A place being provided for the devils' consistory, enter ST. DUNSTAN with his beads, book, and crosierstaff, &c.
St. Dunstan. ENVY, that always waits on virtue's
And tears the graves of quiet sleeping souls,
Hath brought me, after many hundred years,
To shew myself again upon the earth.
Know then (who list) that I am English born,
My name is Dunstan; whilst I liv'd with men,
Chief primate of the holy English church.
I was begotten in West Saxony:
My father's name was Heorston, my mother's Cinifred.
Endowed with my merit's legacy,
I flourish'd in the reign of seven great kings:
The first was Adelstane, whose niece Elfleda,
The story of this play is taken in part from Machiavel's Belphagor. S. P.
The recent excellent translation of this humourous old story by Mr. T. Roscoe, (Italian Novelists, vol. ii. 272.) will enable the reader to compare the play with it. He will find that in many parts the original has been abandoned, and the catastrophe, if not entirely different, is brought about by different means. The Biographia Dramatica informs us that Dekkar's If it be not good the devil is in it, is also chiefly taken from the same novel, but this is an error arising out of a hint by Langbaine. Dekkar's play is the famous history of Friar Rush, in many of its incidents. C.
Malicious tongues reported, I defiled:
Next him came Edmond, then Edred, and Edwin:
And after him reign'd Edgar, a great prince,
But full of many crimes, which I restrain'd:
Edward his son, and lastly Egelred.
With all these kings was I in high esteem,
And kept both them, and all the land in awe;
And, had I liv'd, the Danes had never boasted
Their then beginning conquest of this land.
Yet some accuse me for a conjurer,
By reason of those many miracles
Which Heaven for holy life endowed me with ;
But whoso looks into the golden legend3,
(That sacred register of holy saints)
Shall find me by the pope canonized,
And happily the cause of this report
Might rise by reason of a vision,
Which I beheld in great king Edgar's days,
Being that time abbot of Glassenbury,
Which (for it was a matter of some worth)
I did make known to few, until this day:
But now I purpose that the world shall see
How much those slanderers have wronged me;
Nor will I trouble you with courts and kings;
Or drive a feigned battle out of breath;
Or keep a coil myself upon the stage;
But think you see me in my secret cell,
Arm'd with my portrass, bidding of my beads.
But on a sudden I'm o'ercome with sleep!
If ought ensue, watch you, for Dunstan's dreams.
3 The golden legend.] Legenda Aurea, or the Golden Legend, translated out of the French, and printed by Caxton in folio, 1483.
* In the old copy it is printed Tortass, but it means Portass, Portesse or Portuce, the breviary of the Roman Catholic Church: thus in Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, vol. VIII. 200. "I'll take my portace forth, and wed you here." Spencer uses the word, F. Q.: B. I. C. 4.
"And in his hand his portesse still he bare
"That much was worne," &c.
See also note 16 to New Custome, vol. I. C.
He layeth him down to sleep; lightning and thunder ;
the curtains drawn on a sudden; PLUTO, MINOS,
EACUS, RHADAMANTHUS, set in counsel; before
them MALBECCo's ghost guarded with furies.
Pluto. You ever dreaded judges of black hell,
Grim Minos, Æacus, and Rhadamanth,
Lords of Cocytus, Styx, and Phlegethon,
Princes of darkness, Pluto's ministers,
Know that the greatness of his present cause
Hath made ourself in person sit as judge,
To hear the arraignment of Malbecco's ghost.
Stand forth, thou ghastly pattern of despair,
And to this powerful synod tell thy tale,
That we may hear if thou canst justly say
Thou wert not author of thy own decay.
Malbecco. Infernal Jove, great prince of Tartary,
With humble reverence poor Malbecco speaks,
Still trembling with the fatal memory
Of his so late concluded tragedy.
I was (with thanks to your great bounty) bred
A wealthy lord, whilst that I liv'd on earth;
And so might have continu'd to this day,
Had not that plague of mankind fall'n on me:
For I (poor man) join'd woe unto my name,
By choosing out a woman for my wife.
A wife! a curse ordained for the world.
Fair Helena! fair she was indeed,
But foully stain'd with inward wickedness.
I kept her bravely, and I lov'd her dear;
But that dear love did cost my life, and all.
To reckon up a thousand of her pranks,
Her pride, her wasteful spending, her unkindness,
Her false dissembling, seeming sanctity,
Her scolding, pouting, prating, meddling,
And twenty hundred more of the same stamp,
Were but to reap an endless catalogue
Of what the world is plagu'd with every day.
4 Malbecco.] See the story of Malbecco in Spenser' Fairy Queen B. 3. C. 9. &c.
* The old copy has it reap, but probably we ought to read heap: "to reap an endless catalogue" is hardly sense.
But for the main of that I have to tell,
It chanced thus. Late in a rainy night
A crew of gallants came unto my house,
And (will I, nill I) would forsooth be lodg'd:
I brought them in, and made them all good cheer,
(Such as I had in store) and lodg'd them soft.
Amongst them one, ycleped Paridell,
(The falsest thief that ever trod on ground)
Robb'd me, and with him stole away my wife.
I (for I lov'd her dear) pursu'd the thief,
And after many days in travel spent,
Found her amongst a crew of satyrs wild,
Kissing and colling all the live-long night.
I spake her fair, and pray'd her to return;
But she in scorn commands me to be gone,
And glad I was to fly, to save my life.
But when I backward came unto my house,
I find it spoil'd, and all my treasure gone.
Desp❜rate and mad, I ran, I knew not whither,
Calling and crying out on Heaven and fate;
Till seeing none to pity my distress,
I threw myself down headlong on a rock,
5ycleped.] Cleped is called, named.
Milton's L'Allegro, 1. 11.
"But come, thou goddess fair and free,
"In Heav'n yclep'd Euphrosyne."
The letter y is added, to lengthen it a syllable.
6 Kissing and colling] Colling is embracing round the neck. Dare brachia cervici, as Barret explains it in his Alvearie, voce colle. The word is frequently to be found in ancient writers.
Erasmus Praise of Folie, 1549. Sign B. 2.
-for els, what is it in younge babes that we dooe kysse so, we doe colle so; we do cheryshe so, that a very enemie is moved "to spare and succour this age."
I'll clasp thee, and clip thee; coll thee, and kiss thee; till I be "better than naught, and worse than nothing."
The Witch, by Middleton. MS.
"When hundred leagues in aire we feast and sing,
"Daunce, kysse, and coll, use every thing.
The Woorkes of a Young Wit. 1577. p. 37.
"Then for Gods sake, let young folkes coll and kisse,
"When oldest folkes will thinke it not amisse.
And so concluded all my ills at once.
Now, judge you, justice benchers, if my wife
Were not the instrument to end my life.
Pluto. Can it be possible (you lords of hell)
Malbecco's tale of women should be true?
Is marriage now become so great a curse,
That whilome was the comfort of the world?
Minos. Women, it seems, have lost their native shame, As no man better may complain than I;
Though not of any whom I made my wife,
But of my daughter, who procur'd my fall.
Eacus. "Tis strange what plaints are brought us every day
Of men made miserable by marriage;
So that amongst a thousand, scarcely ten
Have not some grievous actions 'gainst their wives. Rhadumanthus. My lord, if. Rhadamanth might counsel you,
grace should send some one into the world, That might make proof if it be true or no.
Pluto. And wisely hast thou counsell'd, Rhadamanth, Call in Belphagor to me presently;
[One of the furies goes for Belphagor.
He is the fittest that I know in hell,
To undertake a task of such import;
For he is patient, mild, and pitiful :
Humours but ill agreeing with our kingdom.
Enter BELPHAGOR.
And here he comes. Belphagor, so it is,
We in our awful synod have decreed,
(Upon occasions to ourselves best known)
That thou from hence shall go into the world,
And take upon thee the shape of a man;
In which estate thou shalt be married.
Choose thee a wife that best may please thyself,
And live with her a twelvemonth and a day;
Thou shalt be subject unto human chance,
So far as common wit cannot relieve thee;
Thou shalt of us receive ten thousand pounds,
Sufficient stock to use for thy increase:
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