Hieronimo

“ Hieronimo, frequent my homely house,
The Duke of Castile, Cyprian's ancient seat;
And when thou wilt, use me, my son, and it:
But here before Prince Balthazar and me,
Embrace each other, and be perfect friends.
Hieronimo.
Ay, marry, my lord, and shall;
Friends, quoth he? see, I'll be friends with you all:
Especially with you, my lovely lord;
For divers causes it is fit for us,
That we be friends; the world is suspicious,
And men may think what we imagine not.
Balthazar.
Why, this is friendly done, Hieronimo.
Lorenzo. ”

“ Hieronimo with Lorenzo is join'd in league,
And intercepts our passage to revenge.
Awake, Revenge, or we are woe-begone!
REVENGE. Thus worldings ground what they have dream'd upon!
Content thyself, Andrea; though I sleep,
Yet is my mood soliciting their souls.
Sufficeth thee that poor Hieronimo
Cannot forget his son Horatio.
Nor dies Revenge although he sleep awhile;
For in unquiet, quietness is feign'd,
And slumb'ring is a common worldly wile.
Behold, Andrea, for an instance how
Revenge hath slept; and then imagine thou
What 'tis to be subject to destiny. ”

“ As free from malice to Hieronimo,
As to my soul, my lord.
Castile.
Hieronimo, my son, mistakes thee then.
Lorenzo.
My gracious father, believe me, so he doth;
But what's a silly man, distract in mind,
To think upon the murder of his son?
Alas! how easy is it for him to err?
But for his satisfaction and the world's,
'Twere good, my lord, that [260] Hieronimo and I
Were reconcil'd, if he misconstrue me.
Castile.
Lorenzo, thou hast said; it shall be so.
Go, one of you, and call Hieronimo. ”

“ How now, girle?
⁠Why commest thou sadly to salute vs thus?
⁠Content thy-selfe, for I am satisfied.
⁠It is not now as when Andrea liu'd;
⁠We haue forgotten and forgiuen that,
⁠And thou art graced with a happeir loue.
⁠But, Balthazar, heere comes Hieronimo;
⁠Ile haue a word with him.
Enter HIERONIMO and a SERUANT.
HIERO. And wheres the duke?
SER. Yonder.
HIERO. Euen so.
⁠ [aside] What new deuice haue they deuised, tro?
⁠Pocas palabras! Milde as the lambe!
⁠Ist I will be reueng'd? No, I am not the man.
CAS. Welcome, Hieronimo!
LOR. Welcome, Hieronimo!
BAL. Welcome, Hieronimo! ”

“ For justice is exiled from the earth.
Hieronimo will bear thee company.
Thy mother cries on righteous Radamant
For just revenge against the murderers.
BAZULTO. Alas, my lord, whence springs this troubled speech?
HIERO. But let me look on my Horatio:
Sweet boy, how art thou chang'd in death's black shade!
Had Proserpine no pity on thy youth,
But suffer'd thy fair crimson-colour'd spring
With wither'd winter to be blasted thus?
Horatio, thou are older than thy father:
Ah, ruthless father, that favour thus transforms.
BA. Ah, my good lord, I am not your young son.
HIE. What! ”

“ Enter BEL-IMPERIA and HIERONIMO. BEL-IMPERIA. Is this the loue that bearst Horatio? Is this the kindnes that thou counterfeits, Are these the fruits of thine incessant teares? Hieronimo, are these thy passions, Thy protestations and thy deepe laments, That thou wert wont to wearie men withall? O vnkinde father! O deceitfull world! With what excuses canst thou shew thy-selfe,— With what dishonour, and the hate of men,— Thus to neglect the losse and life of him Whom both my letters and thine owne beliefe Assures thee to be causeles slaughtered? Hieronimo! ”

“ Needs must he go that the devils drive.
Exit.
KING. What accident hath happ'd to Hieronimo?
I have not seen him to demean him so.
LOR. My gracious lord, he is with extreme pride
Conceiv'd of young Horatio, his son,
And covetous of having himself
The ransom of the young prince, Balthazar,
Distract, and in a manner lunatic.
KING. Believe me, nephew, we are sorry for 't;
This is the love that fathers bear their sons.
But, gentle brother, go give to him this gold,
The prince's ransom; let him have his due;
For what he hath, Horatio shall not want.
Haply Hieronimo hath need thereof. ”

“ O ambitious beggar, wouldst thou have that,
That lives not in the world?
Why, all the undelved mines cannot buy
An ounce of justice, 'tis a jewel so
Inestimable. I tell thee, God hath
Engrossed all justice in his hands,
And there is none but what comes from him.
Painter.
O, then I see that God must right me for my
Murder'd son.
Hieronimo.
How? was thy son murder'd?
Painter.
Ay, sir, no man did hold a son so dear.
[Pg 121]
Hieronimo.
What, not as thine? that is a lie,
As massy as the earth: I had a son,
Whose least unvalued hair did weigh
A thousand of thy sons ”

“ But loue of him whome they did hate too much Did vrge her resolution to be such. And princes, now beholde Hieronimo, Author and actor in this tragedie, Bearing his latest fortune in his fist; And will as resolute conclude his parte As any of the actors gone before. And, gentles, thus I end my play! Vrge no more words, I haue no more to say. He runs to hang himselfe. KING. O hearken, vice-roy; holde Hieronimo! Brother, my newphew and they sonne are slaine! VICE. We are betraide! my Balthazar is slaine! Breake ope the doores; runne saue Hieronimo! ”

“ Attributable to it is the major portion of Hieronimo's madness, which accordingly occupies but a small space in our outline of the play. Structurally, the plot gains nothing by the additions; indeed, the 'Painter' episode duplicates and thereby weakens the effect of the conversation between Hieronimo and Bazulto. Nevertheless we will venture to quote a few lines from the speech to the Portingals, inasmuch as they aptly describe the underlying principle of the tragedy:
Well, heaven is heaven still! ”

“ Hieronimo is the great character of the play. Most of the others are mere continuations, serviceable enough but without improvement, of those in Jeronimo, Pedringano being a second edition of Lazarotto. But from the outline sufficient may be gathered to make unnecessary a long analysis of the author's new and greatest creation. We see in it originality of conception; we are touched by its intense humanness and by its inherent simplicity; but we are startled by its change, its growth, under the influence of circumstances, to a certain subtle complexity. ”

“ The tragedy has not yet begun, and this is no front curtain, but the curtain already referred to in IV. i, which Hieronimo is now hammering up to conceal the dead body of Horatio, as part of the setting which he is arranging at one end of the main stage. The Duke of Castile now enters, and it is clear that the Court audience are to sit ‘above’, for Hieronimo begs the Duke (12) that ‘when the traine are past into the gallerie, You would vouchsafe to throw me downe the key’. He then bids (16) a Servant ‘Bring a chaire and a cushion for the King’ and ‘hang up the Title: Our scene is Rhodes’. ”

“ FROM THE 'SPANISH TRAGEDIE'
'Murder, murder, help, Hieronimo, help!' cries Belimperia, as in the picture, and though at Lorenzo's bidding, 'Come stop her mouth; away with her,' she is dragged off, the old man hears. The stage direction, 'Enter Hieronimo in his shirt,' has been interpreted liberally, for Hieronimo has nether garments in addition; but he is duly coatless and provided with a torch with which to see the 'murdrous spectacle.'
'Hier. ”

“ While they sit ‘within these leauy bowers’ they are betrayed, and (s.d.) ‘They hang him in the Arbor’. In II. v (not really a new scene) Hieronimo emerges from his house, where a woman’s cry ‘within this garden’ has plucked him from his ‘naked bed’, finds Horatio hanging ‘in my bower’, and (s.d.) ‘He cuts him downe’. In III. xii (an addition of the 1602 text) Hieronimo ranges ‘this hidious orchard’, where Horatio was murdered before ‘this the very tree’. Finally, in IV. ii Isabella enters ‘this garden plot’, and (s.d.) ‘She cuts downe the Arbour’. ”

“ Our stomachs easily digest,
And of all plays Hieronymo's the best,"
which shows that then it was remembered.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. The Ghost of Andrea. Revenge. King of Spain. [Pg 8] Viceroy of Portingal. Don Cyprian, Duke of Castile. Hieronimo, Marshal of Spain. [5] Balthazar, [6] the Viceroy's Son, in love with Bell'-Imperia. Lorenzo, Duke of Castile's Son. Horatio, Hieronimo's Son. Alexandro. Villuppo. Pedringano. Serbebine. Old Man. Painter. Page. Hangman. Citizens, Soldiers, Attendants. Isabella, Hieronimo's Wife. Bell'-Imperia, Lorenzo's Sister. THE SPANISH TRAGEDY, &c. ”

“ Lorenzo.
Nay, an' you argue things so cunningly,
We'll go continue this discourse at court.
[Pg 104]
Balthazar.
Led by the lodestar [205] of her heavenly looks,
Wends poor oppressed Balthazar,
As o'er the mountains walks the wanderer,
Incertain to effect his pilgrimage. [Exeunt.
Enter two Portingals, and Hieronimo meets them.
1 Portingal.
By your leave, sir.
Hieronimo.
['Tis [206] neither as you think, nor as you think,
Nor as you think: you are wide all:
These slippers are not mine, they were my son Horatio's.
[Pg 105] My son! and what's a son? ”

“ Like them he is distinguished by a tendency to reflection, and struggles in solitary meditation at each crisis in his career. Like them he is driven to the verge of madness by the pressure of his heavy responsibility and by his awakened sense of evil in the universe. Though he does not seek further proof, yet, like Hamlet after the revelations of the play, he becomes frantic and irresolute, neglects an opportunity to kill the duke, and wastes his vengeance upon an innocent child. Like Hieronimo and Hamlet, he is tricky, wild, and ranting. ”

“ I WATCH. On to Hieronimos! helpe me heere To bring the murdred body with vs too. PED. Hieronimo? Carry me before whom you will; What ere he be, Ile answere him and you. And doe your worst, for I defie you all! Exeunt.
[ACT III. SCENE 4.] [The DUKE's castle] Enter LORENZO and BALTHAZAR. BAL. How now, my lord? what makes you rise so soone? LOR. Feare of preuenting our mishaps too late. BAL. What mischiefe is it that we not mistrust? LOR. Our greatest ils we least mistrust, my lord, And [unexpected] harmes do hurt vs most. ”

“ If destinie thy miseries doe ease, Then hast thou health, and happie shalt thou be; If destinie denie thee life, Hieronimo, Yet shalt thou be assured of a tombe; If neither, yet let this thy comfort be: Heauen couereth him that hath no buriall. And, to conclude, I will reuenge his death! But how? Not as the vulgare wits of men, With open, but ineuitable ils; As by a secret, yet a certaine meane, Which vnder kindeship wilbe cloked best. Wise men will take their opportunitie, Closely and safely fitting things to time; But in extreames aduantage hath no time ”

“ I tell you, Hiero, your battlefield, your true arena is with the champion presidents of rival states, above whose lesser heads be it your destiny to raise this state, of which you are the patron and supreme head, to some unprecedented height of fortune, which if you shall achieve, be certain you will be approved victorious in a contest the noblest and the most stupendous in the world. ”

“ THE FIRST PART OF JERONIMO. [Sound a Signet, [288] and pass over the Stage. Enter at one door the King of Spain, Duke of Castile, Duke Medina, Lorenzo, and Rogero; at another door, Andrea, Horatio, and Jeronimo. Jeronimo kneels down, and the King creates him Marshal of Spain; Lorenzo puts on his Spurs, [289] and Andrea his sword. The King goes along with Jeronimo to his House; after a long Signet is sounded, enter all the Nobles, with covered dishes, to the Banquet. ”

“ We feel, O Heron! that there is not only humanity—but poetry, in our being. Imagination haunts and possesses us in our pastimes, colouring them even with serious, solemn, and sacred light—and thou assuredly hast something priest-like and ancient in thy look—and about thy light-blue plume robes, which the very elements admire and reverence—the waters wetting them not—nor the winds ruffling—and moreover we love thee—Heron—for the sake of that old castle, beside whose gloom thou utteredst thy first feeble cry! A Ruin nameless, traditionless—sole, undisputed property of Oblivion! ”

“ Now the good that cometh of to-day is ever sovereign unto every man. My part it is to crown Hieron with an equestrian strain in Aeolian mood: and sure am I that no host among men that now are shall I ever glorify in sounding labyrinths of song more learned in the learning of honour and withal with more might to work thereto. A god hath guard over thy hopes, O Hieron, and taketh care for them with a peculiar care: and if he fail thee not, I trust that I shall again proclaim in song a sweeter glory yet, and find thereto in words a ready way, when to the fair-shining hill of Kronos I am come. ”

“ Arise then, Muse, and speed
⁠To this contention; strive in Hiero's praise,
⁠Nor fear thy efforts shall his worth exceed;
⁠Within the lines of truth secure to throw,
Thy dart shall still surpass each vain attempting foe. ⁠90
⁠So may succeeding ages, as they roll,
⁠Great Hiero still in wealth and bliss maintain,
⁠And joyous health recalling, on his sold
⁠Oblivion pour of life-consuming pain. ”

“ It is a long tissue of horrors and revenges in blank verse, old Hieronymo slowly pursuing the slayers of his son, Horatio, and contains, like "Hamlet," a play within a play, in which the actors in a fencing scene slay each other in earnest, to glut Hieronymo's revenge. As in "Hamlet" there is a ghost, but ghosts were common in the dramas of [Pg 209] Seneca and his English imitators. Hieronymo, when apprehended, bites his tongue out, and stabs himself and a Duke who happens to be convenient in his neighbourhood. ”