About: Old English Plays, Vol. I by Various

OLD ENGLISH PLAYS, VOL. I

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A COLLECTION OF OLD ENGLISH PLAYS, VOL. I

In Four Volumes

EDITED BY

A.H. BULLEN.

1882 1889

CONTENTS:

The Tragedy of NeroThe Mayde's MetamorphosisThe Martyr'd SouldierThe Noble Souldier

_PREFACE_.

Most of the Plays in the present Collection have not been reprinted,and some have not been printed at all. In the second volume there willbe published for the first time a fine tragedy (hitherto quite unknown)by Massinger and Fletcher, and a lively comedy (also quite unknown)by James Shirley. The recovery of these two pieces should be ofconsiderable interest to all students of dramatic literature.

The Editor hopes to give in Vol. III.an unpublished play of ThomasHeywood. In the fourth volume there will be a reprint of the _Arden ofFeversham_, from the excessively rare quarto of 1592.

INTRODUCTION TO THE_TRAGEDY OF NERO_.

Of the many irreparable losses sustained by classical literature few aremore to be deplored than the loss of the closing chapters of Tacitus'_Annals_. Nero, it is true, is a far less complex character thanTiberius; and there can be no question that Tacitus' sketch of Nero isless elaborate than his study of the elder tyrant. Indeed, no historicalfigure stands out for all time with features of such hideous vividnessas Tacitus' portrait of Tiberius; nowhere do we find emphasised withsuch terrible earnestness, the stoical poet's anathema against tyrants"Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta.

" Other writers would haveturned back sickened from the task of following Tiberius through mazesof cruelty and craft. But Tacitus pursues his victim with the patienceof a sleuth hound; he seems to find a ruthless satisfaction in strippingthe soul of its coverings; he treads the floor of hell and watches withequanimity the writhings of the damned.

The reader is at once strangelyattracted and repelled by the pages of Tacitus; there is a weirdfascination that holds him fast, as the glittering eye of the AncientMariner held the Wedding Guest. It was owing partly, no doubt, to thehideousness of the subject that the Elizabethan Dramatists shrank fromseeking materials in the _Annals_; but hardly the abominations of Neroor Tiberius could daunt such daring spirits as Webster or Ford. Ratherwe must impute their silence to the powerful mastery of Tacitus; it wasawe that held them from treading in the historian's steps. Ben Jonsonventured on the enchanted ground; but not all the fine old poet's wealthof classical learning, not his observance of the dramatic proprietiesnor his masculine intellect, could put life into the dead bones ofSejanus or conjure up the muffled sinister figure of Tiberius. Where BenJonson failed, the unknown author of the _Tragedy of Nero_ has, to someextent, succeeded.

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