John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  Secure me but my solitary cell;

  ’Tis all I ask him for a crown restored.

  Dor. I will do more:

  But fear not Muley-Zeydan; his soft metal

  Melts down with easy warmth, runs in the mould,

  And needs no further forge.[Exit Dorax.

  Re-enter Almeyda led by Morayma, and followed by her Attendants.

  Seb. See where she comes again!

  By heaven, when I behold those beauteous eyes,

  Repentance lags, and sin comes hurrying on.

  Alm. This is too cruel!

  Seb. Speak’st thou of love, of fortune, or of death,

  Or double death? for we must part, Almeyda.

  Alm. I speak of all,

  For all things that belong to us are cruel;

  But, what’s most cruel, we must love no more.

  O ’tis too much that I must never see you,

  But not to love you is impossible.

  No, I must love you; heaven may bate me that,

  And charge that sinful sympathy of souls

  Upon our parents, when they loved too well.

  Seb. Good heaven, thou speak’st my thoughts, and I speak thine!

  Nay, then there’s incest in our very souls,

  For we were formed too like.

  Alm. Too like indeed,

  And yet not for each other.

  Sure when we part, (for I resolved it too,

  Though you proposed it first,) however distant,

  We shall be ever thinking of each other,

  And the same moment for each other pray.

  Seb. But if a wish should come athwart our prayers!

  Alm. It would do well to curb it, if we could.

  Seb. We cannot look upon each other’s face,

  But, when we read our love, we read our guilt:

  And yet, methinks, I cannot chuse but love.

  Aim. I would have asked you, if I durst for shame,

  If still you loved? you gave it air before me.

  Ah, why were we not born both of a sex?

  For then we might have loved without a crime.

  Why was not I your brother? though that wish

  Involved our parents’ guilt, we had not parted;

  We had been friends, and friendship is no incest.

  Seb. Alas, I know not by what name to call thee!

  Sister and wife are the two dearest names,

  And I would call thee both, and both are sin.

  Unhappy we! that still we must confound

  The dearest names into a common curse.

  Alm. To love, and be beloved, and yet be wretched!

  Seb. To have but one poor night of all our lives;

  It was indeed a glorious, guilty night;

  So happy, that — forgive me, heaven! — I wish,

  With all its guilt, it were to come again.

  Why did we know so soon, or why at all,

  That sin could be concealed in such a bliss?

  Alm. Men have a larger privilege of words,

  Else I should speak; but we must part, Sebastian, —

  That’s all the name that I have left to call thee; —

  I must not call thee by the name I would;

  But when I say Sebastian, dear Sebastian,

  I kiss the name I speak.

  Seb. We must make haste, or we shall never part.

  I would say something that’s as dear as this;

  Nay, would do more than say: One moment longer,

  And I should break through laws divine and human,

  And think them cobwebs spread for little man,

  Which all the bulky herd of nature breaks.

  The vigorous young world was ignorant

  Of these restrictions; ’tis decrepit now;

  Not more devout, but more decayed, and cold. —

  All this is impious, therefore we must part;

  For, gazing thus, I kindle at thy sight,

  And, once burnt down to tinder, light again

  Much sooner than before.

  Re-enter Dorax.

  Alm. Here comes the sad denouncer of my fate,

  To toll the mournful knell of separation;

  While I, as on my deathbed, hear the sound,

  That warns me hence for ever.

  Seb. [To Dor.] Now be brief,

  And I will try to listen,

  And share the minute, that remains, betwixt

  The care I owe my subjects, and my love.

  Dor. Your fate has gratified you all she can;

  Gives easy misery, and makes exile pleasing.

  I trusted Muley-Zeydan as a friend,

  But swore him first to secrecy: He wept

  Your fortune, and with tears not squeezed by art,

  But shed from nature, like a kindly shower:

  In short, he proffered more than I demanded;

  A safe retreat, a gentle solitude,

  Unvexed with noise, and undisturbed with fears.

  I chose you one —

  Alm. O do not tell me where;

  For, if I knew the place of his abode,

  I should be tempted to pursue his steps,

  And then we both were lost.

  Seb. Even past redemption;

  For, if I knew thou wert on that design,

  (As I must know, because our souls are one,)

  I should not wander, but by sure instinct

  Should meet thee just half-way in pilgrimage,

  And close for ever; for I know my love

  More strong than thine, and I more frail than thou.

  Alm. Tell me not that; for I must boast my crime,

  And cannot bear that thou should’st better love.

  Dor. I may inform you both; for you must go,

  Where seas, and winds, and deserts will divide you.

  Under the ledge of Atlas lies a cave,

  Cut in the living rock by Nature’s hands,

  The venerable seat of holy hermits;

  Who there, secure in separated cells,

  Sacred even to the Moors, enjoy devotion;

  And from the purling streams, and savage fruits.

  Have wholesome beverage, and unbloody feasts.

  Seb. ’Tis penance too voluptuous for my crime.

  Dor. Your subjects, conscious of your life, are few;

  But all desirous to partake your exile,

  And to do office to your sacred person.

  The rest, who think you dead, shall be dismissed.

  Under safe convoy, till they reach your fleet.

  Alm. But how am wretched I to be disposed? —

  A vain enquiry, since I leave my lord;

  For all the world beside is banishment.

  Dor. I have a sister, abbess in Terceras,

  Who lost her lover on her bridal day.

  Alm. There fate provided me a fellow-turtle,

  To mingle sighs with sighs, and tears with tears.

  Dor. Last, for myself, if I have well fulfilled

  My sad commission, let me beg the boon,

  To share the sorrows of your last recess,

  And mourn the common losses of our loves.

  Alv. And what becomes of me? must I be left,

  As age and time had worn me out of use?

  These sinews are not yet so much unstrung,

  To fail me when my master should be served;

  And when they are, then will I steal to death,

  Silent and unobserved, to save his tears.

  Seb. I’ve heard you both; — Alvarez, have thy wish; —

  But thine, Alonzo, thine is too unjust.

  I charge thee with my last commands, return,

  And bless thy Violante with thy vows. —

  Antonio, be thou happy too in thine.

  Last, let me swear you all to secrecy;

  And, to conceal my shame, conceal my life.

  Dor. Ant. Mor. We swear to keep it secret.

  Alm. Now I would speak the last farewell, I cannot.
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  It would be still farewell a thousand times;

  And, multiplied in echoes, still farewell.

  I will not speak, but think a thousand thousand.

  And be thou silent too, my last Sebastian;

  So let us part in the dumb pomp of grief.

  My heart’s too great, or I would die this moment;

  But death, I thank him, in an hour, has made

  A mighty journey, and I haste to meet him. [She staggers, and her Women hold her up.

  Seb. Help to support this feeble drooping flower.

  This tender sweet, so shaken by the storm;

  For these fond arms must thus be stretched in vain,

  And never, never must embrace her more.

  ’Tis past: — my soul goes in that word — farewell.

  [Alvarez goes with Sebastian to one end of the Stage; Women, with Almeyda, to the other: Dorax coming up to Antonio and Morayma, who stand on the middle of the Stage.

  Dor. Haste to attend Almeyda: — For your sake

  Your father is forgiven; but to Antonio

  He forfeits half his wealth. Be happy both;

  And let Sebastian and Almeyda’s fate

  This dreadful sentence to the world relate, —

  That unrepented crimes, of parents dead,

  Are justly punished on their children’s head.

  EPILOGUE.

  SPOKEN BETWIXT ANTONIO AND MORAYMA

  Mor. I quaked at heart, for fear the royal fashion

  Should have seduced us two to separation:

  To be drawn in, against our own desire,

  Poor I to be a nun, poor you, a friar.

  Ant. I trembled, when the old man’s hand was in,

  He would have proved we were too near of kin:

  Discovering old intrigues of love, like t’other,

  Betwixt my father and thy sinful mother;

  To make us sister Turk and Christian brother.

  Mor. Excuse me there; that league should have been rather

  Betwixt your mother and my Mufti father;

  ’Tis for my own and my relations’ credit,

  Your friends should bear the bastard, mine should get it.

  Ant. Suppose us two, Almeyda and Sebastian,

  With incest proved upon us —

  Mor. Without question,

  Their conscience was too queazy of digestion.

  Ant. Thou wouldst have kept the counsel of thy brother,

  And sinned, till we repented of each other.

  Mor. Beast as you are, on Nature’s laws to trample!

  ‘Twere fitter that we followed their example.

  And, since all marriage in repentance ends,

  ’Tis good for us to part when we are friends.

  To save a maid’s remorses and confusions,

  E’en leave me now before we try conclusions.

  Ant. To copy their example, first make certain

  Of one good hour, like theirs, before our parting;

  Make a debauch, o’er night, of love and madness;

  And marry, when we wake, in sober sadness.

  Mor. I’ll follow no new sects of your inventing.

  One night might cost me nine long months repenting;

  First wed, and, if you find that life a fetter,

  Die when you please; the sooner, sir, the better.

  My wealth would get me love ere I could ask it:

  Oh! there’s a strange temptation in the casket.

  All these young sharpers would my grace importune,

  And make me thundering votes of lives and fortune.

  AMPHITRYON

  OR, THE TWO SOSIAS

  A COMEDY.

  Egregiam vero laudem, et spolia ampla refertis,

  Una dolo Divûm sijœmina vicia duorum est.

  Virg.

  Plautus, the venerable father of Roman comedy, who flourished during the second Punic war, left us a play on the subject of Amphitryon, which has had the honour to be deemed worthy of imitation by Molière and Dryden. It cannot be expected that the, plain, blunt, and inartificial style of so rude an age should bear any comparison with that of authors who enjoyed the highest advantages of the polished times to which they were an ornament. But the merit of having devised and embodied most of the comic distresses, which have excited laughter throughout so many ages, is to be attributed to the ancient bard, upon whose original conception of the plot his successors have made few and inconsiderable improvements. It is true, that, instead of a formal Prologus, who stepped forth, in the character of Mercury, and gravely detailed to the audience the plot of the play, Molière and Dryden have introduced it in the modem more artificial method, by the dialogue of the actors in the first scene. It is true, also, that, with great contempt of one of the unities, afterwards deemed so indispensable by the ancients, Plautus introduces the birth of Hercules into a play, founded upon the intrigue which occasioned that event. Yet with all these disadvantages, and that of the rude flatness of his dialogue, — resting frequently, for wit, upon the most miserable puns, — the comic device of the two Sosias; the errors into which the malice of Mercury plunges his unlucky original; the quarrel of Alcmena with her real husband, and her reconciliation with Jupiter in his stead; the final confronting of the two Amphitryos; and the astonishment of the unfortunate general, at finding every proof of his identity exhibited by his rival, — are all, however rudely sketched, the inventions of the Roman poet. In one respect it would seem, that the jeu de théâtre, necessary to render the piece probable upon the stage, was better managed in the time of Plautus than in that of Dryden and Molière.

  Upon a modern stage it is evidently difficult to introduce two pair of characters, so extremely alike as to make it at all probable, or even possible, that the mistakes, depending upon their extreme resemblance, could take place. But, favoured by the masks and costume of the ancient theatre, Plautus contrived to render Jupiter and Mercury so exactly like Amphitryon and Sosia, that they were obliged to retain certain marks, supposed to be invisible to the other persons of the drama, by which the audience themselves might be enabled to distinguish the gods from the mortals, whose forms they had assumed.

  The modem poets have treated the subject, which they had from Plautus, each according to the fashion of his country; and so far did the correctness of the French stage exceed ours at that period, that the palm of the comic writing must be, at once, awarded to Molière. For, though Dryden had the advantage of the French author’s labours, from which, and from Plautus, he has translated liberally, the wretched taste of the age has induced him to lard the piece with gratuitous indelicacy. He is, in general, coarse and vulgar, where Molière is witty; and where the Frenchman ventures upon a double meaning, the Englishman always contrives to make it a single one. Yet although inferior to Molière, and accommodated to the gross taste of the seventeeth century, “Amphitryon” is one of the happiest effusions of Dryden’s comic muse. He has enriched the plot by the intrigue of Mercury and Phaedra; and the petulant interested “Queen of Gipsies,” as her lover terms her, is no bad paramour for the God of Thieves.

  In the scenes of a higher cast, Dryden far outstrips both the French and Roman poet. The sensation to be expressed is not that of sentimental affection, which the good father of Olympus was not capable of feeling; but love, of that grosser and subordinate kind which prompted Jupiter in his intrigues, has been by none of the ancient poets expressed in more beautiful verse than that in which Dryden has clothed it, in the scenes between Jupiter and Alcmena. Even Milbourne, who afterwards attacked our author with such malignant asperity, was so sensible of the merit of “Amphitryon,” that he addressed to the publisher the following letter and copy of verses, which Mr. Malone’s industry recovered from among Mr. Tonson’s papers.

  “YARMOUTH, Novemb. 24. — 90.

  “MR. TONSON,

  “You’Ll wonder perhaps at this from a stranger; but ye reason of it may perhaps abate somewhat of ye miracle, and it’s this. On Thursday the twentyth ins
tant, I receiv’d Mr. Drydens Amphytrio: I leave out the Greeke termination, as not so proper in my opinion, in English. But to passe that; I liked the play, and read it over with as much of criticisme and ill nature as ye time (being about one in ye morning, and in bed,) would permit. Going to sleep very well pleasd, I could not leave my bed in ye morning without this sacrifice to the authours genius: it was too sudden to be correct, but it was very honestly meant, and is submitted to yours and Mr. Ds disposall.

  “Hail, Prince of Witts! thy fumbling Age is past,

  Thy youth and witt and art’s renewed at last.

  So on some rook ths Joviall bird assays

  Her ore-grown beaks, that marke of age, to rayse;

  That done, through yielding air she cutts her way,

  And strongly stoops againe, and breaks ths trembling prey.

  What though prodigious thunder stripp’d thy brows

  Of envy’d hays, and the dull world allows

  Shadwell should wear them, — wee’II applaud the change

  Where nations feel it, who can think it strange!

  So have I seen ths long-ear’d bruts aspire

  To drest commods with every smallest wire;

  With nightrail hung on shoulders, gravely stalke,

  Like bawd attendant on Aurelia’s walke.

  Hang’t l give the fop ingratefull world its will;

  He wears the laurel, — thou deserv’st it still.

  Still smooth, as when, adorn’d with youthful pride,

  For thy dear sake ths blushing virgins dyed;

  When the kind gods of witt and love combined,

  And with large gifts thy yielding soul refined.

  “Not Phoebus could with gentler words pursue

  His flying Daphne, not the morning dew

  Fall writer tnan the words of amorous Jove,

  When melting, dying, for Alcmens’s love.

  “Yet briske and airy too, thou fill’st the stage,

  Unbroke by fortune, undecayed by age.

  French wordy witt by thine was long surpast;

  Now Rome’s thy captive, and by thee wee taste

  Of their rich dayntyes; but so finely drest,

  Theirs was a country meal, thins a triumphant feast.

  “If this to thy necesaityea wee ow,

  O, may they greater still and greater grow!

  Nor blame the wish; Plautua could write in chainea,

  Wee’ll blesse thy wanta, while wee enjoy thy paine.

  Wealth makes the poet lazy, nor can fame,

  That gay attendant of a apritely flame,