Page images
PDF
EPUB

Theology (p. 103). A very interesting old book that Brome might have seen, José Acosta's Natural and Moral History of the Indies, translated by Edward Grimeston, London, 1604,1 has two curious chapters on the existence of the antipodes. He says: Seeing it is manifest that there is firme land upon the South part or Pole Antartike, wee must now see if it be inhabited; the which hath been a matter very disputable in former times. Lactantius Firmian and S. Augustine mocke at such as hold there be any Antipodes, which is as much as to say, as men marching with their feete opposite to ours. But although these two authors agree in these jeasts, yet doe they differ much in their reasons and opinions, as they were of very divers spirits and judgements. Lactantius followes the vulgar, seeming ridiculous unto to him that the heaven should be compassed in the midst thereof, like unto a ball, whereof he writes in these tearmes: "What reason is there for some to affirm that there are Antipodes, whose steppes are opposite to ours? Is it possible that any should bee so grosse and simple as to believe there were a people or nation marching with their feete upwards, and their heades downwards, and that things which are placed heere of one sort, are in that other part hanging topsie turvie; that trees and corne growe downwards, and that raine, snow, and haile, fall from the earth upward." Then, after some other discourse, the same Lactantius useth these words: "The imagination and conceit which some have had, supposing the heavens to be round, hath bene the cause to invent these Antipodes hanging in the aire. So as I know not what to say of such Philosophers, whoe having once erred, continue still obstinately in their opinions defending one another." But whatsoever he saieth, wee that live now at Peru, and inhabite that part of the world which is opposite to Asia and their Antipodes (as the Cosmographers do teach us) find not our selves to bee hanging in the aire, our heades downwards and our feete on high. Truly it is strange to consider that the spirit and understanding of man cannot attaine unto the trueth, without the use of

1 Reprinted by the Hakluyt Society, 1880.

2 Bk. 1, Chaps. 7 and 8.

imagination.' Acosta then goes on to refute St. Augustine's attack, which was based upon the authority of Scripture. This view the Church considered final until Magellan in 1519 disproved it by circumnavigating the earth, and seeing the inhabitants of the antipodes.

None of these ancient ideas on the subject, however, as far as I have been able to discover, include the suggestion of topsyturvydom upon which Brome has based his comedy. Moreover, I have not been able to find that any such idea was ever associated with the antipodes before the date of this play. The following definition, quoted from a dictionary of the seventeenth century, shows that the belief accepted then was in the same form as we hold it to-day, without any fantastic notion accompanying it': 'Antipodes, (Gr.) people dwelling on the other side of the earth with their feet directly against ours, so as a right line drawn from one to the other passeth from North to South, through the centre of the world. They are different 180 degrees, which is half the compass of the earth. They differ in all things, as seasons of the year, length of days, rising and setting of the sun, with the like. Heyl. [Dr. Heylyn].' In eighteen2 other uses of the word that I have chanced upon in reading in the period, there is no hint that the idea suggested anything more than this definition implies. One further indication of the same view is the fact that Sir Thomas Browne, who alludes to the antipodes, has no hint of the reversal of the ordinary relations of life, or of physical phenomena. If the conception back of Brome's play were known to Browne, it would represent a vulgar error that it would have delighted him to refute. The only suggestion of such an association with the word occurs in a poem of 1657, called the Parliament.3 The passage reads:

1 Glossographia, by T. B., 1656.

2 These references occur in plays, poems letters, and pamphlets from 1590 to 1650.

• Printed from a MS. in Huth's Inedited Poetical Misscellanies, 1584-1700.

And yet a drayman may advance
Yet to be styled your honour ;
A braver fortune doth enhance,
And highness take upon her.
Here's the Antipodes or nowhere;

The Upper House becomes the Lower.

This quotation is hardly of much importance, particularly as it occurs long after the date of the play, but I give it because it is the nearest hint of the idea under discussion.

As a result of this evidence, I think we must allow Brome's fantastic conception of the antipodes to be his own. A few suggestions, however, of topsyturvydom used with comic effect may be brought forward as possible germs of the idea that he developed with much cleverness and originality. Ward1 remarks that 'perhaps he had been looking into Bacon's New Atlantic (published 1627), or he may have derived a general hint from Jonson's masque of the World in the Moon (1620)' Faust's comment on this is 2: Dass Brome die Idee zur Schilderung solch einer verkehrten Welt durch Jonsons Maske News from the New World discovered in the Moon empfangen habe, was Ward für wahrscheinlich hält, kann nicht ohne weiteres geleugnet werden; nur ist zu bedenken, dass beiden Dichtungen kaum ein individueller Zug gemein ist. Auch Bacon's New Atlantis könnte höchstens eine Anregung genereller Art gegeben haben.' In this scientist's paradise of Bacon's I can find nothing that could suggest itself as a parallel to Brome's play The idea of a voyage to a strange land, whose customs differ in some ways from the English, is all they have in common. The nearest hint to be found in Jonson's masque is in coaches that go only with wind, coachmen with cheeks like a trumpeter' to blow them along, walks in the clouds, epicoenes who lay eggs, and children who are part fowl.

[ocr errors]

Jonson's masque has been shown to have been based partly on Lucian's Vera Historia,3 which may possibly have

[blocks in formation]

given some suggestion to Brome as well. Most of the wonders in the Vera Historia are wildly fantastic ideas like those quoted from Jonson, but occasionally they occur as usages or views exactly antipodal to our own. Such a notion appears in the description of the inhabitants of the moon 1: Beauty with them consists in a bald head and hairless body; a good crop of hair is an abomination. On the comets, as I was told by some of their inhabitants who were there on a visit, this is reversed.' There are other passages like this, but none which show definitely that Brome actually took any suggestion from Lucian.

[ocr errors]

A much more definite suggestion, and in fact, an undoubted source for at least part of the conception of the antipodes, is to be found in the Late Lancashire Witches. Here there is a scene in which, through witchcraft, the usual relations of father and son are completely reversed. The son keeps his father on an allowance and reproves him severely for his extravagance, and the father, in great awe of his son, meekly begs forgiveness. This scene is closely imitated in Antipodes 2. 9, where three old men carrying satchels like schoolboys, enter singing, Domine, domine, duster ! Three knaves in a cluster !' The son of one of them rebukes them severely for playing truant, and they all reluctantly go off to school. The scene in the Lancashire Witches from which this is copied is one that I have attributed to Heywood.2 This is one source, at least, with which we have positive proof that Brome was thoroughly acquainted. It may be that the whole conception of the play was developed from this scene, the success of which with the public Brome had, of course, opportunities of testing.

One more possible source for the underlying idea of the Antipodes is the Travels of Sir John Mandeville. This popular old collection of cock-and-bull stories about far countries is mentioned by name in the play, and frequently quoted and alluded to. It is not at all improbable that the extraordinary customs of the strange peoples described

1 H. W. and F. G. Fowler's Translation of Lucian 2, 145. 2 See above, p. 51.

in that delightful old book may have suggested to Brome the possibilities of fun and satire in an inverted world. The existence of the antipodes is implied in chapter 201: ' And wit well, that, after that I may perceive and comprehend, the lands of Prester John, Emperor of Ind, be under us. For in going from Scotland or from England toward Jerusalem men go upward always. For our land is in the low part of the earth toward the west, and the land of Prester John is in the low part of the earth toward the east. And [they] have there the day when we have the night; also, high to the contrary, they have the night when we have the day. For the earth and the sea be of round form and shape, as I have said before; and that that men go upward to one coast, men go downward to another coast.'

Having arrived at this idea of the antipodes, Brome may have associated with it some of the marvels of other lands in Mandeville. For instance, in chapter 31 an isle is mentioned where women sorrow when children are born, and rejoice when they die.2 The godly souls of the Isle of Bragenan in chapter 323 must also have appealed to the satirist. 'In that isle is no thief, ne murderer, ne common woman, ne poor beggar, ne never was man slain in that country. And they be so chaste, and lead so good life, as that they were religious men. And because they be so true and so rightful, and so full of all good conditions, they were never grieved with tempests, ne with thunder, ne with light, ne with hail, ne with pestilence, ne with war, ne with hunger, ne with none other tribulation, as we be many times, amongst us, for our sins.'

Whether or not Brome drew from Pseudo-Mandeville the fundamental conception of his play, he used the Travels as his only source for the deranged Peregrine's conversations on the wonders of distant parts. I find, in all, seven passages taken directly from this source. The first parallel is almost an attempted quotation, but all the others merely allusions to the idea in Mandeville:

1 Ed. 1905, p. 122. 2 Op. cit., p. 189. 3 Op. cit., p. 192.

« PreviousContinue »