My father once being rich, and uncle poor, Now mine own father here must beg for bread, Feed him, myself must beg. Oh misery: His Father appears above at the Grate, a Box hanging down. Fos. Bread, bread, one penny to buy a loaf of bread, for the tender mercy. Rob. O me, my shame! I know that voice full well; I'll help thy wants although thou curse me still. [Robert puts in Money. He stands where he is unseen by his Father. Rob. O happy comfort! curses to the ground First struck me: now with blessings I am crown'd.1 Fos. Bread, bread, for the tender mercy, one penny for a loaf of bread. Rob. I'll buy more blessings: take thou all my store; I'll keep no coin and see my father poor. Fos. Good angels guard you, Sir, my prayers shall be That heaven may bless you for this charity. Rob. If he knew me, sure he would not say so : Yet I have comfort, if by any means I get a blessing from my father's hands. How cheap are good prayers! a poor penny buys And mounts to heaven. Enter STEPHEN. O me, mine uncle sees me. 1 A blessing stolen at least as fairly as Jacob's was [Genesis, ch. xxvii.]. Step. Now, Sir, what makes you here So near the prison? Rob. I was going, sir, To buy meat for a poor bird I have, Step. So, Sir: Your pity will not quit your pains, I fear me. I shall find that bird (I think) to be that churlish wretch Shelter here in Ludgate. Go to, sir; urge me not, Rob. 'Las! Sir; that lamb Were most unnatural that should hate the dam. Rob. Good uncle, 'las! you know, when you lay here, Step. Yes, as he did me; To laugh and triumph at my misery. You freed me with his gold, but 'gainst his will: For him I might have rotted, and lain still. So shall he now. Rob. Alack the day! Step. If him thou pity, 'tis thine own decay. Fos. Bread, bread, some charitable man remember the poor Prisoners, bread for the tender mercy, one penny. Rob. O listen, uncle, that's my poor father's voice. Step. There let him howl. Get you gone, and come not near him. Rob. O my soul, What tortures dost thou feel! earth ne'er shall find A son so true, yet forced to be unkind. [Act iv., Sc. 1.] Robert disobeys his Uncle's Injunctions, and again visits his Fos. Ha! what art thou? Call for the keeper there, And thrust him out of doors, or lock me up. Wife. O, 'tis your son. Fos. I know him not. I am no king, unless of scorn and woe: Why kneel'st thou then? why dost thou mock me so? Rob. O my dear father, hither am I come, To lay them all on my own. Fos. Rise, mischief, rise; away, and get thee gone. I will depart, and wish I soon may die; Fos. Get you both gone; That misery takes some rest that dwells alone. Rob. Heaven can tell ; Ake but your finger, I to make it well Would cut my hand off. Fos. Hang thee, hang thee. Wife. Husband. Fos. Destruction meet thee. Turn the key there, ho. Oh, knew you, for your woes what pains I feel, your No comfort in the world to me is sweet, Fos. Stay. feet; Rob. Good truth, Sir, I'll have none of it back, Could but one penny of it save my life. Wife. Yet stay, and hear him: Oh, unnatural strife In a hard father's bosom ! Fos. I see mine error now: Oh, can there grow spurn Rob. Gladness o'erwhelms My heart with joy: I cannot speak. Wife. Crosses of this foolish world Did never grieve my heart with torments more With joy and comfort of this happy sight.1 [Act v., Sc. 1.] The old play-writers are distinguished by an honest boldness of exhibition, they show every thing without being ashamed. If a reverse in fortune be the thing to be personified, they fairly bring us to the prison-grate and the alms-basket. A poor man on our stage is always a gentleman; he may be known by a peculiar neatness of apparel, and by wearing black. Our delicacy, in fact, forbids the dramatizing of Distress at all. It is never shewn in its essential properties 2; it appears but as the adjunct to some virtue, as something which is to be relieved, from the approbation of which relief the spectators are to derive a certain soothing of self-referred satisfaction. We turn away from the real essences of things to hunt after their relative shadows, moral duties: whereas, if the truth of things were fairly represented, the relative duties might be safely trusted to themselves, and moral philosophy lose the name of a science. [For another extract from Rowley see p. 570. For plays by Rowley in partnership see pages 104, 145, 362, 416, 573 and 588.] 2 Guzman de Alfarache, in that good old book "The Spanish Rogue," has summed up a few of the properties of poverty:-" that poverty, which is not the daughter of the spirit, is but the mother of shame and reproach; it is a disreputation that drowns all the other good parts that are in man; it is a disposition to all kind of evil; it is man's most foe; it is a leprosy full of anguish; it is a way that leads unto hell; it is a sea wherein our patience is overwhelmed, our honor is consumed, our lives are ended, and our souls are utterly lost and cast away for ever. The poor man is a kind of money that is not current; the subject of every idle huswive's chat; the offscum of the people; the dust of the street, first trampled under foot and then thrown on the dunghill; in conclusion, the poor man is the rich man's ass. He dineth with the last, fareth of the worst, and payeth dearest: his sixpence will not go so far as a rich man's threepence; his opinion is ignorance; his discretion, foolishness; his suffrage, scorn; his stock upon the common, abused by many and abhorred of all. If he come in company, he is not heard; if any chance to meet him, they seek to shun him; if he advise, though never so wisely, they grudge and murmur at him; if he work miracles, they say he is a witch; if virtuous, that he goeth about to deceive; his venial sin is a blasphemy; his thought is made treason; his cause, be it never so just, it is not regarded; and, to have his wrongs righted, he must appeal to that other life. All men crush him; no man favoureth him; there is no man that will relieve his wants; no man that will comfort him in his miseries; nor no man that will bear him company, when he is all alone, and oppressed with grief. None help him; all hinder him; none give him, all take from him; he is debtor to none, and yet must make payment to all. O, the unfortunate and poor condition of him that is poor, to whom even the very hours are sold, which the clock striketh, and pays custom for the sunshine in August!" WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN: A TRAGEDY [PUBLISHED 1657: WRITTEN MANY YEARS BEFORE]. BY THOMAS MIDDLETON [1570 ?-1627] Livia, the Duke's creature, cajoles a poor Widow with the appearance of Hospitality and neighbourly Attentions, that she may get her Daughter-in-Law (who is left in the Mother's care in the Son's absence) into her trains, to serve the Duke's pleasure. LIVIA. WIDOW. A Gentleman, Livia's guest. Liv. Widow, come, come, I have a great quarrel to you; You make yourself so strange, never come at us, Troth, you're to blame; you cannot be more welcome Wid. My thanks must needs acknowledge so much, madam. Which I so well affect as that of yours. I know you're alone too; why should not we Wid. Age, madam! you speak mirth: 'tis at my door, But a long journey from your Ladyship yet. Liv. My faith, I'm nine and thirty, every stroke, wench: And 'tis a general observation 'Mongst knights; wives, or widows, we account ourselves Then old, when young men's eyes leave looking at us. Come, now I have thy company, I'll not part with it Till after supper. Wid. Yes, I must crave pardon, madam. Liv. I swear you shall stay supper; we have no strangers, woman, None but my sojourners and I, this gentleman And the young heir his ward; you know your company. Wid. Some other time I will make bold with you, madam. Do you think I'll be forsworn? |