Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/540

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io- s. v. JUNE 9, im.

That it is a casuall and accidental 1 cause, 3 foc. Greene has no change here, excepting that he transposes the position of Plato's opinion, placing it after Aristotle's. The changes are so slight as to be scarcely worth mentioning. Where Primaudaye reads "cleane contrary" (p. 470), Greene has contra. We then have Augustus Csesar and Anthonie (always vanquished at plays and pastimes), Paulus ^Eniglius that great captain, Demetrius's description of a painting of Fortune (Greene's Lady Panthia remem- bers that she saw it in the Duke of Florence's chamber), and here in Greene a sonnet is inserted as being under the picture. He apologizes for the digression (p. 134), and resumes his Primaudaye (p. 472, foot) with Fortune compared to a glass ("brickie" is -Greene's, not Primaudaye's). Hannibal " re- nowed captain," Titus Flaminius, Hannibal and Titus, and Pyrrhus all Primaudaye, and identical to p. 473 (Greene, p. 136).

Two or three passages occur in the above summary that may be given fully, as they are of much interest. I am not concerned with the ultimate authorities of Primau- daye's classical extracts and researches, but obviously he has made free use of Plutarch's terest in connexion with * 1 Henry VI.,' I. ii. 138-9 : " that proud insulting ship Which Csesar and his fortune bare at once." Some authorities believe Greene had a hand in 'Henry VI.' The passage Greene has (from Primaudaye) is: "entering upon the
 * Lives.' The following reference is of in-

sea in a little Fregate and the Pilote

making some doubt of waighing up the Anchor, he sayde thus unto him : Be not afrayde, my friende, for thou cariest Caesar and his Fortune." And another passage from Plutarch twice referred to by Shake- speare ('Macbeth,' III. i. 56; * Antony and Cleopatra,' II. iii. 19) occurs here : '"Augustus and Antonius his companion in

the Empire passed away the time

with sundrie sports and pastimes wherein Antonie alwayes went away vanquished.

Whereupon one well seene in the arte of

Divination [said unto him] Separate

your selfe farre from him Your fame is

greater than his You are better exercised

You have greater experience, but your

familiar spirite feareth his."

Let us finish the discourse of Fortune. At p. 136 Greene transposes Pertinax and Eurnenes (Primaudaye, pp. 473-4); then he changes Aurelianus to Aurelius, Justinus to Justinius, and Maximianus to Maximinus (Greene, p. 137). Here Greene omits alto- gether "Gregory the 7 and Henry the 4,

Emperor," as well as Primaudaye's interest- ing account of John of Leyden, the "sillie botcher of Holland." But Greene's most important omission is p. 475 of Primaudaye, being a valuable account of Tamburlaine and Bajazet valuable in connexion with Mar- lowe's play to which I will again refer. Primaudaye resumes : " But what neede we drawe out this discourse?" copied into Greene, p. 137, which brings us to "all fortune's goods without knowledge how to use them " (Priraaudaye, p. 477 ; Greene, p. 139), the interverting page or two being identical. Peratio has ended his discourse, and so has Primaudaye. Greene has then five or six pages of trifling, and resumes Priraau- daye with the discourse of Friendship already dealt with. We come next in Primaudaye (chap, xlv.,

&478) to a very researchful one 'Of arriage.' Almost immediately following Silvestro's discourse upon friendship, Greene has a dissertation (iii. 164-6) upon marriage, for which he is indebted to Primaudaye. The latter begins (p. 481) his references with

"Pythagoras being requested to be at

the marriage of a friend of his, he excused himselfe, saying : that he was never desirous to go to such a feast or be at such a f unerall ; judging that it was all one for a man to marrie a wife and to wed a coffin." After half a page, he gives us the views of Metellus when asked by Marius why he would not marry his daughter, to which end Marius gives sound reasons. Metellus "replied, That he knew all this to be true, yet (quoth he) I had rather be mine own than hirs." Greene, having transferred Pythagoras, is rather ingenious : his speaker here is a woman (Lacsena), so he transfers the situa- tion to Martia, the daughter of Metellus, who is recommended a " yoong gentleman " by her father finishing: "I know, quoth Martia, al this, yet I had rather be mine owne, than his" (Greene, iii. p. 165). Greene has a passage then of " The wise Hypsicratea in her widowhood," which I have not identi- fied. He next refers to " Macrina, the wife of Torquatus," for a very different opinion (no doubt his own invention) from that which Primaudaye (see end of chap, xlviii.) attributes to her. After skipping p. 482, and several Biblical examples, Greene comes to Primau- daye's (p. 483) '* saying of Hipponactus, That of one marriage only two good days are to be hoped for, namely, the marriage day and the day of death " (Greene, p. 165). Greene calls this libeller Hysponactes. Primaudaye continues with " Alexandreides' speech, that the wedding day is the beginning of many