Beaumont & Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy

Beaumont & Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy

The Works of Beaumont & Fletcher; The Text Formed from a New Collation of the Early Editions. With Notes and a Biographical Memoir by The Rev. Alexander Dyce. In Eleven Volumes. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLIII.

The Maid’s Tragedy

That The Maid’s Tragedy was the joint composition of Beaumont and Fletcher is beyond a doubt; that Beaumont wrote the greater portion of it is by no means certain, though most modern critics from internal evidence have arrived at that conclusion. (313)

Melantius: I thank thee, Diphilus. But thou art faulty:
I sent for thee to exercise thine arms
With me at Patria; thou cams’t not, Diphilus;
’Twas ill.

(MT, 1.1.pg 322)


Melantius: I have no other business here at Rhodes.
Lysippus: We have a masque to-night, and you must tread
A soldier’s measure.
Melantius: These soft and silken wars are not for me:
The music must be shrill and all confus’d
That stirs my blood; and then I dance with arms.

(MT, 1.1.323)


Cynthia: Great queen of shadows, you are pleas’d to speak
Of more than may be done: we may not break
The gods’ decrees; but, when our time is come,
Must drive away, and give the Day our room.
Yet, whilst our reign lasts, let us strech our power
To give our servants one contented hour,
With such unwonted solemn grace and state,
As may for ever after force them hate
Our brother’s glorious beams, …

(MT, 1.2.334)


Aeolus: Great Neptune!
Neptune: He.
Aeolus: What is thy will?
Neptune: We do command thee free
Favonius and thy milder winds, to wait
Upon our Cynthia; but tie Boreas strait,
He’s too rebellious.
Aeolus: I shall do it.
Neptune: Do. [Exit Aeolus into the rock.]
Aeolus: [within] Great master of the flood and all below,
Thy full command has taken.—Ho, the Main!
Neptune!
Neptune: Here.
[Re-enter Aeolus, followed by Favonius and other Winds.]
Aeolus: Boreas has broke his chain,
And, struggling, with the rest has got away.
Neptune: Let him alone, I’ll take him up at sea;
I will not long be thence. Go once again,
And call out the bottoms of the main
Blue Proteus and the rest; charge them put on
Their greatest pearls, and the most sparkling stone
The beaten rock breeds; tell this night is done
By me a solemn honour to the Moon:
Fly, like a full sail.
Aeolus: I am gone. [Exit].

(MT, 1.2.336-7)


Cynthia: … To gratulate
So great a service, done at my desire,
Ye shall have many floods, fuller and higher
Than you have wish’d for; and no ebb shall dare
To let the Day se where your dwellings are.

(MT, 1.2.340)


Aspatia: It were a fitter hour for me to laugh,
When at the altar the religious priest
Were pacifying the offended powers
With sacrifice, than now. …

(MT, 2.1.344)


Aspatia: [singing]
My love was false, but I was firm from the hour of birth:
Upon my buried body lie lightly, gentle earth!

(MT, 2.1.345)


Amintor: Hymen …
…we will scorn thy laws,
If thou no better bless them. Touch the heart
Of her that thou hast sent me, or the world
Shall know this: not an altar then will smoke
In praise of thee; we will adopt us sons;
Then virtue shall inherit, and not blood.
If we do lust, we’ll take the next we meet,
Serving ourselves as other creatures do;
And never take note of the female more,
Nor of her issue. …

(MT, 2.1.350)


Amintor: Evadne, hear me. Thou hast ta’en an oath,
But such a rash one, that to keep it were
Worse than to swear it: call it back to thee;
Such vows as that never ascend the heaven;
A tear or two will wash it quite away.

(MT, 2.1.351)


Aspatia: …rather, the sun
Comes but to kiss the fruit in wealthy autumn,

(MT, 2.2.356)


Aspatia: …Do my face
(If thou hadst ever feeling of a sorrow)
Thus, thus, Antiphila: strive to make me look
Like Sorrow’s monument; and the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me
Make all a desolation. See, see, wenches,
A miserable life of this poor picture!

(MT, 2.2.358)


Evadne: You do it scurvily, ‘twill be perceiv’d.

(MT, 3.1.364)


King: How lik’d you your night’s rest?

(MT, 3.1.364)


Melantius: … I have seen you stand
As you were blasted ‘midst of all your mirth;

(MT, 3.2.374)


Melantius: To take revenge, and lose myself withal,
Were idle; …

(MT, 3.2.381)


Melantius: Ay, Evadne; thou art young and handsome,
A lady of a sweet complexion,
And such a flowing carriage, that it cannot
Choose but inflame a kingdom.

(MT, 4.1.384)


Melantius: …tell me
Whose whore you are; for you are one, I know it.
…
The burnt air, when the Dog reigns, is not fouler
Than thy contagious name, …

(MT, 4.1.385)


Evadne: Help!
Melantius: By thy foul self, no human help shall help thee,
If thou criest! …

(MT, 4.1.387)


King: You have no witness.
Callianax: Yes, myself.
King: No more,
I mean, there were that heard it.
…
Calianax: And ’tis hard
If my word cannot hang a boisterous knave.

(MT, 4.2.394)


Melantius: Speak to the people; thou art eloquent.
Calianax: ’Tis a fine eloquence to come to the gallows:
You were born to by my end; the devil take you!
Now must I hang for company. ’Tis strange,
I should be old, and neither wise nor valiant.

(MT, 5.3.411)


Amintor: A man can bear
No more, and keep his flesh. Forgive me, then!
I would endure yet, if I could. Now shew [Draws his sword]
The spirit thou pretend’st, and understand
Thou hast no hour to live. [They fight, Aspatia is wounded]
What dost thou mean?
Thou canst not fight; the blows thou mak’st at me
Are quite besides; and those I offer at thee,
Thou spread’st thine arms, and tak’st upon thy breast,
Alas, defenceless!
Aspatia: I have got enough
And my desire. There is no place so fit
For me to die as here. [Falls]

(MT, 5.4.417-8)


Amintor: Thou hast no intermission of thy sins,
But all thy life is a continued ill:
Black is thy colour now, disease thy nature.

(MT, 5.4.418)