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Mist. Mer. I thank your worship.

[Exit with Michael. Ralph. Dwarf, bear my shield; squire, elevate my lance:—

And now farewell, you Knight of holy Bell. [Cit. Ay, ay, Ralph, all is paid.]

Next makes him wink, and underneath his chin
He plants a brazen piece of mighty bord15,
And knocks his bullets16 round about his cheeks;
Whilst with his fingers, and an instrument
With which he snaps his hair off, he doth fill
The wretch's ears with a most hideous noise:

Ralph. But yet, before I go, speak, worthy Thus every knight-adventurer he doth trim,

knight,

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But the great venture, where full many a knight

And now no creature dares encounter him.
Ralph. In God's name, I will fight with him.
Kind sir,

Go but before me to this dismal cave,
Where this huge giant Barbarossa dwells,
And, by that virtue that brave Rosicleer
That damnéd brood of ugly giants slew,
And Palmerin Frannarco overthrew,

I doubt not but to curb this traitor foul,
And to the devil send his guilty soul.

Host. Brave-sprighted knight, thus far I will

perform

This your request; I'll bring you within sight
Of this most loathsome place, inhabited

Hath tried his prowess, and come off with By a more loathsome man; but dare not stay,

shame;

And where I would not have you lose your life
Against no man, but furious fiend of hell.

Ralph. Speak on, Sir Knight; tell what he
is and where:

For here I vow, upon my blazing badge,
Never to blaze9 a day in quietness,
But bread and water will I only eat,
And the green herb and rock shall be my couch,
Till I have quelled that man, or beast, or fiend,
That works such damage to all errant knights.
Host. Not far from hence, near to a craggy

cliff,

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For his main force swoops all he sees away.
Ralph. Saint George, set on before! march
squire and page.
[Exeunt.
[Wife. George, dost think Ralph will con-
found the giant?

Cit. I hold my cap to a farthing he does: why, Nell, I saw him wrestle with the great Dutchman, and hurl him.

Wife. Faith, and that Dutchman was a goodly man, if all things were answerable17 to his bigness. And yet they say there was a Scotchman higher than he, and that they two and a knight met, and saw one another for nothing. . . .]

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By my stiff arm, a knight adventurous.
But say, vile wretch, before I send thy soul
To sad Avernus, (whither it must go)
What captives holdst thou in thy sable cave?

Bar. Go in, and free them all; thou hast the day.

Ralph. Go, squire and dwarf, search in this dreadful cave,

Ralph. I, traitorous caitiff, who am sent by And free the wretched prisoners from their

fate

To punish all the sad enormities

Thou hast committed against ladies gent

And errant knights. Traitor to God and men,
Prepare thyself; this is the dismal hour
Appointed for thee to give strict account
Of all thy beastly treacherous villanies.

Bar. Fool-hardy knight, full soon thou shalt aby 20

This fond reproach: thy body will I bang; [Takes down his pole And lo, upon that string thy teeth shall hang! Prepare thyself, for dead soon shalt thou be. Ralph. Saint George for me! [They fight. Bar. Gargantua21 for me! [Wife. To him, Ralph, to him! hold up the giant; set out thy leg before, Ralph!

Cit. Falsify a blow, Ralph, falsify a blow! the giant lies open on the left side.

Wife. Bear't off, bear't off still! there, boy!—Oh, Ralph's almost down, Ralph's almost down!]

Ralph. Susan, inspire me! now have up again. Wife. Up, up, up, up, up! so, Ralph! down with him, down with him, Ralph!

Cit. Fetch him o'er the hip, boy!

[Ralph knocks down the Barber. Wife. There, boy! kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, Ralph!

19 foolish 20 pay for

bonds.

[Exeunt Tim and George, who presently re-enter.

[Cit. Cony, I can tell thee, the gentlemen like Ralph.

Wife. Ay, George, I see it well enough.Gentlemen, I thank you all heartily for gracing my man Ralph; and I promise you, you shall see him oftener.]

Bar. Mercy, great knight! I do recant my ill,

And henceforth never gentle blood will spill. Ralph. I give thee mercy; but yet shalt thou swear

Upon my Burning Pestle, to perform
Thy promise uttered.

Bar. I swear and kiss. [Kisses the Pestle.
Ralph. Depart, then, and amend.-

[Exit Barber. Come, squire and dwarf; the sun grows toward his set,

And we have many more adventures yet.

[Exeunt.

[Cit. Now Ralph is in this humour, I know he would ha' beaten all the boys in the house, if they had been set on him.

Wife. Ay, George, but it is well as it is: I warrant you, the gentlemen do consider what 21 A giant in Rabelais' it is to overthrow a giant.]

satire.

THE ELIZABETHAN AGE-PROSE

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Here now have you, most dear, and most worthy to be most dear, Lady, this idle work of mine, which, I fear, like the spider's web, will be thought fitter to be swept away than worn to any other purpose. For my part, in very truth, as the cruel fathers among the Greeks were wont to do to the babes they would not foster, I could well find in my heart to cast out in some desert of forgetfulness this child, which I am loath to father. But you desired me to do it; and your desire, to my heart, is

an absolute commandment.

Now it is done only for you, only to you. If you keep it to yourself, or to such friends as will weigh errors in the balance of goodwill, I hope, for the father's sake, it will be pardoned, perchance made much of, though in itself it have de formities; for, indeed, for severer eyes it is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled. Your dear self can best witness the manner, being done in loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence, the rest by sheets sent unto you as fast as they were done. In sum, a young head, not so well stayed as I would it were, and shall be when God will, having many, many fancies begotten in it, if it had not been in some way delivered, would have

1 steadied

grown a monster, and more sorry I might be that they came in than that they gat out. But his chief safety shall be the not walking abroad, and his chief protection the bearing the livery of your name, which, if my goodwill do not deceive me, is worthy to be a sanctuary for a greater offender. This say I because I know thy virtue so; and this say I because I know it may be ever so, or, to say better, because it will be ever so. Read it then, at your idle times, and the follies your good judgment will find in it blame not, but laugh at; and so, looking for no better stuff than, as in a haberdasher's shop, glasses or feathers, you will continue to love the writer, who doth exceedingly love you, and most, most heartily prays you may long live to be a principal ornament to the family of the Sidneys. Your loving Brother, PHILIP SIDNEY.

FROM BOOK I

It was in the time that the earth begins to put on her new apparel against the approach of her lover, and that the sun running a most even course becomes an indifferent arbiter between the night and the day, when the hopeless shepherd Strephon was come to the sands which lie against the island of Cithera,† where, viewing the place with a heavy kind of delight, and sometimes casting his eyes to the isleward, he called his friendly rival the pastor2 Claius unto him; and, setting first down in his darkened countenance a doleful copy of what he would speak,‡

* Sidney did not mean to "walk abroad" into print with his book. This will partly explain the loose style in which it is written. But Elizabethan prose in general was much inferior to Elizabethan poetry. Scholars-the writer class-still clung to Latin, and even Bacon's vigorous English is marred by Latinisms: men of action, like Raleigh, wrote in Eng lish, but naturally were little concerned for style; while the work of conscious stylists. like Lyly and Sidney, suffered from "Euphuism." that fashion of affectation and conceits that so weakened the prose of the age. (Eng. Lit., p. 128.) The brief selection given here lacks narrative interest, but will exemplify this curious style and also give a glimpse of that Arcadia which has been idealized in ‡ poetry and romance into an imaginary paradise of the simple, natural life.

"O my Claius," said he, "hither we are now come to pay the rent for which we are so called unto by overbusy remembrance; remembrance, restless remembrance, which claims not only this duty of us, but for it will have us

2 shepherd

As the native isle of Aphrodite, this is a fitting place for Urania, the "heavenly," to depart to. It lies south of Greece, and Arcadia is a country of Greece; but in Arcadian romances geography matters little.

A good example of the "conceits" which marked the prose and often the poetry of this period. See Eng. Lit., p. 129.

forget ourselves.

I pray you, when we were as it were, dividing her heavenly beauty between the earth and the sea. But when she was embarked did you not mark how the winds whistled, and the seas danced for joy, how the sails did swell with pride, and all because they had Urania? O Urania, blessed be thou, Urania, the sweetest fairness and fairest sweetness!''

With that word his voice brake so with sobbing that he could say no farther; and Claius thus answered, "Alas, my Strephon," said he, "what needs this score to reckon up only our losses? What doubt is there but that the sight of this place doth call our thoughts to appear at the court of affection, held by that

amid our flock, and that,3 of other shepherds, some were running after their sheep, strayed beyond their bounds, some delighting their eyes with seeing them nibble upon the short and sweet grass, some medicining their sick ewes, some setting a bell for an ensign of a sheepish squadron, some with more leisure inventing new games for exercising their bodies, and sporting their wits,-did remembrance grant us an holiday, either for pastime or devotion, nay, either for necessary food or natural rest, but that still it forced our thoughts to work upon this place, where we last-alas, that the word 'last' should so long last-did grace our eyes upon her ever-flour-racking steward Remembrance? As well may ishing beauty; did it not still cry within us: 'Ah, you base-minded wretches! are your thoughts so deeply bemired in the trade of ordinary worldlings, as, for respect of gain some paltry wool may yield you, to let so much time pass without knowing perfectly her estate, especially in so troublesome a season; to leave that shore unsaluted from whence you may see to the island where she dwelleth; to leave those steps unkissed wherein Urania printed the farewell of all beauty?'

"Well, then, remembrance commanded, we obeyed, and here we find that as our remembrance came ever clothed unto us in the form of this place, so this place gives new heat to the fever of our languishing remembrance. Yonder, my Claius, Urania alighted; the very horse methought bewailed to be so disbur dened; and as for thee, poor Claius, when thou wentest to help her down, I saw reverence and desire so divide thee that thou didst at one instant both blush and quake, and instead of bearing her wert ready to fall down thyself. There she sate, vouchsafing my cloak (then most gorgeous) under her; at yonder rising of the ground she turned herself, looking back toward her wonted abode, and because of her parting, bearing much sorrow in her eyes, the lightsomeness whereof had yet so natural a cheerfulness as it made even sorrow seem to

smile; at the turning she spake to us all, opening the cherry of her lips, and, Lord! how greedily mine ears did feed upon the sweet words she uttered! And here she laid her hand over thine eyes, when she saw the tears springing in them, as if she would conceal them from others and yet herself feel some of thy sorrow. But woe is me! yonder. yonder did she put her foot into the boat, at that instant,

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sheep forget to fear when they spy wolves, as
we can miss such fancies, when we see any
place made happy by her treading.
Who can
choose that saw her but think where she stayed,
where she walked, where she turned, where she
spoke? But what is all this? Truly no more
but, as this place served us to think of those
things, so those things serve as places to call
to memory more excellent matters.
No, no,
let us think with consideration, and consider
with acknowledging, and acknowledge with
admiration, and admire with love, and love
with joy in the midst of all woes; let us in
such sort think, I say, that our poor eyes were
so enriched as to behold, and our low hearts so
exalted as to love, a maid who is such, that as
the greatest thing the world can show is her
beauty, so the least thing that may be praised
in her is her beauty. Certainly, as her eye-
lids are more pleasant to behold than two
white kids climbing up a fair tree, and browsing
on his tenderest branches, and yet are nothing
compared to the day-shining stars contained in
them; and as her breath is more sweet than a
gentle southwest wind, which comes creeping
over flowery fields and shadowed waters in the
extreme heat of summer, and yet is nothing
compared to the honey-flowing speech that
breath doth carry,-no more all that our eyes
can see of her-though when they have seen
stubble after clover-grass-is to be matched
her, what else they shall ever see is but dry
with the flock of unspeakable virtues laid up
delightfully in that best builded fold.

"But, indeed, as we can better consider the sun's beauty by marking how he gilds these his own face, too glorious for our weak eyes; waters and mountains than by looking upon so it may be our conceits-not able to bear her sun-staining excellency-will better weigh it by her works upon some meaner subject em!ployed. And, alas, who can better witness

that than we, whose experience is grounded upon feeling? Hath not the only love of her made us, being silly ignorant shepherds, raise up our thoughts above the ordinary level of the world, so as great clerks do not disdain our conference?s Hath not the desire to seem worthy in her eyes made us, when others were sleeping, to sit viewing the Course of the heavens; when others were running at base, to run over learned writings; when others mark their sheep, we to mark our selves? Hath not she thrown reason upon our desires, and, as it were, given eyes unto Cupid? Hath in any, but in her, love-fellowship maintained friendship between rivals, and beauty taught the beholders chastity?" . . .

[The shepherds rescue the shipwrecked Musidorus and undertake to lead him to the home of a hospitable man in their native country of Arcadia.]

these we pass through, which are so diverse in show, the one wanting no store, the other hav ing no store but of want?"

"The country," answered Claius, "where you were cast ashore, and now are passed through, is Laconia, not so poor by the barrenness of the soil-though in itself not passing fertile as by a civil war, which being these two years within the bowels of that estate, between the gentlemen and the peasantsby them named Helots-hath in this sort, as it were, disfigured the face of nature and made it so unhospitable as now you have found it; the towns neither of the one side nor the other willingly opening their gates to strangers, nor strangers willingly entering, for fear of being mistaken. But this country where now you set your foot, is Arcadia; and even hard by is the house of Kalander, whither we lead you. This country being thus decked with peace, and So that the third day after, in the time that the child of peace, good husbandry, these the morning did strow roses and violets in the houses you see so scattered are of men, as we heavenly floor against the coming of the sun, two are, that live upon the commodity of their the nightingales, striving one with the other sheep, and therefore, in the division of the Arwhich could in most dainty variety recount | cadian estate, are termed shepherds—a happy their wrong-caused sorrow, made them put off people, wanting little because they desire not their sleep; and, rising from under a tree, much." which that night had been their pavilion, they went on their journey, which by-and-by welcomed Musidorus' eyes with delightful prospects. There were hills which garnished their proud heights with stately trees; humble valleys whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of silver rivers; meadows enam elled with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers; thickets which, being lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so to, by the cheerful disposition of many well-tuned birds; each pasture stored with sheep, feeding with sober security, while the pretty lambs, with bleating oratory, craved the dam's comfort; here a shepherd's boy piping, as though he should never be old; there a young shepherdess knitting, and withal singing: and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voice-music.

As for the houses of the country-for many houses came under their eye-they were all scattered, no two being one by the other, and yet not so far off as that it barred mutual succor; a show, as it were, of an accompan able10 solitariness, and of a civil wildness.

"I pray you," said Musidorus, then first unsealing his long-silent lips, what countries be

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SIR WALTER RALEIGH
(1552?-1618)

THE LAST FIGHT OF THE REVENGE.*

The Lord Thomas Howard, with six of her Majesty's ships, six victuallers of London, the bark Raleigh, and two or three pinnaces, riding at anchor near unto Flores, one of the westerly islands of the Azores, the last of August in the afternoon, had intelligence by one Captain Middleton, of the approach of the Spanish Armada.1 Which Middleton, being in a very good sailer, had kept them company three days before, of good purpose both to dis

to

the

1 Armada fleet; armado= single warship.
In the fall of 1591 a small fleet of English ves-
sels lay at the Azores to intercept the Spanish
treasure-ships from the Indies. On the ap-
pearance of the Spanish war-vessels sent
convoy the treasure-ships, the English vessels
took to flight, with the exception of
Revenge, the Vice Admiral of the fleet, com-
manded by Sir Richard Grenville. The story
of the fight of the Revenge was written by
Raleigh, a cousin of Grenville's, and pub-
lished anonymously in 1591; it was included.
eight years later, in Hakluyt's Voyages.
con also celebrated the fight as "a defeat
exceeding a victory." "memorable even he-
yond credit and to the hight of some heroical
fable," in which "the ship for the span of
fifteen hours sat like a stag amongst hounds
at the bay, and was sieged and fought with in
turn by fifteen great ships of Spain."
See
also Froude's essay on England's Forgotten
Worthies, and Tennyson's ballad. The Revenge.

Ba

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