Vulgar words in A History of Elizabethan Literature (Page 1)
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"Ambitious Gorgons, wide-mouth'd Lamians, Shape-changing Proteans, damn'd Briarians, Is Minos dead, is Radamanth asleep, That ye thus dare unto Jove's palace creep?
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There is no more singular example of the proverb, "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness," which has been happily applied to Victor Hugo, than the composition, by the rugged author of _Sejanus_ and _Catiline_, of _The Devil is an Ass_ and _Bartholomew Fair_, of such things as "Here lies to each her parents ruth;" or the magnificent song, "Drink to me only with thine eyes;" or the crown and flower of all epitaphs, "Underneath this sable herse.
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_The Devil is an Ass_ comes next in time, and though no single character is the equal of Zeal-of-the-land Busy in _Bartholomew Fair_, the play is even more amusing.
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His own characteristic pieces, or those in which his touch shows most clearly, though they may not be his entirely, are _The Shoemaker's Holiday_, _Old Fortunatus_, _Satiromastix_, _Patient Grissil_, _The Honest Whore_, _The Whore of Babylon_, _If it be not Good the Devil is in it_, _The Virgin Martyr_, _Match me in London_, _The Son's Darling_, and _The Witch of Edmonton_.
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It will be seen that I have reserved _Old Fortunatus_ and _The Honest Whore_ for separate notice.
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_The Honest Whore_, in two parts, is, as far as general character goes, a mixed comedy of intrigue and manners combining, or rather uniting (for there is little combination of them), four themes--first, the love of Hippolito for the Princess Infelice, and his virtuous motions followed by relapse; secondly, the conversion by him of the courtesan Bellafront, a damsel of good family, from her evil ways, and her marriage to her first gallant, a hairbrained courtier named Matheo; thirdly, Matheo's ill-treatment of Bellafront, her constancy and her rejection of the temptations of Hippolito, who from apostle has turned seducer, with the humours of Orlando Friscobaldo, Bellafront's father, who, feigning never to forgive her, watches over her in disguise, and acts as guardian angel to her reckless and sometimes brutal husband; and lastly, the other humours of a certain marvellously patient citizen who allows his wife to hector him, his customers to bully and cheat him, and who pushes his eccentric and unmanly patience to the point of enduring both madhouse and jail.
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Let him deny this (and not damn himself) for his life if he can.
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For about Dekker, hack and penny-a-liner as he undoubtedly was, there was a simplicity, a truth to nature, and at the same time a faculty of dramatic presentation in which Greene, Lodge, and Nash were wholly wanting; and his prose pamphlets smack of these good gifts in their measure as much as _The Honest Whore_.
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"Who would curry an ass with an ivory comb?
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Though thou writ'st maid, thou whore in thine affection!
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"Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain To Love, as I did once to thee; When all thy tears shall be as vain As mine were then, for thou shalt be Damn'd for thy false apostacy."
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Massinger's _Unnatural Combat_, and Ford's _'Tis Pity She's a Whore_, among great plays, are examples of this: the numerous minor examples are hardly worth mentioning.
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This leaves us practically four plays upon which to base our estimate--_'Tis Pity She's a Whore_, _The Lover's Melancholy_, _The Broken Heart_, and _Perkin Warbeck_.
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We are, therefore, left with _'Tis Pity She's a Whore_ and _The Broken Heart_.
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[65] A "dizzard" = a blockhead.
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That a pious and earnest divine should, even in that day of quaintness, compare the gradual familiarisation of Christians with the sacraments of the Church to the habit of children first taking care of, and then neglecting a pair of new boots, or should describe a brother clerk as "pronouncing the word _damn_ with such an emphasis as left a dismal echo in his auditors' ears a good while longer," seems, no doubt, to some excellent people, unpardonable, and almost incomprehensible.