The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition), by Various, Edited by Robert Dodsley

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Title: A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition)

Author: Various

Release Date: November 29, 2003 [eBook #10336]

Language: English

Chatacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SELECT COLLECTION OF OLD ENGLISH PLAYS, VOL. VII (4TH EDITION)***

E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Tapio Riikonen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders

A SELECT COLLECTION OF OLD ENGLISH PLAYS, VOL. VII

Fourth Edition

Originally published by Robert Dodsley in the Year 1744.

Now first chronologically arranged, revised and enlarged with the Notes of all the Commentators, and new Notes.

1876.

CONTENTS:

Tancred And Gismunda
The Wounds Of Civil War
Mucedorus
The Two Angry Women Of Abington
Look About You

EDITION

The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund. Compiled by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her Maiestie. Newly reuiued and polished according to the decorum of these daies. By R.W. London, Printed by Thomas Scarlet, and are to be solde by R. Robinson, 1591, 4to.

[Some copies are dated 1592; but there was only a single edition. Of the original text, as written in 1568, there is no printed copy; but MSS. of it are in MS. Lansdowne 786, and Hargrave MS. 205, neither of which appears to present any evidence of identity with the copy mentioned by Isaac Reed below as then in private hands. Both these MSS. have now been collated with the text of 1591, and the conclusion must be, that Wilmot, though he unquestionably revived, did not do so much, as he might wish to have it inferred, in polishing the play. The production was formed on a classical model, and bears marks of resemblance in tone and style to the "Jocasta" of Euripides, as paraphrased by Gascoigne in 1566. The Lansdowne MS. of "Tancred and Gismunda" was written, about 1568-70, while the Hargrave is much more modern.]

INTRODUCTION.

It appears from William Webbe's Epistle prefixed to this piece, that after its first exhibition it was laid aside, and at some distance of time was new-written by R. Wilmot. The reader, therefore, may not be displeased with a specimen of it in its original dress. It is here given from the fragment of an ancient MS. taken out of a chest of papers formerly belonging to Mr Powell, father-in-law to the author of "Paradise Lost," at Forest Hill, about four miles from Oxford, where in all probability some curiosities of the same kind may remain, the contents of these chests (for I think there are more than one) having never yet been properly examined. The following extract is from the conclusion of the piece.—Reed. [Reed's extract has been collated with the two MSS. before-mentioned; where the Powell MS. may now be, the editor cannot say. The differences, on the whole, are not material; but the Lansdowne MS. 786 has supplied a few superior readings and corrections.]

    But in thy brest if eny spark remaine
    Of thy dere love. If ever yet I coulde
    So moche of thee deserve, or at the least
    If with my last desire I may obtaine
    This at thy handes, geve me this one request
    And let me not spend my last breath in vaine.
    My life desire I not, which neither is
    In thee to geve nor in my self to save,
    Althoughe I wolde. Nor yet I aske not this
    As mercye for myne Erle in ought to crave,
    Whom I to well do knowe howe thou hast slayen.
    No, no, father, thy hard and cruell wronge
    With pacience as I may I will sustaine
    In woefull life which now shall not be longe.
    But this one suite, father, if unto me
    Thou graunt, though I cannot the same reacquite
    Th'immortall goddes shall render unto thee
    Thy due reward and largely guerdon it,
    That sins it pleased thee not thus secretly
    I might enjoy my love, his corps and myne
    May nathelesse together graved be
    And in one tombe our bodies both to shrine
    With which this small request eke do I praie
    That on the same graven in brasse thou place
    This woefull epitaphe which I shall saye,
    That all lovers may rue this mornefull case;
    Loe here within one tombe where harbor twaine
    Gismonda Quene and Countie Pallurine!
    She loved him, he for her love was slayen,
    For whoes revenge eke lyes she here in shrine.
                                  [GISMONDA dieth

    TANCRED. O me alas, nowe do the cruell paines
    Of cursed death my dere daughter bereave.
    Alas whie bide I here? the sight constraines
    Me woefull man this woefull place to leaue.

SCENE III.

TANCRED cometh out of GISMOND'S Chamber.

    TANCRED. O dolorous happe, ruthefull and all of woe
    Alas I carefull wretche what resteth me?
    Shall I now live that with these eyes did soe
    Beholde my daughter die? what, shall I see
    Her death before my face that was my lyfe
    And I to lyve that was her lyves decay?
    Shall not this hand reache to this hart the knife
    That maye bereve bothe sight and life away,
    And in the shadowes darke to seke her ghoste
    And wander there with her? shall not, alas,
    This spedy death be wrought, sithe I have lost
    My dearest ioy of all? what, shall I passe
    My later dayes in paine, and spende myne age
    In teres and plaint! shall I now leade my life
    All solitarie as doeth bird in cage,
    And fede my woefull yeres with waillfull grefe?
    No, no, so will not I my dayes prolonge
    To seke to live one houre sith she is gone:
    This brest so can not bende to suche a wronge,
    That she shold dye and I to live alone.
    No, this will I: she shall have her request
    And in most royall sorte her funerall
    Will I performe. Within one tombe shall rest
    Her earle and she, her epitaph withall
    Graved thereon shal be. This will I doe
    And when these eyes some aged teres have shed
    The tomb my self then will I crepe into
    And with my blood all bayne their bodies dead.
    This heart there will I perce, and reve this brest
    The irksome life, and wreke my wrathful ire
    Upon my self. She shall have her request,
    And I by death will purchace my desyre.

FINIS.

EPILOGUS.

    If now perhappes ye either loke to