Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/564

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. v. JUNE ie, im

Aria, the wife of Cecinna (ix. 316). These also come direct and word for word (almost or exactly) from chap, xlviii. pp. 519, 520. But Greene makes a wicked jumble of two tales on p. 317. Primaudaye (p. 521) tells us of Pisca, whose husband was dying of an incurable illness, whereupon "they imbraced each other, and cast themselves headlong into the sea from the top of a rock." The other is of the wife of Pandoerus ; having slain her husband, the King of Persia wanted to marry her, but she slew herself, saying, "The gods forbid that to be a queene I should ever wed him that hath beene the murderer of my dear husband." Greene takes this latter tale (verbatim), giving this wife the name of Pisca ! There are several other examples in this chapter which find their place here and there in Greene's pieces. Such are Queen Hipsicrates; Hipparchia and Crates ; Macrina, the wife of Torquatus ; and Paulina, the wife of Seneca. There is in this chapter (pp. 516- 17) an excellent example of Greene's reckless malquotation that I had nearly overlooked. Primaudaye says :

"That is an ornament (said the Philosopher Crates) that adorneth [he is speaking of modesty], & that thing adorneth a woman which roaketh hir more honourable : and this is not done by jewels of gold, emeralds, precious stones, or purple garments, but by everything that causeth hir to

be accounted honest, wise, humble, & chaste

But a discovered dug, a naked brest, frisled locks, paintings, perfumes, & especially a rolling eie, & a lascivious & unchast look, are the fore-runners of

adultery Socrates used to counsell those young

men that behelde them-selves in looking-glasses, if they were harde favoured to correct their

deformitie with vertue and if they were faire,

not to blot their beautie with vice. In like nianer it were very good, that when the maried wife holdeth hir looking glasse in hir hand, she would speake thus to hir selfe if she be foule : what then shall become of me if I were also wicked? And if she be faire, how shall this be accounted of, if I continue honest and wise? For if a hard-favoured woman be loved for hir good behaviour and honest conditions it is greater honour unto hir than if it were for beautie."

Let us see how Greene assimilates these excellent passages. He does it in ' Penelope's Web' (v. 200, 201). He found a reference to "Queene Hipsicrates" on p. 518, who bore such love to her husband, so he takes the name to conjure with :

" Hipsicratea, being demaunded what was her richest Jewel, answered chastitie, alluding to the opinion of Crates the Philosopher, who was wont to say: that is an ornament [as above to "humble and chast, reading "sumptuous attyre" for "purple garments."] The Emperour Aurelius made certaine lawes to inhibit superfluitie of attyre, affirming that such that curiously paint

out themselves with frysled locks, sweet perfumes

make men most dissolute and subject to folly:

especially if ayded with a rowling eye and unchaste

looke Socrates was wont to say that when a

maried wife [as above to] hard-favoured woman that is renoumed for her chastitie, is more honour- able then she which is famous for her beautie."

This is old excellent. We understand a fury in the words, but not the words. I have very little more to bring forward from Primaudaye, or rather to restore to Primau- daye from Greene. And my readers will rejoice with me. The elder writer becomes weightier, less mundane, and unsuitable for prose romances in his later chapters, but none the less good reading.

In chap, liv., 'Of the Soveraigne Magis- trate, and of his Authoritie and Office,' p. 590: "We will then briefly comprehend the dutie of the Magistrate in these three things, in ruling, in teaching, and in judging his people." Greene, at the close of his 'Farewell to Follie' (ix. 345), makes an ap- proach to an acknowledgment: "The dutie of a magistrate, as I have heard a certaine Philosopher should set downe, consisteth in three especiall pointes, in ruling, teaching, and judging."

I have now to say a few words upon the play * The Tragical Reign of Selimus, some- time Emperor of the Turks' (1594), which Grosart has, I think correctly, attributed to Robert Greene, and printed amongst his collected works, and also, more carefully, in " The Temple Dramatists." I do not attach any importance to Grosart's arguments from textual considerations, for many of them are valueless all of them, I might say ; but they do no harm to his contention. One only should be excepted and accepted ("arm- strong "). It has been referred to at the beginning of this paper. But the reason 'Selimus' calls for mention here is this : the story appears to be taken from Primau- daye. This is an argument in favour of Greene's authorship. I have no early enough Turkish history to refer to for com- parison, but the account I am about to ?uote is perhaps the source of the play, t is in chap, lix., ' Of the Education of a Prince in Good Manners and Condicions' (p. 642). It is a brief account, but matterful ; and it is followed exactly, in every detail, in the play:

"In Turkie, Selim the first of that name, beyng the third and youngest sonne of Baiazet the Second, usurped the Empire by the aide of the lanitzaries upon his father, whome he caused to be poisoned, and slew Achmat and Corcuth, his two elder brothers, with all his nephewes, and others of Qitoinau's race-, saying that nothing was plea,s,annter