Christopher Marlowe

“ Oh! if my soul must suffer for my sin,
Impose some end to my incessant pain!
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years—
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd!
No end is limited to damned souls.
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? ”

“ Perhaps thy sacred priesthood makes thee loath.
Tell me, to whom mad’st thou that heedless oath?”
“To Venus,” answered she and, as she spake,
Forth from those two tralucent cisterns brake
A stream of liquid pearl, which down her face
Made milk-white paths, whereon the gods might trace
To Jove’s high court. He thus replied: “The rites
In which love’s beauteous empress most delights
Are banquets, Doric music, midnight revel,
Plays, masks, and all that stern age counteth evil. ”

“ The grief which Neptune felt. In gentle breasts
Relenting thoughts, remorse, and pity rests.
And who have hard hearts and obdurate minds,
But vicious, harebrained, and illiterate hinds?
The god, seeing him with pity to be moved,
Thereon concluded that he was beloved.
(Love is too full of faith, too credulous,
With folly and false hope deluding us.) ”

“ The longing heart of Hero much more joys
Than nymphs and shepherds when the timbrel rings,
Or crooked dolphin when the sailor sings.
She stayed not for her robes but straight arose
And, drunk with gladness, to the door she goes,
Where seeing a naked man, she screeched for fear
(Such sights as this to tender maids are rare)
And ran into the dark herself to hide.
(Rich jewels in the dark are soonest spied) . ”

“ A brow for love to banquet royally;
And such as knew he was a man, would say,
“Leander, thou art made for amorous play.
Why art thou not in love, and loved of all?
Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall.” ”

“ Johnson wrote and printed with applause in his edition of Shakspeare, a series of cold, antithetical critiques, whose contemptuous brevity seems to intimate that, in his own conceit, the great moralist was a god to punish the fancied lapses of the sweet Swan, not a mortal to adore. The attention to black letter (as it was termed) which was then beginning to prevail, called the name, if not the works, of Marlow into notice; and Malone properly observed, "that he was the most famous and admired poet of that age, previous to the appearance of Shakspeare." ”

“ Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.—
Think'st thou that I who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,
Am not tormented by a thousand Hells
In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?—
*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd
In one set place,—but where we are is Hell—
And where Hell is, there must we ever be. ”

“ If haply, since the torch was quench'd in shade,
Her bridegroom o'er the waters, devious, stray'd.
When, at the turret's foot, her glance descried
His rock-torn corse cast upward by the tide!
She rent the broider'd robe her breast around,
And headlong from the tower she fell with rushing sound!—
Thus on her lifeless husband Hero died,
Nor death's last anguish could their loves divide [20] :—
There is great beauty and power in the above, yet, to my fancy, Mr. Leigh Hunt, in his "original poem," has felt parts with as great relish,—he has identified himself more deeply with the lovers. ”

“ It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate. ”

“ All women are ambitious naturally -
Imposed upon her lover such a task
As he ought not perform nor yet she ask.
A draught of flowing nectar she requested,
Wherewith the king of gods and men is feasted. ”

“ O, none but gods have power their love to hide,
Affection by the countenance is descried.
The light of hidden fire itself discovers,
And love that is concealed betrays poor lovers,
His secret flame apparently was seen. ”

“ Glistered with dew, as one that seemed to scorn it;
Her breath as fragrant as the morning rose,
Her mind pure, and her tongue untaught to gloze.
Yet proud she was (for lofty pride that dwells
In towered courts is oft in shepherds’ cells.) ”

“ For nothing marreth more the behaviour, simplicity, and natural goodness of any people than this, because they soon receive into their souls a lively impression of that dissoluteness and villany which they see and hear, when it is joined with words, accents, gestures, motions, and actions, wherewith players and jugglers know how to enrich by all kind of artificial sleights, the filthiest and most dishonest matters, which commonly they make choice of. ”

“ Above our life we love a steadfast friend,
Yet when a token of great worth we send,
We often kiss it, often look thereon,
And stay the messenger that would be gone. ”

“ Where Venus in her naked glory strove
To please the careless and disdainful eyes
Of proud Adonis, that before her lies.
Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain,
Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain.
Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath,
From whence her veil reached to the ground beneath.
Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves
Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives. ”

“ Until some honourable deed be done. ”

“ This is more in costume, and more classical than the rival description at the commencement of the poem, where Marlow has arrayed his "Nun of Venus" in the stiff, rustling silks, and glistering brocades worn by the plump-shouldered yellow-haired Venetian dames of Tizian, or Paris Bordone. "Enough, however, has been already said, and it may appear to some more than was altogether seemly; but there are times when it is difficult for love to restrain every expression of its admiration [24] ." ”

“ Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight? ”

“ And quite confound nature’s sweet harmony.
Well therefore by the gods decreed it is
We human creatures should enjoy that bliss.
One is no number; maids are nothing then
Without the sweet society of men. ”

“ Sir Egerton was originally intended for a man of genius—but many melancholy circumstances, which every lover of the Muse bewails with drooping head and heart, have crooked the promising branch, and turned the nourishing sap to a corroding poison, eating the heart of the tree. This it is that has caused that craving for unwholesome food which his editorial labours so frequently display. A darkness comes over his spirit, and the blue sky appears black even to his corporeal eye. ”

“ In a criticism, which is thought to bear strong traces of the hand of Milton, Marlow is styled "a kind of second Shakspeare, not only because like him he rose from an actor to be a maker of plays, though inferior both in fame and merit; but also because in his begun poem of Hero and Leander, he seems to have a resemblance that clean and unsophisticated wit, which is natural to that incomparable poet [14] ." ”

“ Love always makes those eloquent that have it. ”

“ The multitude are following the chase through a beautiful country after a more glittering leader: he cannot mingle unnoticed in the herd, and therefore plunges moodily among thorny brakes and black rocks—he throws himself beneath "knotty, knarry, barren trees," blasted by the "thwarting thunder blue;" ”

“ Love deeply grounded, hardly is dissembled. ”

“ Fair eldest child of Love! thou spotless Night,
Empress of Silence, and the queen of Sleep,
Who with thy black cheeks' pure complexion,
Mak'st lovers' eyes enamoured of thy beauty!—
Thou'rt like my Moor!⸻
Eleazar, raging for the death of his wife Maria, fancies king Fernando to be the murderer. ”

“ A late writer [11] has supposed that Thomas Beard also points at Marlow in another work translated by him, and published in 1594, under the title of "The French Academic," in which is also to be found the following bitter philippic against players: "It is a shameful thing to suffer amongst us, or to lose our time, that ought to be so precious unto us, in beholding and in hearing players, actors of interludes and comedies, who are as pernicious a plague in a commonwealth as can be imagined. ”

“ Like untuned golden strings all women are,
Which long time lie untouched, will harshly jar.
Vessels of brass, oft handled, brightly shine. ”

“ He represents him as "giving too large a swing to his own wit, and suffering his lust to have the full reins, so that he fell to that outrage and extremity, as Jodelle a French tragical poet did, (being an epicure and an atheist) that he denied God and his son Christ, and not only in word blasphemed the Trinity, but also (as it was credibly reported) wrote divers discourses against it, affirming our Saviour to be a deceiver, and Moses to be a conjuror: the Holy Bible also to contain only vain and idle stories, and all religion but a device of policy." ”

“ This mode of judging bears still harder on that long description in the Second Sestyad, of Leander's swimming; where it seems extremely difficult for Marlow to decide whether Neptune shall be a real God, or a mere personification of the waves. An author should be consistent with himself,—it will never do to make use of Mercury, or Cupid, or Neptune now as mythological personages, and then as abstractions—but enough already of vituperation. ”

“ Neither is the language unsuited by its harshness to the melody of the verses, being remarkably free from quaintnesses, which in Marlow consist not in phrases, but in ideas.—Our author employs not many direct similes, though expository comparisons often:— he sprinkles, rather liberally, moral sentences, glosses on the text, parenthetical apothegms.—A considerable store of classical learning is revealed in many passages;—the idea of Apollo's harp sounding forth "musick to the ocean," is a well-known antique piece of mystification ”

“ Take for example the last scene of this cutting tragedy, which is indeed struck out with a towering energy.—I do not envy the feelings of that critic who can go over it unmoved, nor of "the little judge" who stops to cavil at an odd word, or extraneous syllable.—Something healing is spread over the final paragraph, which reconciles and imperceptibly harmonizes the mind. It is truly stated by Mr. Lamb, that the genius of Chapman is epic, rather than purely dramatic. ”

“ I cannot but see so far into the will of him dead, that whatsoever issue of his braine should chance to come abroad, that the first breath it should take might be the gentle air of your liking: for since his selfe had been accustomed thereunto, it would proue more agreeable and thriuing to his right children, than any other foster countenance whatsoeuer. ”

“ There is in all the Elizabethan writers a wonderful exuberance and display of mental riches: they give full measure, heaped, and running over.—"They mingle every thing," says that choice critic Lamb, "run line into line, embarrass sentences and metaphors. The judgment is perfectly overwhelmed with the confluence of images," &c. These general remarks apply to the particular case before us. Taken as a whole, Marlow's "Hero and Leander contains much to blame, but, considered by sections, more out of all proportion to praise. ”

“ And, as I think, all men in Christianty ought to endeavour that the mouth of so dangerous a member may be stopped." Probably Marlow was aware of the character of those whom he thus irritated by his unlicensed speech, and did it out of bravado and wantonness, or to excite admiration of his spirit and courage in worrying a puritanical informer to desperation. ”

“ Drake has known how to avail himself, without the labour of wading through the mass of rubbish, under which it has sometimes lain hid. The reviver of Wither's "Shepherd's Hunting," and "Fair Virtue," (so ably panegyrized by Mr. Lamb) and of the learned Stanley's "Poems," and "Translations from Moschus, Anacreon, &c." deserves the poetical student's warmest thanks; and I have much pleasure in acknowledging that I owe my more intimate acquaintance with the following beautiful poem to Sir Egerton's almost entire reprint of it in several numbers of the "Restituta." ”

“ This would never be forgiven or forgotten, his ridicule of their sacred persons would render him more obnoxious than absolute Atheism. Accordingly the fanatic Thomas Beard, in his "Theatre of God's Judgments [9] ," gladly availed himself of the unfortunate catastrophe of Marlow's untimely death, to show that it was an immediate judgment of Heaven. ”

“ Marlow, the Muses' darling for thy verse,
Fit to write passions for the souls below."
Henry Petowe published what he calls a second part of the Hero and Leander, in 1598, and in the following passages exceeds all his eulogists in panegyric, though his verses are homely.
"Marlow admir'd, whose honey-flowing vein
No English writer can as yet attain.
Whose name, in Fame's immortal treasury,
Truth shall record to endless memory.
Marlow, late mortal, now framed all divine,
What soul more happy, than this soul of thine? ”

“ Yet melt like snow when majesty shines forth."
In a very spirited style is likewise the whole of the first scene [16] , Act V.
Faustus is well censured by Hazlitt, who esteems it, on the whole, as Marlow's greatest work. "Faustus himself is a rude sketch, but it is a gigantic one. As the outline of the character is grand and daring, the execution is abrupt and fearful. The thoughts are vast and irregular, and the style halts and staggers under them with uneasy steps." Milton may have had in his eye the following passages:—
⁠"Faustus to the Daemon. ”

“ Live with the living in eternity."
The reader must be familiar with Ben Jonson's mention of "Marlow's mighty line," in his poem to the memory of Shakspeare: and with Drayton's verses, which Warton well observes, are 'the highest testimony," because "Drayton from his own feelings was well qualified to decide on the merits of a poet." ”