Tragedy, III. xii. 89: "Distract and in a manner lunaticke." But in earlier use. In Q.

III. ii. 340. That I may dew it (thy hand) with my mournful tears. The Spanish Tragedy, 1. iv. 36: “There laid him downe, and dew'd him with my teares." And twice in Cornelia. Not in Q.

66

III. ii. 404. though parting be a fretful corrosive It is applied to a deathful wound. The Spanish Tragedy, II. v. 22: 'darke and deathfull shades." And for applied, meaning adapted (suitable), see quotation at 1. i. 256, above. "Fretful" here, is earliest in New Eng. Dict. (1593 ?). See Kyd's Cornelia, v. i. 352: "Say, freatfull heavens, what fault have I committed?" And 1. 387, "thy freatfull ielosie." The latter expression occurs also in Arden of Feversham (see Crawford's Concordance), 1592. Deathful, meaning deadly, was an old, but a rarely used word. Not in Q. ACT IV.

IV. i. 101. And to conclude, reproach, etc. The Spanish Tragedy, 111. "And to conclude, I will revenge his death." Again in Cornelia. See also 3 Henry VI. 11. v. 47. Not in Q.

xiii. 20:

IV. ii. 179. hang'd up for example. 10: "A man hang'd up." Not in Q.

...

The Spanish Tragedy, II. v.

IV. vii. 124. as free as heart can wish (think Q), or tongue can tell. The Spanish Tragedy, 1. i. 57, 58: "I saw more sights then thousand tongues can tell, Or pennes can write, or mortall harts can think." In Q. See, however, Halliwell's note about "ancient grants" in his edition of Q.

3 HENRY VI. AND THE SPANISH TRAGEDY.

ACT I.

1. i. 13. Whom I encountered as the battles join'd; and 11. i. 13. Methought he bore him in the thickest troop, As doth a lion. The Spanish Tragedy, 1. iii. 60, 61: "When both the armies were in battell ioynd, Dom Balthazar, amidst the thickest troupes, To winne renowne did wondrous feates of armes." The first is in Q, the second not in Q (here). "Wondrous feats" is in 1 Henry VI. 1. ii. 64 (already noted). See at Marlowe, Introduction, Part III. Here is evidence of Tamburlaine in The Spanish Tragedy.

1. iv. 15. To triumph, like an Amazionian trull, Upon their woes whom fortune captivates. The Spanish Tragedy, 11. i. 130, 131: "Thus hath he tane my body by his force, And now by sleight would captivate my soule." In Q.

ACTS I-II.

I. iv. 49. I stain'd this napkin with the blood That valiant Clifford with his rapier's point, Made issue from the bosom of the boy. And 11. i. 62: The ruthless queen gave him to dry his cheeks A napkin steeped in the Harmless blood Of sweet young Rutland. The Spanish Tragedy, II. v. 52, 53: "Seest thou this handkercher besmerd with blood? It shall not from me till I take reuenge." And Iv. iv. 122-124 : “this bloudie hand-kercher,

Which at Horatios death I weaping dipt Within the riuer of his bleeding wounds." In Q the queen says: "I dipt this napkin in the blood (first passage); and the messenger says: "gaue him a handkercher... dipt in the blood" (second passage). Not unlikely The Spanish Tragedy furnished the idea. Note Shakespeare's developed uses of "issue."

ACT II.

11. i. 187. Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day, That cries "retire.” The Spanish Tragedy, 111. vi. 5, 6: "But shall I never live to see the day That I may come." In Q. (Very likely older but I have no example.) II. ii. 124. By Him that made us all, I am resolved, That. The Spanish Tragedy, 11. i. 89: "I sweare to both, by him that made us all." In Q (a line lost here?)

II. iii. 40. thy brazen gates of heaven may ope, And give sweet passage to my sinful soul. The Spanish Tragedy, 111. vii. 9, 10: “And broken through the brazen gates of hell, Yet still tormented, is my tortured soule." In Q.

II. v. 47. And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds, etc. Henry VI. above, IV. i. 101.

Not in Q.

ACT III.

See 2

III. i. 42-47. Compare this with Balthazar's speech, The Spanish Tragedy, 1. ii. 161-165: “To him in curtesie, to this perforce: He spake me faire, this other gave me strokes; He promisde life, this other threatned death; He wan my love, this other conquered me; And sooth to say I yield myselfe to both." In Q.

III. i. 57. A man at least, for less I should not be. The Spanish Tragedy, 1. iv. 40: "Yet this I did, and lesse I could not doe: I saw him honoured." In Q.

III. ii. 33-35. Lords, give us leave . Ay, good leave have you; for you will take leave, Till youth take leave and leave you to the crutch. The Spanish Tragedy, III. xi. 1-3: "By your leaue Sir. Hier. Good leave have you: nay, I pray you goe, For Ile leaue you if you can leaue me so." In Q.

III. ii. 58, 59. 'tis the fruits of love I mean. L. Grey. The fruits of love I mean, my love's liege. The Spanish Tragedy, 11. iv. 55: "I thus, and thus: these are the fruits of love. They stab him." Not in Q. III. iii. 55-59. to grant thy fair sister To England's king in lawful marriage. Queen. If that go forward Henry's hope is done. Spanish Tragedy, 11. iii. 17, 18: "Ile grace her marriage with an uncle's life; And this it is: in case the match goe forward." In Q.

The

III. iii. 81. John of Gaunt, Which did subdue the greater part of Spaine.

See The Spanish Tragedy, 1. iv. 48-52 (quoted at passage).

III. iii. 200. And I forgive and quite forget old faults. The Spanish Tragedy, III. xiv. 112: "We have forgotten and forgiven that."

ACT IV.

IV. iii. 1-28. Compare the Watchmen's scene (not in Q) with The Spanish Tragedy, 111. iii. 16-48 (end). See note at IV. iii. 1. First watch

The Spanish

man. Come on, my masters, each man take his stand. Tragedy, III. iii. 16: “Heere therefore will I stay and take my stand." halberds. See above (The Spanish Tragedy, 111. i. 31). now or never. See Part II. III. i. 331.

IV. iii. 20.

IV. iii. 23.

IV. vii. 57.

Tragedy, III. x.

Fie, brother, fie, stand you upon tearmes? Q. The Spanish 20: "And if she hap to stand on tearmes with us.”

ACT v.

V. iv. 34. If case some of you would. The Spanish Tragedy, 11. i. 58: "If case it lye in me." But see note. Earlier in Peele.

v. vi. 66. If any spark of life be yet remaining. The Spanish Tragedy, II. v. 17: "O speak if any sparke of life remaine." v. iv. 70. I need not add more fuel to your fire. See above (Part II. i. 302) for this expression from The Spanish Tragedy.

IV.

V. v. 42.

v. v. 62.

Marry, and shall. See at 2 Henry VI. above (1. ii. 88). How sweet a plant have you untimely cropt. The Spanish Tragedy, 11. v. 47: "Sweet lovely Rose, ill pluckt before thy time." Kyd repeats this (nearly) in Soliman and Perseda, v. iv.

Perhaps it is wrong to make those last references here, and not in Introduction to Part III.; but it seems better to clear the way, and finish with Kyd's play.

There is practically nothing of The Spanish Tragedy in 1 Henry VI.; in the same way that that play bears little evidence of Peele's workmanship.

But in 2 Henry VI., and in 3 Henry VI. (in a less degree), there is unassailable proof that The Spanish Tragedy was made use of. This applies, oddly enough, to the two foundation plays in an opposite direction. Were it not for a single expression (repeated), at I. ii. 79 and II. i. 172, the influence of the earlier play in The Contention is indiscernible. But that one cannot be lightly set aside. In 2 Henry VI. there are enough parallels, in Shakespearian parts of the play, to make it certain that Shakespeare knew The Spanish Tragedy well at that time. The suggestions may have arisen from Peele who is often hard to separate from Kyd. In reading Soliman and Perseda Peele is constantly recalled. When Mr. Robertson followed Mr. Fleay in ascribing Arden of Feversham to Kyd (further established by Mr. Crawford) he says (in Did Shakespeare Write Titus Andronicus? p. 153): "In Arden as in Soliman, there are several words and phrases which seem to belong to the special vocabulary of Peele." The "revenge model" (of play) was common to Peele and Kyd" (p. 85): "In one or two places

it (Cornelia) suggests that phrases which we have been led to assign to Peele might be Kyd's" (pp. 114, 115) and so on. Here, however, we are on firmer ground. We have the Kyd passages undoubtedly. It is likely that The Spanish Tragedy preceded all these plays. We find nothing of that play in I Henry VI. (where Greene is chiefly in evidence besides Shakespeare), so little that it may be assumed it had not made its mark-or that Shakespeare did not know it for I do not hesitate to say that the introduced bits of Kyd are due to him at least as much as to Peele. And the almost total absence of Kyd in The Contention, like the total absence of Spenser in the same play, tends to disassociate it by some space of time from 2 Henry VI. (where both are in strong evidence), and to push it backward to a date even earlier than 1 Henry VI. It is an interesting fact that the later standard quotations from The Spanish Tragedy do not appear in these plays. Probably because of their non-standardisation, as yet, by some well-graced actor. We have rather the memories of a reader.

It might be said here, would it not simplify this bit of discussion to assign a part of the authorship actually to Kyd? I would reply that it is better to confine ourselves to the original quartette-Shakespeare, Peele, Marlowe and Greene, with a possible fifth (Nashe or Lodge), to keep them in a ring-fence and let in no outsiders. That is where Greene placed the issue. Moreover, Kyd was never a chronicle drama writer, as were these four. I am aware that Mr. Fleay draws Kyd (usually with a query) into the welter two or three times in his Life and Work of Shakespeare (pp. 258, 270, 273, 274), but I can find no evidence from him; only the mention of the name. Further, I find Mr. Crawford says in Collectanea (1st series, p. 113): "An exhaustive and painstaking examination of Kyd's work convinces me that The Spanish Tragedy, and, perhaps, Soliman and Perseda, as we know them now, are old plays revised." Possibly he may, have ascribed some pieces of the revision in The Spanish Tragedy, to a date later than 2 Henry VI., in order to simplify this difficulty, and let the reviser have borrowed from our play. He gives no reasons for it, and it is better to omit any further confusion of dates. He goes further still and says: "It can be proved that they did not assume any of their known forms prior to the year 1590." With regard to The Spanish

d

Tragedy, the proof will needs be very cogent indeed. With regard to the others there is no question he is right. His proof will depend on the dates of matter borrowed (probably) from Spenser or Marlowe.

But one conclusion he comes to is of interest, that "there has been gross copying by Kyd"-chiefly, it seems, from Marlowe's Edward II., to which is given "the accepted date" of 1590. To place The Spanish Tragedy after Edward II., would relegate all chronological order of those years plays to the melting pot.

These reminiscences from Kyd's play by the young author, Shakespeare, are harmless pieces of ingenuousness. They are unimportant but unmistakable, and an instance of what seems to have been a common and recognised practice (in spite of Greene's denunciations) amongst the brotherhood of actors and playwrights.

We will leave Kyd now for the present. His later work is of no such importance as The Spanish Tragedy, and probably comes later than 2 Henry VI. After this date outside influences-influences outside his own teeming imagination-are an ever-diminishing factor in Shakespeare's work.

I hope Mr. Crawford, to whose accuracy and research I am continually and delightedly indebted, will forgive me for disagreeing with him in these points. Perhaps his proofs may yet be too much for me.

I leave it to my notes to point out a continuously running series of Shakespearianisms in 2 Henry VI. It is interesting to see how many times parallels appear from Lucrece, from Venus and Adonis, and oddly enough from King Lear. In 1 Henry VI. some such evidence had to be adduced, to convince, if it were possible, those unbelievers in Shakespeare's presence there at all. But I believe there are fewer supporters of those tenets nowadays.

At the end of my notes above on The Spanish Tragedy, I have concluded that The Contention preceded 2 Henry VI. by some considerable space of time, and preceded also 1 Henry VI. in all probability, and I conceive that this is a likely statement from the nature of the plays themselves although dislocating their natural sequence. To that question I propose to return at the proper place in Introduction to Part III. But