II, i, 26 (p. 421 above). 343 Monarchs should defend. See note to The Spanish Fryar, III, iii, 254 (Works, XIV, 463-464). 346 Images. See Gen. 1:26. 363-364 Melesinda speaks as a Muslim, but when she acts on her words she acts like a Hindu; see note to 1. 613 (pp. 439-440 below). 367 I call'd him hither. See 11. 219-222. 368 Summers (IV, 500) shows by a florilegium of quotations that this ancient superstition was a dramatic commonplace. 381-383 Now Melesinda speaks like a Roman or a Greek. 396 flaw. Saintsbury (S-S, V, 292) and Summers (IV, 500) think the sense is a flaw of wind, a violent but brief gust; Link says the word means uproar; more likely it means breakage (see 11. 429-430). 401 golden Serpents. Probably Dryden's invention, but one not directly opposed by Bernier, whose account of the Mogul standards ends with an et cetera. Irvine's full account (Army of the Indian Moghuls, pp. 31-35) also notes that the figures on some flags are no longer known. 402 Crests . . . Volumes. Dryden's snakes always have "crests" and "volumes" because he found the words in Ovid and Virgil. "Volumes" (from

43»

Commentary

volumen) means "coils"; "crests" (from crista) in Dryden's usage usually means "the forebodies raised from the ground," here perhaps of cobras. See note to The State of Innocence, IV, ii, 12 (p. 373 above). 408-409 One of Darah's wives or women (the French is ambiguous) took poison when Darah fell into Aureng-Zebe's hands and she anticipated his death (Bernier, I, 234-235). 412-413 See notes to I, i, 32 and 41 (p. 413 above). 414 success. See note to I, i, 2 (p. 412 above). 417 dazle. See note to The Duke of Guise, V, ii, 69 (Works, XIV, 537). 423-424 Saintsbury says: " 'sit' and 'find' may be either imperative or optative. The reader must adjust the punctuation at his choice" (S-S, V, 293). 428 specious. See note to dedication, 149:22 (p. 401 above). 437 s.d. Dies. As noted by Summers (IV, 500-501), Bernier says that shortly after the historical Aureng-Zebe and Morat captured Agra, the former withdrew from a banquet at which the latter, no strict Muslim, drank himself insensible. Aureng-Zebe then had Morat imprisoned as one unworthy to ascend a Muslim throne and subsequently had him executed on an old charge of murder (Bernier, I, 155-163, 242-244). 43g Fate. See note to IV, ii, 43 (p. 434 above). 449+ s.d. As Summers notes (IV, 501), one of the bodies is that of Melesinda, who has only fainted. 469-470 Quoting her words at 11.432-433. 480 all the Woman. Aureng-Zebe's estimate of womankind is not necessarily Dryden's but happens to coincide with it. 487 would I had di'd for thee. The words of King David, "Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom" (2 Sam. 18:33). 488 generosity. See note to I, i, go (p. 415 above). 490 He took my Arms. One of the oldest plot devices, going back to Patroclus's taking the arms of Achilles (Iliad, XVI). 492 My Buckler o'r my aged Father. Not historical, of course, but see Bernier: "All wounded as [Morat] was, and pressed . . . , he was not daunted, nor gave way in the least, but knew so well to take his time, that, although he was, besides defending himself, to cover with his Shield a Son of his, but of Seven or Eight years of Age, who was sitting on his side [in the armored howdah on the elephant], he made an Arrow shot" that killed the chief of his attackers (I, 119-120). If Dryden was not thinking of Bernier, he drew upon classical literature, in which, for instance, Ajax covered Ulysses with his shield as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses, XIII, 75-76; see Dryden's translation, The Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses, 1. 115 (Works, VII). 496 To Aureng-Zebe. Saintsbury says: "This seems a Gallicism, like 'A moi!' " (S-S, V, 295); i.e., Dryden supposed that " a " in war cries, e.g., "a Talbot" in 1 Henry VI, II, i, 38+ s.d., was French, and so translated it. "Modern writers treat it as the indefinite article" (OED). 497 seeing not. Even when he did not see [danger], 514 My sighs . . . my tears. As Saintsbury notes, the meaning is "sighs due me" and "tears due me"; he calls the figure "an evident Ovidian reminiscence" (S-S, V, 296). 517 you valu'd life when I was gone. Aureng-Zebe demands willingness on Indamora's part to die either on his funeral pyre or by taking poison.

Notes

to Pages

239-246

439

Dryden, who regarded such an outcome as deeply moving, had introduced its prospect into Amboyna and will shortly introduce its consummation into the present play. As a Muslim, Indamora would not have immolated herself—that was a H i n d u practice only—but she might have taken poison. See note to 11. 408-409. 5 1 8 I . . . fear'd to die. See Bernier, writing of a twelve-year-old widow who was being led to the pyre: "this poor unhappy Creature appear'd rather dead than alive, when she came near the Pile; she shook, and wept bitterly" (III, 128); he also says that often the widows were able to get bystanders to rescue them (pp. 126-127). 540 weighs to the least grain. Harold F. Brooks, "Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," Revue de Littérature Comparée, X L V I (1972), 26, notes that in Of Heroique Playes (Works, X I , 16) Dryden had said: " I shall never subject my characters to the French standard; where Love and Honour are to be weigh'd by drams and scruples." See note to dedication 150:11 (p. 401 above). 550 bliss. Either an old spelling of "bless" or a verb in its own right meaning "make happy" (OED). 561 Dryden seems to have conceived of Indamora as the lawful ruler of her nation, not simply a captive princess. See also II, i, 171 (p. 181 above). 5 7 3 + s-d- Looks to the door. Goes to and looks through the door. Summers (IV, 501) thinks this would have been at the side of the proscenium. I f so, then Indamora must have made her exist through it also. 575 set. Stake (OED, sense 35 of the verb, citing Tyrartnick Love, V, i, 73). 58g gen'rous. See note to I, i, 90 (p. 4 1 5 above). 605-606 Another weak rhyme. Cf. IV, ii, 46-47 (p. 222 above). 6 1 0 + s.d. in white. I.e., dressed as a bride (see 11. 620-621, 635, and IV, i, 246, p. 2 1 6 above). Bernier, who witnessed a number of these funeral ceremonies, says nothing about how Melesinda might have been dressed, but Tavernier, whose Six Voyages was not published until after the play, says that she would have worn wedding garments (II, 211), and Dryden presumably had a similar source for this detail. 611 Indamora's lack of knowledge is only so the English audience will be informed. 6 1 3 Laws . . . allow. Melesinda's self-immolation reflects a threat by the maharanee of Jodhpur, a Hindu, when her husband returned after losing a battle with Aureng-Zebe and Morat preliminary to their victory over Darah. She refused to see the maharaja and, at last, "She commands a pile of wood to be laid, that she might burn her self, [saying] that they abus'd [i.e., lied to] her; that her husband must needs be dead; that it could not be otherwise." H e r mother calmed her finally, promising in the name of the marahaja that he would collect a new army (Bernier, I, go-91). Dryden seems to have conceived of Melesinda as a H i n d u princess who had been forcibly married to Morat much as Indamora had been prepared for marriage to Aureng-Zebe (see I I , i, 1 7 1 - 1 7 6 , p. 181 above), but who both loved her husband and retained her old beliefs. Bernier makes it clear that Hindus would not marry Muslims (e.g., I l l , 36). I n 1679, that is, after the play was written, Aureng-Zebe forced the families of the maharajas of J o d h p u r and J a i p u r to intermarry with his family, upon which the maharaja of Udaipur would no longer allow his family to intermarry with those

44°

Commentary

of the other two rajas. They then refused to join him in fighting AurengZebe unless the old patterns of intermarriage were restored (Enc. Br., 13:80). 614 approve. Prove. T h e citations in OED indicate that except in the reflexive, "approve oneself," the verb was going out of use in this sense. 615 Chearful. Bernier: " I saw [the widow in the flames], but observed not, that the Woman was at all disturbed; yea, it was said, that she had been heard to pronounce with great force these two words, Five, Two, to signifie according to the Opinion of those that hold the Soul's Transmigration, that this was the Fifth time she had burn't her self with the same Husband, and that there remain'd but two times for perfection [i.e., to make her perfect]; as if she had at that time this Remembrance, or some Prophetical Spirit" (III, 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 ) . Dryden ignored for dramatic purposes Bernier's examples of women who feared the flames and sometimes managed to escape them at the last minute. 618 See dedication, p. 156 above. 624-625 T h e speeches reflect the fact recorded by Bernier that "the Mahumetans, that bear sway at present in Indostan, are enemies to that barbarous custome, and hinder it as much as they can; not opposing it absolutely, because they are willing to leave the idolatrous people, who are far more numerous than themselves, in the free exercise of their Religion, for fear of some revolt: but by indirectly preventing it, in that they oblige the Women, ready to burn themselves, to go and ask permission of the respective Governors, who send for them, make converse with their own Women, remonstrate things to them with annexed promises, and never give them this permission, but after they have tryed all these gentle ways, and till they find them fixt in their sottish resolution" (III, 114). 626 Melesinda's reply is like Raphael's argument for freedom of the will in The State of Innocence, IV, i, 105-106 (p. 125 above). 637 generously. See note to I, i, 90 (p. 415 above). 641-667 T h e headnote has alluded to Granville-Barker's suggestion that Charles II may have written these lines. Noting that Saintsbury had wished he could have omitted them from his edition, Granville-Barker adds, "Mr. Bayes here leaves Buckingham nothing to burlesque" (On Dramatic Method, p. 146). But the next year his fellow playwright and fellow critic, T . S. Eliot, said instead that Nourmahal here "raves in couplets better than one would conceive it possible for rhymed couplets to rave"—at the same time observing that "what Dryden has is not the sense of tragedy at all" ( J o h n Dryden [1932], p. 41). Brooks ("Dryden's Aureng-Zebe," p. 22) finds precedents for the lines in Hercules' poisoned ravings in Seneca's Hercules Oetaeus, 11. 835, 1364-1368, and in Corneille's Medee, 11. 1366, 1379, 1417. 653 pour on whole Rivers. Summers (IV, 501) notes that Shakespeare's King John and Fletcher's Valentinian, when poisoned, called for rivers to quench their burning. Nourmahal's taking poison may have been suggested to Dryden by the suicide of one of Darah's seraglio. See note to 11. 407-408. 674-675 When the historical Aureng-Zebe and Morat captured Agra they confined their father in the fort, where he stayed until he died. Summers (IV, 501-502) cites Bernier, who says Shah Jahan lost nothing thereby except his freedom and any real authority. He "wrote very often to Aureng-Zebe

Notes to Pages 246-249

441

touching the Government a n d State-affairs," however, a n d even "granted h i m at length that p a r d o n a n d paternal blessing which he h a d so o f t e n desired without obtaining it" (Bernier, II, 100-101). H e n c e Dryden may be t h o u g h t to have some historical basis for the old emperor's abdication.

EPILOGUE

1-6 Summers (IV, 502) a n d Kinsley (IV, i860) n o t e the parallel to the first prologue to Secret Love, 11. 1-6 (Works, IX, 119). 4 freed from noise and bloud. See 1. 18. 6 W i n n (pp. 267-268) believes Dryden m e a n t to call a t t e n t i o n to the e n j a m b m e n t of his lines, but that is to take too narrow a view. 7 See note to III, i, 406-411 (p. 429 above). 12 Cf. To My Honour'd Kinsman, p. 82 (Works, VII), "Guibbons b u t guesses, nor is sure to save." William Gibbons treated Dryden successfully (see Works, VI, 810). 15 Kinsley (IV, i860) notes the parallel to the prologue to The Rival Ladies, 1. 11 (Works, VIII, 103). 18 As Summers, Watson, a n d Kinsley all note, Dryden h a d discussed the French rule against showing battles a n d duels o n the stage in his Essay of Dramatick Poesie (Works, XVII, 39, 50). 19 T h i s outburst must have raised a laugh that c o n t i n u e d through the following lines. England h a d only recently been France's ally in the T h i r d D u t c h War, the king's predilection to things French was common knowledge, a n d the rules u n d e r which Dryden h a d enlisted in 1. 2 were French. B u t nationalist sentiment pleases everyone when it can be taken lightly by some. 21 Silk-weavers. Scott (S-S, V, 303) explains that English silk weavers objected to importing silks f r o m France. T h e y were congregated in Spitalfields, outside the wall of L o n d o n between Shoreditch to the n o r t h a n d Whitechapel to the south, first heavily inhabited by refugees f r o m the fire of London. T h e r e they were joined, a f t e r Louis XIV began to persecute Huguenots, by the very silk weavers to whose competition they h a d objected before. See note to prologue to The Duke of Guise, 1. 6 (Works, XIV, 514). Luttrell reports u n d e r 29 April 1699: " T h e weavers in Spittle feilds, being near r u i n e d by the East I n d i a companies importing silks hither," have decided to become weavers of wool (IV, 510), b u t instead, in 1700, the silk weavers a n d the woolen industry in concert secured an act forbidding the import of silks a n d cotton goods (11 & 12 William III, ch. 10). 23 Play, play, play. T h e prologue to Cleomenes, 1. 4 (Works, XVI), reports the same language; a n d at the very end of the century N e d W a r d reported it in an audience at Bartholomew Fair: "Now a n d then breaking out i n t o Bear-Gardens Acclamation of Show, Show, Show, Show" (London Spy, P a r t X I , 1924 ed„ p. 253). As Scott noted (S-S, V, 303), "Play" could be a call for a prizefight with broadswords, which were also staged in theaters. N e d W a r d gives us a picture of "one of the Prize-Fighting Gladiators, f r o m Dorset-Garden Theatre," a n d his pals "having as m a n y Scars in their Bear-

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Commentary

Garden Physiognomies, as there are marks in a Chandlers Cheese scor'd out into Pennyworths" (Part XVIII, ibid., p. 433). 25 Barbare. Presumably a phonetic spelling of Barbares. Saintsbury (S-S, V, 303) preferred to emend "gens" to "gent." 33 Dryden had used the image for a different purpose in V, i, 193 (p. 233 above). 40 and, if . . . allow'd. A n anacoluthon: if the good judges approve a play, they influence general opinion. See dedication of the Aeneis (Works, V, 328): Virgil "chose to please the most Judicious: Souls of the highest Rank, and truest Understanding. These . . . have a certain Magnetism in their Judgment, which attracts others to their Sense." 42 a presuming Man. One who seeks acceptance of his conclusions or actions without being able to offer substantiation therefor (see OED, presumer).

TEXTUAL NOTES

Textual Notes

445

Introduction CHOICE OF THE COPY TEXT T h e c o p y text is n o r m a l l y the first printing, o n the theory that its accidentals are l i k e l y to be closest to the a u t h o r ' s practice; b u t a m a n u s c r i p t or a subs e q u e n t p r i n t i n g m a y b e chosen w h e r e there is r e a s o n a b l e e v i d e n c e e i t h e r that it represents m o r e accurately the original m a n u s c r i p t as finally revised by the a u t h o r o r that the a u t h o r revised the accidentals. REPRODUCTION OF THE COPY TEXT T h e copy text is n o r m a l l y r e p r i n t e d literatim, b u t there are certain classes of exceptions. I n the first place, a p p a r e n t l y a u t h o r i t a t i v e variants f o u n d i n o t h e r texts are i n t r o d u c e d as they occur, e x c e p t that their p u r e l y a c c i d e n t a l features are m a d e to c o n f o r m to the style of the copy text. T h e s e substitutions, b u t n o t their m i n o r a d j u s t m e n t s in accidentals, are r e c o r d e d i n footnotes as they occur. I n the second place, the editors h a v e i n t r o d u c e d nona u t h o r i t a t i v e e m e n d a t i o n s , w h e t h e r f o u n d in earlier texts or not, w h e r e the sense seems to d e m a n d them. T h e s e e m e n d a t i o n s are also listed i n t h e footnotes. I n the third place, accidentals, speech headings, stage directions, scene headings, a n d so forth, are i n t r o d u c e d or altered w h e r e it seems h e l p f u l to the reader. A l l such changes are also recorded i n footnotes as they occur. I n the f o u r t h place, t u r n e d b, q, d, p, n, a n d u are a c c e p t e d as q, b, p, d, u, a n d n, respectively, a n d if they result in s p e l l i n g errors are corrected i n t h e text a n d listed i n the footnotes. T h e t e x t u a l footnotes show the a g r e e m e n t s a m o n g the texts o n l y w i t h respect to the precise v a r i a t i o n of the present e d i t i o n f r o m the c o p y text; for e x a m p l e , in Aureng-Zebe, at E p i l o g u e , 1. 23, the f o o t n o t e " B r i t t o n s ] D ; Brittons Q 1 - 3 , B r i t a n s Q 4 - 5 , B r i t a i n s F " has r e f e r e n c e to the c h a n g e f r o m r o m a n s to italics; D actually reads "Britons." C e r t a i n purely m e c h a n i c a l details have b e e n n o r m a l i z e d w i t h o u t special m e n t i o n . L o n g " s " has b e e n c h a n g e d to r o u n d " s , " " V V " to " W " ; swash italics h a v e b e e n represented by p l a i n italics; h e a d titles a n d a n y a c c o m p a n y i n g capitalization, h a v e b e e n m a d e u n i f o r m w i t h the style of the present e d i t i o n ; w h e n a speech begins i n t h e m i d d l e of a verse line, it has b e e n app r o p r i a t e l y i n d e n t e d ; the position of speech h e a d i n g s a n d stage directions a n d their l i n e d i v i s i o n h a v e b e e n freely altered (braces i n the speech tags h a v e b e e n o m i t t e d ; those i n the stage directions h a v e b e e n r e p l a c e d b y brackets; erratic uses of capitals i n stage directions h a v e b e e n n o r m a l i z e d ) ; w r o n g font, a n d t u r n e d letters other than q, b, p, d, u, a n d n h a v e b e e n a d j u s t e d ; m e d i a l apostrophes that f a i l e d to p r i n t h a v e b e e n restored; italicized plurals e n d i n g i n -'s h a v e b e e n distinguished (by italic final "s") f r o m possessives (roman final "s"); q u o t a t i o n s h a v e b e e n m a r k e d w i t h i n v e r t e d c o m m a s at the b e g i n n i n g a n d e n d o n l y a n d always; s p a c i n g b e t w e e n w o r d s a n d b e f o r e a n d a f t e r p u n c t u a t i o n has b e e n n o r m a l i z e d w h e n n o c h a n g e i n m e a n i n g results; the c o m m o n contractions h a v e b e e n c o u n t e d as single words, b u t otherwise words a b b r e v i a t e d by elision h a v e b e e n separated f r o m

446

Textual

Notes

those before and after if the apostrophe is present; if the elided syllable is written out as well as marked by an apostrophe, the words have been run together ("speak'it"). T E X T U A L NOTES

T h e textual notes list the relevant manuscripts and printings, assign them sigla, and give references to the bibliographies where they are more fully described. Normally only the seventeenth-century manuscripts and full printed editions through Congreve's (1717) 1 are cited, since there is normally no likelihood that authoritative readings will be found in any later manuscripts or editions. T h e textual notes also outline the descent of the text through its various manuscripts and printings, indicate which are the authorized texts, and explain how the copy text was selected in each instance. A list of copies collated follows. If the differences between variant copies are sufficient to warrant a tabular view of them, it will follow the list of copies collated. T h e sigla indicate the format of printed books (F = folio, Q = quarto, O = Octavo, etc.) and the order of printing, if this is determinable, within the format group (F may have been printed after Q i and before Q2). If order of printing is in doubt, the numbers are arbitrary, and they are normally arbitrary for the manuscripts (represented by M). Finally the variants in the texts collated are given. T h e list is not exhaustive, but it records what seemed material, viz.: A l l variants of the present edition from the copy text except in the mechanical details listed above. All other substantive variants and variants in accidentals markedly affecting the sense. T h e insertion or removal of a period before a dash has sometimes been accepted as affecting the sense; other punctuational variants before dashes have been ignored. Failure of letters to print, in texts other than the copy text, has been noted only when the remaining letters form a different word or words, or when a word has disappeared entirely. A l l errors of any kind repeated from one edition to another, except the use of -'s instead of -s for a plural. Spelling variants where the new reading makes a new word (e.g., then and than being in Dryden's day alternate spellings of the conjunction, a change from than to then would be recorded, since the spelling then is now confined to the adverb, but a change from then to than would be ignored as a simple modernization.) In passages of verse, variants in elision of syllables normally pronounced (except that purely mechanical details, as had'st, hadst, are ignored). T h u s heaven, heav'n is recorded, but not denied, deny'd. Relining, except when passages printed as prose are reprinted as prose. 1 How much Congreve had to do with this edition beyond writing the dedication, and how much the text represents Dryden's last thoughts, is questionable (see Macd, p. 151), but it has seemed wiser to include its variant readings always.

Textual

Notes

447

When texts generally agree in a fairly lengthy variation, but one or two differ from the rest in a detail that it would be cumbrous to represent in the usual way, the subvariations are indicated in parentheses in the list of sigla. For example: all pure, thy] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7 (all-pure D); all pure, their Q4; [space] thy M5. This means that D agrees with Qx, etc., in having "thy" but has "all-pure" instead of "all pure." When variants in punctuation alone are recorded, the wavy dash is used in place of the identifying word before (and sometimes after) the variant punctuation. No reference is made to modern editions where the editor is satisfied that reasonable care on his part would have resulted in the same emendations, even if he collated these editions before beginning to emend. A John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellowship made it possible for the editor to locate and examine manuscripts collated in this volume. Professor George de F. Lord, Jr., most kindly made available the lists of manuscripts and repositories compiled for the Poems on Affairs of State project, and Professor David M. Vieth supplied additional information.

Amboyna

449

Amboyna T h e first edition of Amboyna was published in 1673 (Qi; Macd 79a); the second is dated 1691 (Q2, Macd 79b). In the copies of Q i examined we have found a variant title page (type ornaments between rules, instead of a single rule, above the imprint) and two press corrections in the outer form of E i made at different times (see III, ii, 21 and iii, 63+ s.d.). T h e play was reprinted in Dryden's Comedies, Tragedies, and Operas (1701), I, 555-587 (F; Macd io7ai-ii [two issues, the differences not affecting this play]) and in Congreve's edition of Dryden's Dramatick Works (1717), III, 359-431 (D; Macd logai-ii [two issues, with a cancel title page for Vol. I in the second]). Qa and D were set from Q i , F was set from Q i . Manuscript copies of the prologue and epilogue are to be found in the Bodleian Library (Don.b.8, pp. 463-464; M i ) and in the Huntington Library (EL 8917-8918; M2). M i is a miscellany volume in the hand of Sir William Hayward, written about 1681-1682. M s is bound with miscellaneous pieces in various hands; both prologue and epilogue are in the same neat, possibly scribal, seventeenth-century hand. It is possible that the manuscripts trace back to earlier states of the texts than the printed editions, especially when they agree against them. Both songs in Act III, Scene iii, were printed in the second edition of Methinks the Poor Town has been Troubled too Long (1673), pp. 9, 13-14 (Osi; W i n g Mig4o). T h e first has no title, the second is titled "A Song of a Sea Fight, Design'd to be sung in The Tortures of Amboyna." T h e first song was also printed in William Hicks's London Drollery (1673), p. 130, with the title "A New Song" (Os2; Wing H147), and without title but with music by Robert Smith in John Playford's Choice Songs and Ayres for One Voyce, The First Book (1673), p. 60 (Fsi; W i n g P2466), and Choice Ayres, Songs if Dialogues (1675, 1676), p. 47 (FS2-3; Wing P2462-2463; Wing P2464 appears to be a ghost). It lacks the first stanza in all the song texts except Os2, which suggests that Osi and Fsi antedate Q i . (Fsi was entered in the Stationers' Register the day after Q i ; Os2 was advertised in the same issue of the Term Catalogue as Qi.) Although the play was written largely in blank verse, only Congreve's edition set it as such, and then only in parts of the last two acts. We might have undertaken to set all the verse as such, especially since Congreve, Dryden's literary executor, may have come upon a copy of Q i in which Dryden had marked the text as verse and substituted it for the copy he had first sent to be reprinted (Congreve was a careful editor, and normally sent first editions for reprinting). We could have been guided in making our own lineation by Dryden's practice in Marriage A-la-Mode and The Assignation, which were published in the same year as Amboyna, and by his statement in the preface to Tyrannick Love that "I have not every where observed the equality of numbers, in my Verse; partly by reason of my haste; but more especially because I would not have my sense a slave to Syllables" (Works, X, 111). But because a number of the speeches can be

450

Textual

Notes

divided in more than one way, and others are on the border line between verse and prose—as Dryden noted in the dedication of The Rival Ladies (Works, VIII, 9g), English prose tends to fall into iambic rhythm—we decided that following the first edition was the only way to observe certainly at least one of Dryden's decisions about the dress in which his play should appear in print. T h e preface to the present volume lists the names of those scholars who helped us arrive at this decision. And we may note that Q i is by and large a very careful text, except for a tendency not to put names in italics. From time to time the printer's copy for Q i shows through. It was apparently written as verse in the usual way, i.e., with synaloephas and with the first letter of each line capitalized, and also, which is not so usual, with commas at the ends of the lines much of the time. That is, Q i has some words capitalized that would not normally have been capitalized in prose, some synaloephas that would not normally appear in prose, and some commas that would not normally appear in either verse or prose. Many times, too, a full line in Q i (especially the first line of a speech) is a perfect pentameter, which suggests that the compositor was there following his copy exactly. So when, for example, reconstruction of a speech as verse brings to the head of a line a word abnormally capitalized by prose standards and the line then also ends in an abnormal comma, one has a sense that the reconstruction is correct. We have included the more certain of such reconstructions in the explanatory notes. We have taken the Clark copy of Q i (*PR34i7-Ci) as our copy text, emended as shown in the footnotes. The following copies of the various editions have also been examined: Q i : Clark ( # PR34i7-Ci.1673a [2 cop.], •PR.3410.C95a v. 2), Yale (*Ij.D848.673Am); Q2: Clark (»PR3417.C1.1691, *PR34io.C94 v. 2, *PR34io.C95 V. 2); F: Clark (*fPR34i2.i7oi [2 cop.], *fPR34i2.1701a); D: Clark (*PR34i2.i7i7 [2 cop.], *PR34i2.1717a); Osi: Harvard (#25252.g); Os2: Clark (*PRi2og.L84); Fsi: Clark (*fMi623.5. P72a); Fs2: English Books 1641-1700 Reel 286, item 16; FS3: Clark (*fM 1623.5.C54).

Dedication: 3:29 alone; and] F; And Q i - 2 ; And D. 3:29 I have] F, D; have Q1-2. 4:3 much in] F, D; in much Q1-2. 4:5 while] F, D; Q1-2. 4:23 actions.] Q2, F, D; ~ A QI. 5:1 at least] QI, F, D; least at Q2. 5:14 Lordship] Q1-2, D; Lordships F. 5:22 them:] Q1-2, F, D. 6:2-3 meanness] Q2, F, D; meaness QI. 6:9 Most Obedient] QI, D; and most Obedient Q2, F. 6:10 /.] QI; John Q2, F, D. Prologue: P R O L O G U E T O AMBOYNA.] Q1-2, M2 (Amboyna A M2); P R O L O G U E . F, D; Prologue to y e Play of Amboyna. M i . 1 Scriv'ners] Q1-2, F, D, M2; Scriveners M i . 2 Knave that ... their] Q1-2, F, D, M2; Rogue, who . . . his M i . 5 dotage] Q2, F, D, M1-2; doteage QI. 5 Englishmen] Q i - 2 , F, D, M2; English men M i . 5 w] Q1-2, F, D, M i ; are M2. 6 fawn on those] Q1-2, F, D, M i ; faun on them M2. 6 who] Q1-2, F, D; that M i - a . 6 them] Q i - 2 , F, D, M i ; 'em M2. 6 Dutch.] Q1-2, F, D, M2; M i . 7 rather then] Q1-2, F, D, M i ; rather

Amboyna

451

Ma. 7 War] Q1-2, F, D, M i ; M2. 8 are.] Q1-2, F, D; M1-2. g The . . . the .. . the . . . too] Q1-2, F, D; Your . . . yo. r . . . yo. r . . . to M i ; T h e . . . yo r . . . yo r . . . too M2. 10 you:] Q i ; Q2, F, D, M1-2. 12 love him who does] D; loves him who does Q1-2, F; loue them, that did M i ; Loue him that does M2. 12 Feat:] Q1-2, D; F, M1-2. 13 soe'r... Mi] Q1-2, F, D, M2; soe euer . . . you M i . 14 still .. . answers] Q1-2, F, D, Mg; shall . . . answer M i . 14 all:] Q1-2, D; F, M1-2. 16 spare:] Q1-2, D; F, M1-2. 16-17 Between these lines Mi has: One would haue thought, you should haue growne more wise, T h e n to be caught with y e same bargaine twice. 17 Be gull'd] Qi—2, F, D, M2; Beguil'd M i . 18 Religion, faith ] Q1-2, F, D, M2 (Religion A Q i , M2); Religion [faith] M i . 18 you;] Q1-2, D; F, M i - 2 . 19-20 Omitted by Mi. 19 Interest's] Q1-2, 21 may] Q1-2, D, M1-2; my F. 21 own ReF, D; Int'rest's M2. ligions] Q1-2, F, D, M2; one Religion M i . 22 frame.] Q1-2, F, D, M2; Mi. 24 'em] Q1-2, F, D, M2; them M i . 25 love] Q1-2, F, D, M2; Lou'd M i . 26 our] Q1-2, F, D, M2; this M i . 26 Play:] Q1-2, D; F, M1-2. 27-28 Omitted by Mi. 27-28 we . . . We] Q1-2, F, D; wee . . . Wee M i . 29 then their] Q1-2, F, D, Ms; their M i . 29 Falshoods, Rapine,] Q1-2, F, D; falsehood, rapine, M i ; Rapine, Falshood, M2. 30 be:] Q1-2, F, D; bee; M i ; be. M2. 31 Plot] Q1-2, F, D; Witt Mi—2. 32 haste] Q1-2, F, D; hast M i - 2 . 32 Heart] Q1-2, F, D, M2; hart M i . 33 And lest] Q1-2, D, M2; And less F; Nor Mi. 33 Wit;] D, Ms; Q1-2; ~ A F; for Witt A M i . 33 Dutchmen . . . be] Q1-2, F, D, M2 (Dutchmen; F); Dutch men; . . . bee M i . Persons Represented: Persons Represented] Q1-2, F; Dramatis Personae D. By] Q i ; MEN. D; (¿2 and F omit. Merchants his Friends] Q2, F, D; Merchants his Friends Q i . Mohun.] Q i , F, D; Q2. English Sea] Q2, F, D; English ~ Q i . Perez, A Spanish] Q2, F, D; Spanish QI. A Dutch] Q2, F, D; ~ Dutch Q I . By] Q I ; W O M E N . D; Q2 and F omit. Ysabinda, . . . Towerson,] Q2, F, D; ~ A . . . ~ A Q I . Julia,] Q2, F, D ; ~ A Q I . English Woman] Q2, F, D; English ~ Q I . Towerson.] QI, F, D; Q2. A Skipper] F, D; A ~ Q I ; A Q2. Two Dutch] Q2, F, D; ~ Dutch QI. Merchants.] Q I , F, D; Q2. I, i Title: A M B O Y N A , O R T H E C R U E L T I E S O F T H E D U T C H T O T H E E N G L I S H M E R C H A N T S . ] Q 1 - 2 , F ; AMBOYNA. D. S C E N E I.] Q 2 , F ; SCENE, I . Q i ; S C E N E I. S C E N E D . s.d. Senior . . . Guards] Q 2 , F , D ;

Senior . . . Guards Q i . 1 Happy] Q2, F, D; Qi. 3 Van] Q1-2; F, D (so F always, D occasionally; not further noted). 20 Fleet,] ~ A Qi—2, F, D. 20 parts,] Q i , D; Q2, F. 24 Dutchman] Q2, F, D; Dutchman Q i . 25 till] Q1-2, F; 'till D. 28 Harman] D; Harman Q1-2, F. 32 Castle Wall] Q2, F, D; Castle Wall Q i . 36 Rhenish] Rhenish Q1-2, F, D. 38 scape] Q i ; 'scape Q2, F, D. 39 practice.] Q1-2, D; F. 42 in Pericranio] Q2, F; in Pericranio Q i , D. 42 'tis] Qi—2, D; it is F. 48 'tis] Q2, F, D; tis Q i . 51 'em] Q i , F, D; them Q2. 52 Save a Thief from the Gallows] Q2, F; romans in Qi, D

452

Textual

Notes

(save Qi). 55 i' th'] Q2, F, D; ith' Q i . 58 well, though;] Q1-2; F; F. D; it Q3-4. g6: 3 8 in these] Q1-2, F, D: in Q3-9. 97:5 begin with] Qi-2, D; begin Q3-9, F. 97:7 together:] Qi, D; Q2-9, F. 97:9 interessing] Q1-9, F; interesting D. 97:12 any] F; my Q1-9, D. 97:13 Poem] Qi, D; Poems Q2-9, F. 97:14 by] Q2-9, F, D; Qi. 97:15 as] Q1-2, Q8-9, D; at Q3-7, F. 97:17 From] begins a neu> paragraph in F. 97:21 Thoughts] Q2-9, F, D; Thought Q i . 97:24 this] Q1-5, D; the Q6-9, F. 97:24 dispute:] Q i , D; Q2-9, F. 97:25 97:27 sublime] Q1-5, D; sublimest Q6-9, F. the] Q1-5, D; this Q6-9, F. 97:30 fault] Qi-g, D; faults F. 97:30 opinions] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D; Opinion Q4. [Note: Where significant text has been lost by tears or trimming of the manuscripts, the lacunae are represented by (>. Where the manuscripts have been corrected by the original scribes the corrected readings have normally been accepted without comment.] I, i Title: The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man.] Q1-9, F, D, M4 (Sate M4; or the instead of and M4; MAN: Q5; F; ~ A M4); The fall of Angells or Man in Innocency Mi~3, M5-7 (Angells and man MG, M6-7; Innocency. Mi; InnocenceA M3, M6-7 M6)). Title: An OPERA.] Q1-9, F, M3, M7 ( By Mr A M3, M7); ACT I. SCENE I. D; omitted by Mi, M4-5; Dryden. M2, M6 (M6 adds 'Tis printed). s.d. or a] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; or Mi—2, M5. s.d. dark:] Qi, D, M6; Q2-9, F, M4-5, M7; M1-3. s.d. for some time] Q1-9, F, D, M4; some time Mi, M5, M7; sometime M2, M6; sometimes M3. s.d. from] Q1-2, Q4-g, F, D, M1-7;

The State of

Innocence

467

form Qg. s.d. are . . . transfix'A] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; were . . . terrify'd M3. s.d. Thunderbolts.] Q1-9, F, D, M4 Q2, Q6-9, F, M4; Q3-5); Thunderbolts. At the same time Thunder is heard, and ffiashes of Lightning are seene. M1-3, M5-7 (Thunderbolts; Mg; M5, M7; ~ A M6; Flashings M6; are omitted by My; seene; M2-3; M6). s.d. Stage] Q1-5, D, M1-7; Stairs Q6-9, F. s.d. opened] Q1-9, F, D, M4-5, M7; open M1-3, M6. s.d. receives] Q i - g , F, D, M1-4, M6-7; receiveth M5. s.d. of sight. Tunes] Q1-9, F, D, M 1 - 6 (Sight, M1-3, M6; M5); of [space] M7. s.d. play d, and an Hymn sung;] Q1-9, F, D, M4 (plaid Q8-9; sung, Q6-8; Qg, F, M4); plaid, M1-2, M6; playd, M3, M5, M7. s.d. discover'd above] Q i - g , F, D, Mi~3, M5-7; discourse above M3; above discovered M4. s.d. their] Q1-9, F, D, M1-6; M7. s.d. Swords:] Q1-9, F, D, M4 Q2-8, F); Swords, and a shower of ffire rains on y e Stage. This together with M1-3, M5-7 (a omitted by My; Shoare M6; ouer instead of on M3, M6-7; Stage, M3, M6; This M4. s.d. ceasing] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7; cease M6. s.d. Heavens] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-6; heaun's M3, M7. s.d. the Scene shifts, and on a sudden represents Hell: Part of the Scene] Q i - g , F, D, M4, M7 ((> Shifts M7; Hell. Q2-9, F, M4); T h e Scene M1-3, M5-6. s.d. is a] Q1-9, F, D, M i - 6 ; M7. s.d. the Earth] Q i - g , F, D, M4; a part dry Earth M1-2, M5; part die y e earth M3; part dry Earth M6; part [space] Earth M7. s.d. of a burnt] Q1-9, F, D, M3-6; of burn'd M1-2; () M7. s.d. colour:] Q i , D; — Q2-9. F, M4, M7; M1-2; culler, Mg; M5-6. s.d. lying prostrate] Q1-9, F, D, M i - 2 , M4-7; prostrate M3. s.d. a] Q1-9, F, D, M4; and a M1-3, M5-6; Lucifer raises himselfe [space] M7. i - 6 Blank in My. 1 Lucifer.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4; ~ A M1-2, M5; M6. 1 has] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4; hath M5-6. 1 given?] Q1-8, F, D, M5; giv'n? Qg, M1-2, M4; giu'n, Mg; given A M6. 2 we] Q1-9, F, D, Mg-5; wee M1-2, M6 and similarly throughout except as noted (My, which lacks 11. 1-6, has we elsewhere). 2 Heaven?] Q1-8, F, D, M1-2, M5-6; Heav'n Qg; heau'n, M3; Heav'n? M4. 3 These] Q i - g , F, D, M1-4, M6; Those M5. 3 this Realm] Q1-7, F, D, M i - g , M6; these Realms Q8-9, M4; that Realem M5. 3 my Wars] Q i - g , F, D, M1-4, M6; victors M5. 3 got;] Q1-7, F, D; Q8-g; M1-3, M5; ~ A M4, M6. 4 Loser's] Q i - g , F, D; loosers M1-6. 4 Lot:] Q1-6, Q8-9, D, Mi—2, M4-5; Q7, F, M6; M3. 5 or on] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M6; or in Mi—2, M5. 6 Hell.] Q1-9, F, D, M i , Mg-6; M2. 7 see,] Q1-4, D, M6; ~ A Q3-9, F, M1-5; M7. 7 Victor has] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; Victor hath M1-2; victors have M5. 8 War:] Q1-4, D, M5; Q5-9, F, M4; ~ A M1-2, M6; M7; M3. g sleep;] Q1-2, Q5, D; Q3-4, Q6-g, F, Mg, M5; ~ A M1-2, M6-7; M4. 10 Boundless] Q i - g , F, D, Mi—2, M4-7; boldlesse M3. 10 Deep.] Q i - g , F, D, M i , M4-6; ~ A M2; Mg; M7. 11 th'] Q i - g , F, D, Mg, Ms, M7; the

468

Textual

Notes

M1-2, M4, M6. n Waves] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; warrs M1-3, M5-6. 11 forsake,] Qi-g, F, D, M3-5; ~ A M1-2, M6; M7. 12 While] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; Whi'st Mg. 12 giv'n.] Q1-5, Qg, D; given. Q6-8, F, M4-6; given: M1-2; giuen, M3; giv'n: M7. 12 Ho,] Qi-g, F, D, M3; Ho'e! Mi-2; M4; Hoe A M5; M6; M7. 12 Asmoday] Qi-g, F, D, M4; Asmodell M1-3, M5-7 and similarly throughout, though often abbreviated to Asm. or Asmo, in M_j and My. 12 awake,] Qi-g, F, D, M3-4, M6; M1-2, M5; ~ A M7. 13 he:] Qi-g, F, D; M1-3, M5-6; M4; M7. 13 Ahí] Q1-9, F, D, M4; oh: M1-2; oh, M3, M7; Oh! M5-6. 13 him,] Qi-g, F, D, M3; ~ A M1-2, M6-7; M4; M5. 14 my] Q1-7, F, D, M1-7; thy Q8-g. 14 Armsl] Qi-g, F, D, M4; M1-3, M5-7. 14 wan!] Qi-g, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-2; M3, M5-6. 14 dim!] Qi-g, F, D, M1-2, M4, M7; M3; M5; M6. 15 are!] Qi-g, F, D, Mi, M4, M7; M2, M6; ~ A M3; M5. 16 my own] Q1-4, D, M1-3, M5-7; mine own Qs-g, F, M4. 16 thee.] Q1-7, Qg, F, D, M1-7; Q8. 17 Asmoday.] Qi-g, F, D, M4; ~ A M1-2, M5, M7; M3; M6. 18 Led'st] Qi-g, F, D, Mx-4, M6-7; Lead'st M5. 18 th'] Q1-5, D, M3, M5, M7; the Q6-g, F, M1-2, M4, M6. 18 fight,] Qi-g, F, D, M3, M7; 2-4, Qg, M3, M7. 67 Lucif.] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-3, M5; M6. 67 There] Qi-g, F, D, M1-5, M7; Then M6. 67 spoke] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4, M7; spake M3, M5-6. 67 Lucifer!] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M7; Q4; ~ A M1-2; M3; M4-6. 68 Asm.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-4; ~ A M1-2, M5, M7; M6. 68 'Tis] Qi, Q3~g, F, D, M1-7; 'This Q2. 70 Force.] Q1-6, Q8-9, F, D, M4-7; Q7; M1-2; M3. 71 Doom's] Q1-9, F, D, Mi, M4, M6-7; Doomes M2-3; doome M5. 71 Submission] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; submissions M3. 71 vain.] Qi-g, F, D, M5-7; ~ A M1-2, M4; M3. 72 Mol.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M5; M6. 72 baseness] Q1-2, Q5~g, F, D, M1-7; bassness Q3-4. 72 disdain.] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M6-7; ~ A M1-2; M3; M5. 73 stoop,] Q1-6, D, M7; Q7-g, F, M1-6. 74 Pow'r] Qi-g, F, D, M4, M7; power M i - 3 , M5-6. 75 me.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-7; ~ A M1-2. 76 Beelzebub.] Qi-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M5; M6. 76 thee.] Q1-4. Qg, F, D, M1-2, M5-6; Q5-8, F, M3-4; ~ A M7. 77 unpropos'd;] Q i - g , F, D, M1-2, M4-7 (~f Q4; ~ A M1-2; M5; M6); unpossesdA M3. 77 fit] Qi-2, Q6-g, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; Q3-4; Q5, M3. 78 Divan . . . view] Qi-g, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; Divine . . . so M3. 78 sit:] Q1-2, D; Q3-5, M7; Q6-8, M3; Qg, M4-6; ~ A F, M1-2. 7g Thunderer,] Qi-g, F, D, M3, M5, M7; ~ A M1-2, M6; M4. 80 Th'] Qi-g, F, D, M1-5, M7; The M6. 80 Ignoble] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; ignobler M3. 80 hear.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-7; ~ A M1-2. 81 Lucif.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M5; M6. 81 let] Qi-g, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; let there M3. 82 imitate?] Qi-g, F, D, M4; ~ A M1-2, M6; M3, Mg, M7. 82 No] Q1-9, F, D, M4; or M1-3, M5-7. 82 out-shine] Q1-7,

The State of

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471

F, D; out shine Q8-9, M4; outshine M1-3, M5-7. 82 Skiel] Q1-9, F, D, M4; ~ A M1-2; M3; M5; — M6-7. 83 rest:] Q1-4, M7; Q5-9, F, D, M4; ~ A M i - s , M6; M3; M5. 84 quick] Q1-9, D, M2, M4-7; F, M i , M3. 84 exprest.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; ~ A M1-2. 84+ s.d. stt] Q i - g , F, D, M1-2, M4-7; sits M3. 84+ s.d. as in] Q i , Q7-9, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; as in a Q2-6; in M1-2, M5. 84+ s.d. Lucifer, Asmoday, Moloch, Belial, Beelzebub and Sathan.] Q5-9, F, D; all italics in Q.1-4, My (Sathan, M7); no italics in Mi-6 (Asmoday. D, M4; ~ A M1-3; Belial. M3; M5 omits Belial,; Satan: M1-2). 85 Most . . . better] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; Lucifer Most . . . beaten M1-2, M5-6 (Lucifer: M6). 86 Heav'n] Q1-9, F, D, M3; Heaven M1-2, M4-7. 86 States-General] Q1-6, Q8-9, F, D, M4; States General Q7, M1-3, M6-7; states Governers M5. 86 Hell,] Q i , D, M3, M6-7; Q2-9, F, M4; ~ A M1-2; M5. 87 Nor] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; Not M1-2. 88 won,] Q1-9, F, D, M3, M7; Mi—2, M6; ~ A M4; M5. 90 Monarchy;] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; M i , M3; ~ A M2, M6; M5. 91 meet] Q1-9, D, M 1 - 7 ; met F. 92 chuse] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M6-7; choose M1-3; chouse M5. 92 Suffrages] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M5-7; suíferadge M3; Suíferages M4. 93 War.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; ~ A M1-2. 94 Mol.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~-A Mi—2, M5; M6. 95 plain] Q1-2, Q5-9, F, D, M 1 - 7 ; plane Q3-4. 95 know:] Q1-9, D, M4-5, M7; F; ~ A M1-2, M6; M3. 96 Losers] Q1-9, F, D, M4; loosers M1-3, M5-7. g7 Should] Q1-2, Q5-9, F, D, M1-7; Sould Q3-4. 97 Heav'n] Q1-9, F, D, M3, M7; heaven M i - ? , M4-6. 97 Sovereignty.] Q1-4, F, D, M1-2, M5, M7 ( ~ A M1-2; — 98 M5); Sov'raignty. Q5-9, M6; th' Sou'raignty A M3; Soveraignity. M4. adore;] Q1-9, F, D, M4~5, M7; ~ A M i ; M2; M3, M6. 99 more.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M1-2; M5-6. 100 Battel?] Q1-9, F, D, M4-5, M7; ~ A M1-2; ~ M3, M6. 100 Sathan.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M5; M6. 100 1] M6; A ~ Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7. 100 agree,] Q1-5, Q7-8, D, M 3 ; Q6; ~ A Q9, F, M1-2, M4-6; M7. 101 this] Q i - g , F, D, M1-2, M4, M7; his M3, M6; my M5. 101 Hell] Q1-9, F, D, M1-3, M5-7; Heaven M4. 101 be] Q i - g , F, D, M3-7; bee M1-2. 102 Heav'n is] Q1-4, D, M3 (as corrected), M7; Heav'n's Q5-9; Heav'ns F; Heaven is M1-2, M6; Heaun's M3 (before correction); Heavens M4; Heaven's M5. 102 our own] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; ours M3. 103 obtain.] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M6-7; M1-3; M5. 104 Yet who can hope but well,] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; W h o can but hope yet? M5. 104 ev'n] Q1-4, D, M7; e'en Q5-9, F, M4; even M1-2, M5-6; er'e M3. 105 and makes] Q1-9, F, D, M3-5, M7; and make M1-2, M6. 105 danger] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7; dangers M6. 105 less.] Q1-9, M4, M6; F, M7; D; M7); Laying M1-2, M5. 170+ s.d. Moloch his head.] Moloch his head. Q1-4; Moloch's head. Q5-9, F, D, M4; Molocks head: M1-2, M6 ~ A M6); Moloch headA M3; MolochA M5; Mol: hea() M7. 171 That . . . none] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; The . . . non M5. 171 away.] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M4, M6-7; Q4; ~ A M1-2, M5; M3. 172 know] Q1-5, Q7-9, F, D, M1-7; now Q6. 172 well] Q1-9, F, D, Mi-6; M7. 173 Hell.] Q1-9, F, D, M4-7; ~ A Mi-a; M3. 174 rest,] Q1-9, F, D, M3, M5-7; ~ A M1-2; M4. 175 Sovereign] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; sour'aine M3. 175 Pow'r] Qi, F, D, M3; Power Q2-g, M1-2, M4-7. 176 dares] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; dare M3. 176 farther] Qi-g, F, D, M4-5, M7; further M1-3, M6. 176 go?] Q1-9, F, D, M4-7; ~ A M1-3. 177 Pageant-show.] Q1-5, D; Pageant show. Q6-g, F, M1-7 (Pagean M1-2; SheweA M i - ! , M7; M3, M6; M5). 178 would] Qi~3, Q5-9, F, D, M1-7; will Q4. 179 who dares] Q1-9, F, D, M4-7; that dares M1-2; who dare M3. 179 fall.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; Mi—2. 180 Asm.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7 (Ams. D); ~ A Mi-2, M5; M6. 180 own.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; ~ A M1-2. 181 Lucif.j Qi-g, F, D, M4, M7; Mi, Ms, M5; M2, M6. 181 Throne:] Q1-9, F, D, M5; M1-3; M4, M7; ~ A M6. 182 Gates] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; gate M5. 182 Night,] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M4; Q4, M3; ~ A M1-2, M5-6; Night, M7. 183 I'll] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M5, M7; lie M3-4; Il'e M6. 183 upwards] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7; upward M6. 183 flight:] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M i - 2 ; M3; M5; M6. 184 Man;] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-2; M3, M5; M6. 185 Heav'n] Q1-9, F, D, M3, M7; heaven M1-2, M4-6. 185 again:] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-2; M3, M5; M6. 186 upward] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; Vpper M1-2, M5. 186 Air,] Qi-g, F, D, M4; ~ A M1-3, M5-7. 187 scour . . . spots] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; scourge . . . foes M5. 187 Thunders scar,] Qi-g, F, D, M3-4; thunderer ScareA M1-2; Thunderer scarr. M5; Thunders scare. M6; Thunder ScarA M7. 188 of th'] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4, M7; of y® M3, M6; of M5. 188 War,] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A Mi—2, M6; M3, M5. 189 again grow fair.] Qi-g, F, D, M1-2, M4-7 (faireA M1-2); grow faire, M3. 190 Asm.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7 (Ams. Q3); ~ A M1-2, Mg; M6. 190 keep,] Q1-9, F, D, M3, M5; ~ A M1-2, M7; M4, M6. 191 their] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M4, M7; there Q4; the M1-3, M5-6. 194 Lucif.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A Mi, M5; M2, M6. 194 yon'] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; yon M1-3, M5-6. 194 Brimstone-Lake] Q1-9, F; Brimstone Lake D, M1-2, M4, M6-7; Brimstone lakes M3; brimstone M5. 194 thrice] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; thrice doeth M5. 195 must] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M1-7; most Q4. 195 woe!] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M4; Q4; ~ A M1-2, M5-7; M3. 197 And] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; Then M3. 197 Colonies] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7; Colony's M6. 197 Hell.] Q1-9, F, D,

The State of

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Mi—2, M4-7; M3. 199-201 In D the order of these lines (painsA), 199-200 (yields.). 200 whate'er Joy] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, ('ere M i ; ere M2; er'e M6-7); w 4 enjoy M3. 201 least] Q1-9, M i - s , M4-7; lest M3. 201 pains.] Q1-9, F, D, M1-3, M5, M7; Exit M4; pains. End y e First Act M6. 201+ s.d. All manuscripts 201+ s.d. be] Q1-8, F, D; by Qg.

475 is 201 M4-7 F, D, pains. omit.

II, i A C T II. SCENE I.] Q1-9, F, D, M4 (Act. Q2; Scene. Q7, M4); Act 2d. M1-3, M5-6 (Act. M i ; 2 d : M2; 2A M5; y e Second. M6); Act. 2. Scae. 1. M7. s.d. A] Q i - g , F, M4, M7; SCENE A D, M1-3; T h e Scene a M5-6. s.d. Champaign] Q i - g , D, M i - s , M4-6; Champion F, M3, M7. s.d. Country.] Q1-9, F, D, M4; Mi—2, M5; ~ A M3, M7; M6. s.d. Adam,] Q i - g , F, D, M4; ~ A M1-3, M5-6; M7. s.d. as] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; was M1 —2. s.d. Rock.] Q1-7, Qg, F, D, M i , M3-7; ~ A Q8; M2. 1 Adam.] Q I - 3 , Q5-6, Qg, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; ~ A Q 4 , Q7-8, M1-2, M5. 1 am I?] Q i - g , F, D, M1-2, M4-7; ~ ~ A M3. 1 or] Q i - g , F, D, M1-4, M6-7; And M5. 1 whence?] Q1-9, F, D, M4-7; Mi; M2-3. 1 Rising.] Q i - g , F, D, M4; ~ A M7; s.d. omitted by MI-J, M5-6. 2 think] Q i - g , F, D, M4, M7 (second hand); doubt M1-3, M5-6, M7 (first hand). 3 began] Q i - g , F, D, M3-7; begunn M1-2. 3 be] Q i - g , F, D, M3-5, M7; bee M1-2, M6. 4 me?] Q i - g , F, D, M1-2, M4-5, M7; M3, M6. 5 move] Q1-9, F, D, M1-6, M7 (first hand); live M7 (second hand). 5 see] Q i - g , F, D, M4; thinke M1-3, M5-6, M7 (first hand); move M7 (second hand). 5 speak,] Q1-2, Q5-g, F, D, M 1 - 7 Q2; ~ A M5); speek, Q3-4. 5 know,] Q i , D, M3, M7; Q2-3, Qs-g, F; Q4; ~ A M1-2, M5-6; M4. 6 am,] Q1-9, F, M1-2, M4-7; D; ~ A M3. 6 so.] Q i - g , F, D, M1-4, M6; M5; M7. 7 T h e n that] Q i - g , F, D, M3-4, M6-7; That that M1-2; And that M5. 8 Whom] Q i - g , F, D, M1-5, M7; Who M6. 8 Spring] Q1-9, F, D, M i , M3-7; Springe M2. 8 adore.] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; M3. g Ornament] Q i - g , F, D, M3-4, M7; Ornaments M1-2, M5-6. g view] Q i , D, M1-2, M6-7; Q2-g, F, M3-4; ~ ? M5. 10 In] Q i - g , F, D, M1-2, M4-7; Were M3. IO parts!] Q i - g , F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-3, M5; M6. 10 and seems as] Q1-9, F, D, M4; and M1-2, M6-7; so M3; as M5. 10 as new:] Q i - g , F, D, Mi—2, M4-5, M7 (new A M1-2; M5; ~1 M7); as now? M3; and New. M6. 11 O] Q i - g , F, D, M3-4, M6-7; Oh M1-2, M5. 11 Work!] Q i - g , F, D, M4-7; M1-2; M3. 11 O] Q i - g , F, D, M3-4, M6-7; oh M1-2, M5. 11 Pow'r] Q i - g , F, D; power M1-7. n Divine,] Q i - g , D, M4, M7; F, M3, M5-6; ~ A Mi—2. 12 am is] Q i - g , F, D, M3-4, M6-7; have is M1-2; have tis M5. 12 thine!] Q i - g , F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M1-2; M5-6. 12+ s.d. Cloud.] Q i - g , D, M4-5; -~A F, M1-3, M6-7. 13 Raphael.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M5; M6. 14 an] Q i - g , F, D, M1-5, M7; and M6. 14 contein] Q i - g , F, D, M1-4, M6-7; containies M5. 17 begin,] Q1-6, Q8-g, F, D, M1-5, M7; ~ A Q7; M6. 18 Beings] Q i - g , F, D, M4, M7; things M1-3, M5-6. 18 their] Q i - g , F, D, M4, M7; on their M i - 2 , M5-6; their owne M3. 18 depend:] — Q i - g , F, D, M5, M7; M1-2, M6; M3-4. lg who]

476

Textual Notes

Qi-g, F, D, M4, M7; as M1-3, M5-6. 19 Image] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; Essence M1-3, M5-6. 19 most] Qi, Q7-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; must Q2-6, Mi-a, M5-6. 20 Spirit,] Q1-2, Qg, D, Mi-a, M4, M6-7 (~ A Qg, M4); Spirits, Q3-4, Q7-8, F, M 5 ( ~ a Q7-8, F, M5); Sp'rits, Q5-6 (~ A Q6); Spi'ritsA M3. 20 Immortal, Pure,] Qi, M5, M7; — ~ A Q2-6, D, M3; ~ A ~ A Q7-9, F, Mi—2, M4, M6. 20 make;] Qi-5, Q7-8, F, D, M7; ~ A Q6, Q1-9, F, M2, M6; Q9, M4-5; Mi, M3. 21 next,] M3, M5-6; D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-2. 21 Race] Qi-g, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; rare M3. 21 exalted] M1-2, M5-6; Q1-6, Q8-g, F, D, M4, M7; Q7; excellence M3. 22 lost] Qi-g, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; left M5. 22 Sky.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-7; ~ A M1-2. 23 Adam.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-4; ~ A M i - ü , M5, M7; M6. 23 Minister] Qi-g, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; winter M3. 23 Heav'n] Q1-4, Q6-9, F, D, Mg; Heaven Q5, M1-2, M4-7. 24 but begin] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M1-7; but Q4. 25 could] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; would M5. 25 saw] Q1-4, M1-3, M5-7; Q5-9, F, D; M4. 26 Crers ator's] Q1-9, F, D; Creato . M1-2, M4-7; creatures M3. 27 from Heav'n remote] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7 (Heaven M4); remote from heaven M1-2, M5-6. 27 far,] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; Q4; ~ A Mi-2, M5-6. 28 Laws, . . . err?] Q1-2, Qg, D, M4, M7; /—,... Q3-4, M3; ... Q5-6; ~ A Q7-8, M6; ~ A . . . F, M 5 ; . . . ~ A M1-2. 29 Raphael.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M5-6. 2g Right Reason's Law] Qi, D, M6-7 (Reasons M7); Right Reason's Laws Q2-9, F, M4 (Reasons M4); Right, Reason, Law Mi; Right Reason, Law, M2; Right reason, Law M3, M5. 2g every] Q1-4, Q7-9. F, D, M i - j , M4-7; ev'ry Q5-6, M3. 29 heart] Q1-9, F, D, M1-6; Hart M7. 30 Th'] Qi-g, D, M3-4, M7; The F, M1-2, M5-6. 30 will] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7; will I M6. 30 impart:] Qi-g, D, M4, M7; F; Mi, M3; ~ A M2, M6; M5. 31 Heaven's] Q1-4, D; Heav'ns Q5-9, F, M3, M7; Heav'n's Qg; heavens M1-2, M4-6. 32 pray'r] Q1-9, F, D, M1-3, M5-7; Praise M4. 32 praise, does] Q1-9, F, D, Mi-2, M5-7; prayses M3; Prayer does M4. 32 devotion] Qi-g, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; devotions M3. 32 lye:] Qi-g, I), M4-5, M7; F, M3; ~ A M1-2, M6. 33 thou and . . . race are] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; ym, Than . . . care is M3. 33 blest.] Q1-4, Q6-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; ~ A Q5; M3. 34 Adam.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4; ~ A Mi—2, M5, M7; M6. 34 every] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; eury M3. 34 and Beast] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; of beast M5. 35 kinds] Q1-9, F, D, M4-5, M7; kinde M1-3, M6. 35 they] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; to M1-2, M5. 36 know.] Q1-8, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; Qg; ~ A M1-2; M5. 37 Thou] Qi-g, F, D, Mi, M3-7; Tho M2. 37 which] Qi-g, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; yt Mg. 37 proceed] Qi-g, F, D, M1-3, M5-7; descend M4. 38 Yet] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; Lo, M3. 39 and single,] Qi-g, F, D, M4, M7 (singleA Qg, F, M7); single and M1-3, M5 (single, M3, M5); singleA M6. 40 I can ne'r] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7 (near M4); never can M1-3, M5; ne're M6. 40 produce.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; Mi; ~ A Ma. 41 Raphael.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; M1-2, M5; M6. 41 not] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; thou M3. 41 pow'r] Q1-9, F, D, M7; power M1-3, M5-6; Power divine M4. 41 who] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; that M5. 41 thee] Q1-9, F, D, M1-3, M5-7; the M4. M1-2; M5); w4. you require, M3. 73 Than] Qi-g, F, D, M4-5, M7;

The State of

Innocence

477

finde M3; thus confin'd M6. 42 thy] Q1-9, F, D, M 1 - 3 , M5-7; their M4. 4a kind.] Q1-9, F, M i , M4, M6-7; D, M5; ~ A M2; M3. 43 happy,] Q1-5, M1-2, M7; ~ A Q6-9, F, D, M3-6. 44 th'] Q1-9, D, M3-7; the F, M 1 - 2 . 44 Throne.] Q1-8, F, D, M5, M7; ~ A Qg, M1-2, M4, M6; M3. 45 employ:] Q1-9, F, M4, M7; D, M5; ~ A M 1 - 2 ; M3; — M6. 46 Joy.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; ~ A M 1 - 2 . 47 Adam.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4; ~ A M i - 2 , M5, M7; M6. 47 were] Q1-7, Qg, F, D, M 1 - 7 ; are Q8. 47 th'] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; the M 1 - 2 . 47 Allwise] Q2-9, F, D, M4; allwise Qi, M3, M5, M7; All wise M1-2, M6. 48 love.] Qi-g, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-2; M3, M6; M5. 49 pow'r] Q1-9, F, D, M3, M7; power M1-2, M4-6. 50 goodness more.] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7 (moreA M 1 - 2 , M4; M3; M5); goodnesseA M6. 52 Heav'n] Qi-g, F, D, M3, M7; Heaven M1-2, M4-6. 52 Angels] Q1-2, Q5-7, F, D, M1-7; Angles Q3-4, Q8-9. 52 Man.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; ~ A M 1 - 2 ; M5. 53 Raphael.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4; ~ A M 1 - 2 , M5, M7; M6. 53 Man] Q1-8, F, D, M 1 - 7 ; Men Qg. 53 Angels] Q1-2, Q5-9, F, D, M 1 - 7 ; Angles Q3-4. 54 thee.] Qi-g, F, D, M4, M6, M7; ~ A M1-2; M3; M5. 55 Heav'n's] Q1-9, D; Heav'ns F, M3, M7; Heavens M1-2, M4-6. 55 no] Qi-g, F, D, MI~5, M7; soe M6. 56 thou want'st] Qi-g, F, D, M i , M4, M6-7; thou wants M3; you want M5. 56 not here.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-7 (heare. M3-5; here, M6); not M 1 - 2 . 57 Adam. Why] Q1-9, F, D, M4; Adam Such State is farr above my humble Wish I Why M 1 - 3 , M5-7 (Adam. M3, M7; Adam: M6; wish. M3, M7; wish; M5). 57 implant,] Qi-g, F, D, M3, M7; ~ A M 1 - 2 , M4, M6; ~ ? M5. 58 th' effect] Qi-g, F, D, M3-5; Effect M 1 - 2 , M6; the effect M7. 58 reason?] Q2-9, F, D, M4-5, M7; Qi; M 1 - 3 , M6. 58 mute] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; Mate M 1 - 2 . 59 lost;] QI~7, F, D, M7; ~ ? Q8-g, M4; M 1 - 3 , M5-6. 5g Brute.] Qi-g, F, D, M4-5, M7; M i - 3 ; ~ A M6. 60 blessings] Q1-6, Qg, F, D, M1-7; Blessing's Q7-8. 61 the] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7; their M6. 6i than] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M5, M7; then Q4, M1-4, M6. 61 pow'r] Q1-6, D, M7; Power Q7-9, F, M1-6. 6i their] Qi-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; a M5. 61 King.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-6; ~ A Mi—2, M7. 62 Raphael.] Qi-g, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M 1 - 2 , M5; M6. 62 thee] Qi-g, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; the M5. 62 Heav'n] Q1-6, D, M3, M7; Heaven Q7-9, F, M1-2, M4-6. 62 'twas] Qi-g, F, D, M4-5, M7; was M 1 - 3 , M6. 63 alone;] Q1-3, Q5-9. F, D, M4; — Q4, M i ; ~ A M2, M6; M3; M5, M7. 64 design'd,] Q2; — Qi; Q3-9, F, D, M1-7. 65 For thy soft . . . to unbend] Q1-9, F, D, M i - a , M4-7 (unbind M6); T o passe away thy . . . ease M3. 65 mind.] Qi-g, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M6; M3; M5. 67 thou] Qi-g, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; thine M3. 67 shalt] Qi-g, F, D, M i - s , M5, M7; shall M3-4, M6. 67 obey:] Qi-g, F, D, M4-5, M7; M i ; ~ A M2, M6; M3. 68 harms] Q1-9, F, D, M3-7; harme M1-2. 69 charms.] Qi-g, F, D, M i , M3-7; ~ A M2. 70 Adam.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M i , M5; M2; M6. 70 Heav'n] Q1-9, F, D, M3, M7; heaven M 1 - 2 , M4-6. 70 require?] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4, M6-7 M6); desire, M3, M5 (~? M5). 71 Raphael.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; M i ; ~ A M2, M5; M6. 71 thy own desire.] Qi-g, F, D, M I - 2 , M4-7 (desireA M1-2; M5); w4. you require, M3. 73 Than] Q1-9, F, D, M4-5, M7;

478

Textual

Notes

then M i - g , M6. 73 Heav'n's] Q1-6, D; Heavens Q7-9, M1-2, M4-6; Heav'ns F, M3, M7. 73 care:] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-2; M3; M5; M6. 74 Not] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; Nor M3. 74 fram'd] Q i - g , F, D, M4; íorm'd M1-3, M5-7. 74 nor fruits, nor] Q i - g , F, D, Mi~4, M6-7; or fruit, or M5. 74 flowers,] Q1-5, D, M7; ~ A Q6-9, F, M1-6. 75 but like] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7; but M6. 76 divine,] Q1-3, Q 5 , D, M 5 , M 7 ; Q 4 , Q6-8; Qg, F, M 4 ; ~ A M1-3, M6. 78 dissolve into] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; dissolue to M1-2, M5; dissolv'd t' M3; disolve in't M6. 78 wine.] Q1-9, F, M4-5, M7; D; ~ A M1-3, M6. 79 noon day's] Q1-7, F, D; Noon-days Q8-9, M1-7. 79 heat] Q i - g , F, D, M3-4, M7; here M1-2; there M5; Treat M6. 80 ev'ning] Q i - g , F, D, M3; Evening M1-2, M4-7. 80 the op'ner] Q1-9, F, D, M3, M7; the Opener M1-2; th' opener M4; the closer M5; the op'ener M6. 80 glade.] Q1-9, F, D, M i , M4-7; ~ A M2; M3. 82 More] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; Here M1-3, M5-6. 82 know.] Q1-9, F, D, M3-5, M7; ~ A M1-2, M6. 83 Adam..] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M5; M6. 83 Earth and Heav'n] Q i - g , F, D, M1-4, M6-7 (Heaven M1-2, M4, M6); heaven and earth M5. 84 Maker's pow'r] Q i - g , F, D, M7; makers power M1-6. 84 love.] Q i - g , F, D, M3-7; ~ A M1-2. 84+ s.d. [They . . . sung.] Q i - g , F, D, M4 ( A They Q1-4); s.d. omitted by M1-3, AÍ5-7. II, ii SCENE II.] all texts omit. s.d. changes] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; is changed M5. s.d. above, o] Q i - g , F, D, M1-5, M7; above the M6. s.d. Sun, gloriously] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; glorious Sun M1-2, M5; Sun glorious M6. s.d. orbicularly:] Q1-9, F, D, M4 D); Arbicular M1-2 M2); orbicular M3, M5-7 ( ~ A M6; M7). s.d. the part . . . Sun] Q1-9, s.d. dark.] Q1-9, F, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; that part . . . Sun is M1-2, M5. D, M i , M4, M7; M2; M3, M5-6. s.d. part] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; p t s . M3. s.d. the Heavens] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; heaven M5. s.d. his nearer] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M6; his neere M1-2, M5; its nearer M3; his near M7. 1 Lucifer.] Q2-g, F, D, M4, M6-7; ~ A Q i , M i , M3, M5; M2. 1 monstrous?] Q i - g , F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-2, M6; M3, M5. 1 disfigur'd,] Q1-3, Q5-g. F, D, M3-5; Q4; M1-2; ~ A M6-7. 2 cannot] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, M7; ca'nt M6. 3 face?] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; M1-3, M5-6. 3 agast;] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7 ( ~ A M1-2, M6; ~ ? M5); abash'd, M3. 4 gilds] Q1-6, Q9, F, D, M4, M7; glides Q7-8, M3; guildes M1-2; guilds M5-6. 5 of his] Q1-9, F, D, M4-7 ~ M5); off, his M1-2; of its M3. 5 shrinks] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; Shrinck M1-2; shrunk M5. 5 in? Accurst] M1-2, M7; ~ Q1-8; ~ Qg, F, M4; ~ D; in a curst M3, M6; in? M5 (M5 omits Accurst. . . youl [1. 7]). 5 ambition!] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4, M7; M3; M6. 6 of the neather] Q1-9, F, D, M4; of my Neather M1-2, M7; my neether M3; of my neither M6. 7 bought] Q1-2, Q5-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; brought Q3-4. 7 youl] Q i - g , F, D, M4; thee? M1-2; thee, M3; thee A M6; thee! M7. 7 'tis] Q i - g , F, D, Mi—2, M4-7; its M3. g revenge, in] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M7; revenge with M5; revenging M6. 10 my] Q1-8, F, D, M 1 - 7 ; may Qg.

The State of Innocence

479

1 1 created.] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M4, M7; Q4, M3, M6; M1-2; M5. 1 2 - 1 7 Divided into five lines in ... while / . . . smooth / . . . through / . . . againe / . . . . 12 must] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M1-7; most Q4. 13-17 Divided into four lines in Mi-2:... Smooth / . . . through / . . . againe / . . . . 15 Night and] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; nights M 1 - 2 , M6 M6); night M3; Night's M5. 16 Those] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; these M5. 16 envy'd . . . which] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M6-7; Envious . . . that M i - 2 , M5. 16 lost.] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4, M6; M3; M5; ~ A M7. 17 stay; far off] ; Q1-5, M7 (of M7); , Q6-9, F, D, M 4 ; ~ A A M 1 - 3 , M5-6 (of M3). 17 driv'n] Q1-9, F, D, M7; driven M1-6. 18 Uriel,] Q1-3, Q5-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; Q4; ~ A M 1 - 2 , M5-6. 19 seaven] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4-7; seau'n M3. 20 of] Q1-9, F, D, M1-6; of of M7. 20 th' Eternal] Q1-9, F, D, M3-4, M7; the jEternall M 1 - 2 , M6; th' ^Eternalls M5. 20 Throne,] Q4-9, F, D, M3-5, M7; Q1-3, ~ A Mi—2, M6. 21 of that] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; of the M 1 - 3 , M6; of this M5. 21 light.] Q1-9, F, D, M1-5, My; ~ A M6. 2 1 + s.d. From that] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; ffrom the M5. 2 1 + s.d. Heavens] D, M 1 - 3 , M5-6; Q1-9, F, M4, M7. 2 1 + s.d. discovered] Q1-9, F, D, M1-4, M6-7; driven M5. 2 1 + s.d. Sura.] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; M 1 - 3 , M5-6. 2 1 + s.d. recovers] Q2-9, F, D, M 1 - 7 ; recover's Qi. 2 1 + s.d. his light.] Q1-9, F, D, M1-2, M4, M6-7 ( A M2, M7); its Light. M3; light M5. 22 Uriel.] Q1-9, F, D, M4, M7; ~ A M1-3, M5; M6. 22 thouf] Q1-9, F, M1-2, M5, M7; D, M3; M4;