What’s here? Bows, bills and guns? [Unmasks] Noble Camillo,
I am sure you are lord of all this misrule; I pray
For who’s sake do you make this swaggering fray?
CAMILLO
For yours, and for [our] own, we come resolv’d
To murther him that poisons your chaste bed,
To take revenge on you for your false heart.
And, wanton dame, our wrath here must not sleep;
Your sin being deep’st, your share shall be most deep.
VIOLETTA
With pardon of your grace, myself to you all,
At your own weapons, thus do answer all.
For paying away my heart, that was my own;
Fight not to win that, in good troth, ’tis gone.
For my dear love’s abusing my chaste bed
And her sweet theft, alack, you are misled;
This was a plot of mine, only to try
Your love’s strange temper. Sooth, I do not lie.
My Fontinell ne’er dally’d in her arms;
She never bound his heart with amorous charms.
My Fontinell ne’er loath’d my sweet embrace;
She never drew love’s picture by his face.
When he from her white hand would strive to go,
She never cry’d fie, fie, nor no, no, no.
With prayers and bribes we hired her, both to lie
Under that roof: for this must my love die?
Who dare be so hard-hearted? Look you, we kiss,
And if he loathe his Violetta, judge by this.
Kiss.
FONTINELL
O sweetest Violet, I blush.
VIOLETTA
Good [sign],
Wear still that maiden blush, but still be mine.
FONTINELL
I seal myself thine own, with both my hands,
In this true deed of gift. Gallants, here stands
This lady’s champion; at his foot I’ll lie
That dares touch her. Who taints my constancy,
I am no man for him; fight he with her
And yield, for she’s a noble conqueror.
DUKE
This combat shall not need, for see, asham’d
Of their rash vows these gentlemen here break
This storm, and do with hands what tongues should speak.
OMNES
All friends? All friends.
HIPOLITO
[To Imperia] Punk, you may laugh at this.
Here’s tricks, but, mouth, I’ll stop you with a kiss.
Enter Curvetto and Lazarillo, led by Blurt and the watch.
BLURT
Room; keep all the scabs back, for here comes Lazarus.
DUKE
Oh, here’s our other spirits that walk i’ th’ night.
Signior Curvetto, by complaint from her
And by your writing here, I reach the depth
Of your offense. They charge your climbing up
To be to rob her; if so, then by law
You are to die unless she marry you.
IMPERIA
I? Fie, fie, fie, I will be burnt to ashes first.
CURVETTO
How? Die or marry her? Then call me daw.
Marry her — she’s more common than the law —
For boys to call me ox? No, I am not drunk.
I’ll play with her but, hang her, wed no punk.
I shall be a hoary courtier then, indeed,
And have a perilous head; then I were best
Lie close, lie close to hid my forked crest.
No; fie, fie, fie, hang me before the door
Where I was drown’d ere I marry with a whore.
DUKE
Well, signior, for we rightly understand
From your accusers how you stood her guest,
We pardon you and pass it as a jest.
And for the Spaniard sped so hardly too,
Discharge him, Blurt; signior, we pardon you.
BLURT
Sir, he’s not to be dischar’d, nor so to be shot off; I have put him into a new suit and have enter’d into him with an action. He owes me two and thirty shillings.
LAZARILLO
It is thy honour to have me die in thy debt.
BLURT
It would be more honor to thee to pay me before thou diest; twenty shillings of this debt came out of his nose.
LAZARILLO
Bear witness, great duke, he’s paid twenty shillings.
BLURT
Signior No, you cannot smoke me so. He took twenty shillings of it in a fume, and the rest I charge him with for his lying.
LAZARILLO
My lying, most pitiful prince, was abominable.
BLURT
He did lie, for the time, as well as any knight of the post did ever lie.
LAZARILLO
I do here put off thy suit, and appeal. I warn thee to the court of conscience, and will pay thee by two-pence a week, which I will rake out of the hot embers of tobacco ashes, and then travel on foot to the Indies for more gold, whose red cheeks I will kiss, and beat thee, Blurt, if thou watch for me.
HIPOLITO
There be many of your countrymen in Ireland, signior; travel to them.
LAZARILLO
No, I will fall no more into bogs.
DUKE
Sirrah, his debt ourself will satisfy.
BLURT
Blurt, my lord, dare take your word for as much more.
DUKE
And since this heat of fury is all spent,
And tragic shapes meet comical event,
Let this bright morning merrily be crown’d
With dances, banquets, and choice music’s sound.
Exeunt.
Patient Grissil (1603)
In collaboration with Henry Chettle and William Haughton
Patient Grissil was written for the Admiral’s Men and was entered into the Stationers’ Register in March 1600. Philip Henslowe first mentioned the play in a diary entry in December 1599, but it was not published until 1603. It was released by the bookseller, Henry Rocket, who was a one-time apprentice of the successful publisher, Cuthbert Burby. The play is a collaboration between Dekker, Henry Chettle and William Haughton. Chettle was an Elizabethan playwright and pamphleteer who began work as a printer and publisher before finding favour with writing for Philip Henslowe, in collaboration with others, as many as fifty plays, before dying in c. 1605. Haughton who, like Chettle and Dekker, experienced financial problems, wrote most of his works for Henslowe and the Admiral’s Men or Worchester’s Men. He collaborated on many plays at the turn of the century with writers such as John Day, Richard Hathwaye and Wentworth Smith.
Dekker and his co-writers drew inspiration for the play from the folklore of Griselda, which has been retold and interpreted by a multitude of writers over the centuries. It is a tale of a wife’s obedience, loyalty and patience, which Giovanni Boccaccio derived from a French source and included in his famous mid-fourteenth century book, Decameron. The tale was then translated into Latin by Petrarch before Chaucer adapted it into English in ‘The Clerk’s Tale’ in Canterbury Tales. It is believed that Dekker and Chettle wrote the main plot of the comedy, while Haughton was responsible for the subplot involving Sir Owen and his new wife Gwenthyan, as well as a very minor plot about the Marquess’ sister, Julia, who refuses to marry any of her suitors.
Patient Grissil may not be a widely read or performed play in the twenty-first century, but Dekker’s poem, Golden Slumbers, which appears in Act Four, is a notable highlight. Indeed, it was adapted to music by Paul McCartney and features on The Beatles famous Abbey Road album.
The title page from the 1603
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
ACT I.
SCENE I. — The country near Saluzzo.
ACT II.
SCENE I. — An open place in the City of Saluzzo.
SCENE II. �
�� The Palace of Saluzzo.
ACT III.
SCENE I — A Chamber in the Palace of Saluzzo.
SCENE II. — The country near Saluzzo.
ACT IV.
SCENE I. — An Apartment in the Palace of Saluzzo.
SCENE II. — Near the Cottage of Janiculo.
SCENE III. — An Apartment in Sir Owen’s House.
ACT V.
SCENE I. — Near Janiculo’s Cottage.
SCENE II. — The Palace of Saluzzo.
Statue of Giovanni Boccaccio at the Uffizi gallery in Florence
INTRODUCTION.
THE FRENCH LAY claim to the original of the story of Griselda; and the Abbé de Sade (Mem de Petrarch, iii, 797) asserts that it is found in a manuscript called Le Parement des Dames. Mr. Campbell, in his “Life of Petrarch,” follows the authority of de Sade upon this point; but it seems that the French manuscript, containing the novel of Griselda, was the work of Olivier de la Marche, who was not born till considerably after the death of Boccaccio. (Tyrwhitt’s Introd to Cant. Tales, i cxcv edit. 1830,8vo.) Whencesoever, therefore, Boccaccio derived his materials, we know of no earlier version than that which he has left us in his Decameron, of which it forms the tenth novel of the last day. In a note at the end of the table to the Giolito edition of Boccaccio, 12mo., 1552, it is said, “Il tradusse la ‘presente Novella in lingua e mandolla al — Boccaccio,” which we know to be the fact, because the letter from Petrarch to Boccaccio, transmitting the translation of it, is still extant; (Op. Petrarch, edit. Basil, 1581, 540.) and Petrarch adds that “he had heard the story many years before.” It is very possible, therefore, that Boccaccio was originally indebted to Petrarch for the incidents which he subsequently wove into a narrative, which gave so much delight to the poet of Vaucluse. Chaucer, too, in the prologue to his “Clerk of Oxenford’s Tale,” informs us that he (speaking in the person of the narrator) had heard the substance of it from Petrarch himself at Padua, and makes no allusion to Boccaccio. It may not be easy at this time to fix with certainty the date when Chaucer visited Petrarch at Padua, but there seems no ground for altogether discrediting his testimony on the point.
As far as can now be ascertained, the French were the first to bring the subject on the stage: Le Mystère de — Griselidis was represented in Paris as early as 1393, (Warton’s Hist. Engl. Poetry, ii. 251, edit. 8vo. 1824.) and more than a century afterwards it was printed by Jehan Bonfons in Paris, under the title of Le Mystère de Oriselidis de Seduces, par personnages. A re-impression of this edition was made by Pinard, and published by Silvestre, as recently as 1832. It is singular, considering the popularity of the subject in Italy, and the peculiar facility with which it could be adapted to the stage, that it remained undramatized in that country until 1620. This statement we make upon the authority of Apostolo Zeno, who himself converted the story into an opera, and whose testimony is not to be disputed. In Germany it was adopted, and adapted, in the middle of the sixteenth century, Hans Saachs having converted it into a drama as early as the year 1550.
English readers first became acquainted with the story by means of Chaucer’s beautiful and extended versification of the incidents; and comparing them with those in Boccaccio’s novel, it may be inferred that Chancer saw Petrarch after he had read, if not translated, what Boccaccio had sent to him. Subsequently the story acquired great celebrity, and we find it thus noticed in Thomas Feylde’s “Contraversye bytwene a Lover and a Jaye,” printed, without date, by Wynkyn de Worde: —
“Ryght fewe of Grysyldea kynde
Is now leite on lyve the author having previously introduced her among sundry pairs of lovers. Warton (H. E. P. iv. 136. edit. 1824) mentions a MS. poem dedicated to Queen Mary by William Forrest, her chaplain, comparing Katherine, the first wife of Henry VIII., to Griselda; and we know from the entries on the Stationers’ Registers, that about the middle of the sixteenth century ballads upon the subject of “Patient Grissell” were by no means uncommon. What is called “The Pleasant and sweet History of Patient Grissell” was evidently an early production of this class, in prose and verse, although the only known copy of it, in black letter, has the date cut off, and purports to be “printed by E. P. for John Wright.” Apart from the prose, the verse also remains to us in the shape of a black-letter broadside, under the title of “An excellent Ballad of a Noble Marquess and Patient Grissell.” The language is evidently older than the date when these pieces appear to have been issued; and although they must have undergone various changes and many corruptions, we are perhaps warranted in concluding that they were the “Pacyente Grissell” which gave popularity to the tune, which went by that name, soon after Elizabeth came to the throne.
Two ballads, “to the tune of pacyente Grissell,” were entered in the year 1565. There was also a prose narrative, of considerable length, which came out under the title of “The antient true and admirable History of Patient Grisel, a poore man’s daughter in France: shewing how Maides, by her example in their good behaviour, may marry rich husbands; and likewise Wives, by their patience and obedience, may gaine much glorie.” This tract was “printed by H. L. for William Lugger,” in 1619, 4to.; but there can be no doubt, from the style and other circumstances, that it was a re-impression of a much anterior work. The great popularity of these pieces, and the many destructive hands through which they passed, will account for their rarity.
The prose tract above noticed was in all probability the immediate source of the ensuing play, but all were more or less founded upon the Decameron, although it was not translated into English, in its entire form, until 1620, when it made a handsome folio volume, in two portions. It was probably “done by several hands,” with much inequality, and the novel of “the Marquasse of Saluzzo and Griselda” is certainly as ill rendered as any in the collection. It is there any thing but the “touching story” which, according to Petrarch, few could read without tears. — (Campbell’s Life of Petrarch, ii. 309.) Upon the frequency of the allusions to it by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, it is not necessary to dwell.
The ensuing play possesses almost the rarity of a manuscript: there is no copy of it in the British Museum; none at Cambridge: the only public library that contains it is, we believe, the Bodleian; and the only private collection in which it is known to exist in a complete state, is that of the Duke of Devonshire. Before his Grace was able to procure a perfect copy, he was obliged to be satisfied with an imperfect one, which he subsequently gave to the writer of the present notice: both have been of material service in the present réimpression. The members of the Shakespeare Society will thus be aware that they are in a manner under a double obligation to the Duke of Devonshire, since the imperfect copy would have been of comparatively little use, without the aid of the perfect one to supply its deficiencies.
The authors of it were three celebrated contemporaries of Shakespeare — Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and William Haughton, as we learn from that curious and valuable theatrical record, Henslowe’s Diary, which is about to be printed entire for the use of the members of the Shakespeare Society. Malone refers to the memorandum under December 1599, (Shaskesp by Bosw., iii. 332) but he does not give the precise date, nor the exact terms of the entry. It runs thus — the body of it being in the handwriting of the dramatist who first subscribed it:
“Received in earnest of Patient Grissell by ns Tho. Dekker, Hen. Chettle and Willm. Hawton, the sume of 3li of good and lawfull money, by a note sent from Mr. Robt. Shaa: the 19th of December 1599.
“By me HENRY CHETTLE
W. HAUGHTON
THOMAS DEKKER.”
One of the remaining copies of the play has only the nameof Henry Chettle on the title-page in a hand-writing of the time; but it is quite clear from the preceding quotation that Dekker and Haughton were his coadjutors. Robert Shaa, or Shaw, was one of the temporary managers of the company of the Earl of Nottingham’s players, and upon his authority and responsibility Henslowe paid the money to the three poets. It was probably acted ea
rly in 1600, but it was not printed until 1603. There was an intention to print it some time before it appeared, for it was entered at Stationers’ Hall for publication on the 28th March, 1599-1600, as “the Plaie of Patient Grissell.”
The subject cannot he said to he a very good one for the stage, however easily adapted, because the chief incidents are violent and improbable. Petrarch, in his letter to Boccaccio, mentions a Veronese, who asserted that “there never had been, and never would be such a woman as Griselda and we cannot but accord in this opinion, even if we could suppose that a man could be found who, like the Marquess of Saluzzo, would expose a young, beautiful, and faithful wife to trials so severe. Taking this disadvantage into account, we cannot but admire the manner in which our three old English dramatists employed not only the materials with which they were furnished, but others which seem to he merely their own invention. Supposing that a “Welsh knight and a Welsh widow might be found in Lombardy under the circumstances in which they are placed, (the relationship of the latter to the marquess does not much reconcile us to their situation) we can hardly too much admire the humour of the scenes in which Sir Owen and Gwenthyan are concerned, or the manner in which their peculiar dispositions are made to set off the conduct and character of the hero and heroine. The contrast is excellently preserved, and it is assisted by all the accidents that ingenuity could discover, or skill employ. The incident of the wands, we suspect, is not new; and, though very happily interwoven, it is liable to the objection that it rather shows a method of preventing a woman from becoming a shrew, than how to cure one. It is very evident that the authors had Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” in their minds-throughout, and once it is introduced, as it were, by name. This comedy, in 1599, had been in a course of representation at a rival theatre for several years, to say nothing of the older play, “The Taming of a Shrew,” upon which it was founded, and which had been often acted by the company for which “Patient Grissil” was expressly written.
Laureo and Babulo are two principal persons not found in the original story; and, making only ordinary allowances, it cannot be denied that the characters are excellently drawn. They are rendered contributory to the progress of the plot and to the main effect; and several fine points for a serious actor are put into the mouth of the poor scholar, while the part of the Clown (who, like Touchstone, was dressed “in motley”) must have been considered a capital one for such a performer as Kempe. It will be seen by Henslowe’s Diary, when printed, that Kempe was a member of the Earl of Nottingham’s company of players in 1602, a circumstance of importance in relation to some of Shakespeare’s characters, which he is supposed to have originally represented. Kempe’s name does not occur in the patent granted by James I. to “the King’s Servants” in 1608; but it is probable that, having originally belonged to that association, he rejoined it not long after the death of Elizabeth.
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 109