Robert Greene

“ Yet the best evidence is questionable, and much of the evidence is quite adverse to the theory of Greene's authorship. The manuscript notes on a copy of the Quarto of 1599, assigning the play to a minister who had played the pinner's part himself, and in another hand to Robert Greene (quoted on p. xxiii.) , cannot to-day be considered good evidence. Judged by the well-known tests of textual and structural criticism the play almost absolutely fails to connect itself either with Greene or his contemporary university writers. ”

“ INTRODUCTION
"Why should art answer for the infirmities of manners?" asks Thomas Nash in defending the memory of his dead comrade, Robert Greene, against the attacks of Gabriel Harvey. Some such consideration as this has been needed to rescue Greene's fame from the uncritical hostility of later times. It has been the misfortune of the man to be remembered by posterity chiefly through adverse personal documents. The assaults of a frustrate and dying man on a successful rival like curses soon turned home to roost. ”

“ When Warner spoke, apparently, of Greene as a "scholler" better than himself he was quite right, and as a matter of fact, Lyly's two most famous disciples were Thomas Lodge, a friend of Riche, who helped him to revise his works and corrected his faulty verses, and Robert Greene, a novelist and dramatist like Lodge and Lyly, and a friend of the former. Endowed with a less calm and sociable temperament than their model, Greene and Lodge led a chequered existence very characteristic of their epoch. ”

“ And of truth he must be represented as no isolated figure, but as a man of his times, frail, no doubt, but frail with Marlowe and Peele, versatile with Sidney and Raleigh, reflective with Spenser, and lusty with Shakespeare.
Robert Greene represents the Elizabethan age at its best and its worst. What was best in it he helped to consummate. Of the worst he was the victim as well as the exemplar. Greene's life comprises and almost defines the greatest era of expansion known in English drama. Shakespeare's debt to his predecessors is great not only on account of direct literary influences. ”

“ The examples will be taken from what may be called the great single pamphleteers or pamphlet collections—that is to say, Lodge, Greene, Nash, Harvey, 'Martin Marprelate' and the anti-Martinists, Breton, and Dekker. Some particulars of each of the selected authors or groups may appropriately be given in this introduction.
No minor Elizabethan author is better known than Robert Greene, partly from the fact that he touches Shakespeare, and partly from the other fact that his short and ill-spent life was that of the typical Bohemian, and so interests those who like gossip about men of letters. ”

“ Shakespearian atmosphere in more than one passage of the plays of the unfortunate Robert Greene—unfortunate perhaps in nothing more enduringly than in the proof which he left behind him of his supercilious jealousy of Shakespeare. Greene’s genius, most conspicuous in plays treating English life and scenes, could, notwithstanding his academic self-sufficiency, at times free itself from the pedantry apt to beset the flight of Peele’s and at times even of Marlowe’s muse ”

“ Ralph. Marry, Sirrah Ned, thou shalt put on my cap and my coat and my dagger, and I will put on thy clothes and thy sword; and so thou shalt be my fool.
P. Edw. And what of this?
Ralph. Why, so thou shalt beguile Love; for Love is such a proud scab, that he will never meddle with fools nor children. Is not Ralph's counsel good, Ned?
P. Edw. Tell me, Ned Lacy, didst thou mark the maid,
How lovely in her country weeds she look'd?
A bonnier wench all Suffolk cannot yield:—
All Suffolk! nay, all England holds none such.
Ralph. Sirrah Will Ermsby, Ned is deceived. ”

“ The statement that Greene had a share in a play on Henry VIII (Variorum, xix. 500) seems to be based on a confusion with a Robert Greene named by Stowe as an authority for his Annales (Collins, i. 69) .
Doubtful Plays
Greene’s hand has been sought in Contention of York and Lancaster, Edward III, Fair Em, George a Greene, Troublesome Reign of King John, Knack to Know a Knave, Thracian Wonder, Leire, Locrine, Mucedorus, Selimus, Taming of A Shrew, Thomas Lord Cromwell (cf. ch. xxiv) , and Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Henry VI.
FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE (c. 1554–1628) . ”

“ Robert Greene's contemptuous reference to Harvey and Harvey's father and two brothers in his ‘Quippe for an Upstart Courtier’ (1592) led to Gabriel Harvey's well-known defence of his family in his ‘Foure Letters’ (1592) . Gabriel describes John as ‘a proper toward man,’ ‘a skilful physician,’ and a M.D. of Cambridge, and mentions that he died, aged 29, shortly after returning to Lynn from Norwich in July 1592. He supplies a Latin epitaph. ‘John Harvey's Welcome to Robert Greene’ is the title of a sonnet included in Gabriel Harvey's ‘Foure Letters.’ Harvey published: 1. ”

“ Robert Greene—Friar Bacon's Demons—The "Looking Glasse"—Nash and Harvey.
One of the principal humorists at this time was Robert Greene, born at Norwich about 1560. He was educated at Cambridge, and was generally styled "Robert Greene, Maister of Artes." Early in life he became, as he tells us, "an author of playes and a penner of love pamphlets." From the titles of some of them, and from his motto, "Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," it is evident that they were intended to be humorous. Thus, his "Euphues" professes to contain "Mirth to purge Melancholy;" ”

“ What, dost thou mock me?
Miles. Not I, sir, but what would you at Brazen-nose?
Erms. Marry, we would speak with Friar Bacon.
Miles. Whose men be you?
Erms. Marry, scholar, here's our master.
Ralph. Sirrah, I am the master of these good fellows; mayst thou not know me to be a lord by my reparrel?
Miles. Then here's good game for the hawk; for here's the master-fool, and a covey of coxcombs: one wise man, I think, would spring you all.
P. Edw. Gog's wounds! Warren, kill him.
War. Why, Ned, I think the devil be in my sheath; I cannot get out my dagger. ”

“ Caitiff, what sayest thou?
Slip. I say, sir, that if she call you shifting knave, you shall not put her to the proof.
Ateu. And why?
Slip. Because, sir, living by your wit as you do, shifting is your letters-patents: it were a hard matter for me to get my dinner that day wherein my master had not sold a dozen of devices, a case of cogs, and a suit of shifts, [264] in the morning. I speak this in your commendation, sir, and, I pray you, so take it.
Ateu. If I live, knave, I will be revenged. What gentleman would entertain a rascal thus to derogate from his honour? ”

“ Geo. Tell me, sweet love, what good fortune brought thee hither?
For one it was that favour'd George-a-Greene.
Bet. Both love and fortune brought me to my George,
In whose sweet sight is all my heart's content.
Geo. Tell me, sweet love, how cam'st thou from thy father's?
Bet. A willing mind hath many slips in love:
It was not I, but Wily, thy sweet boy.
Geo. And where is Wily now?
Bet. In my apparel, in my chamber still.
Geo. Jenkin, come hither: go to Bradford,
And listen out your fellow Wily.—
Come, Bettris, let us in,
And in my cottage we will sit and talk. ”

“ But, sir, I am glad to see how conformable you are to the statute.—I warrant you, he's as yeomanly a man as you shall see: mark you, masters, here's a plain, honest man, without welt or guard. [234] —But I pray you, sir, do you come lately from hell?
Dev. Ay, marry: how then?
Miles. Faith, 'tis a place I have desired long to see: have you not good tippling-houses there? may not a man have a lusty fire there, a pot of good ale, a pair [235] of cards, a swinging piece of chalk, and a brown toast that will clap a white waistcoat on a cup of good drink? ”

“ Warren and Ermsby are Englishmen of a sturdy type, and Sir Cuthbert Anderson and Lady Anderson are studied as if in their Scotch castle. But Greene did something more than present the exteriors of men as types. He studied their psychology, and knew the warring forces within the individual soul, the power of circumstance, and ambition, and love to direct the forces of character into untoward paths. He knew that logic of human nature that counts consistency untrue, and constructs motives out of the syllogisms of perversity. ”

“ SCENE III.—At Wakefield.
Enter George-a-Greene.
Geo. The sweet content of men that live in love
Breeds fretting humours in a restless mind;
And fancy, being check'd by fortune's spite,
Grows too impatient in her sweet desires;
Sweet to those men whom love leads on to bliss,
But sour to me whose hap is still amiss.
Enter Jenkin.
Jen. Marry, amen, sir.
Geo. Sir, what do you cry "amen" at? ”

“ That art or nature durst bring for compare.
Ermsby, if thou hadst seen, as I did note it well,
How beauty play'd the huswife, how this girl,
Like Lucrece, laid her fingers to the work,
Thou wouldst, with Tarquin, hazard Rome and all
To win the lovely maid of Fressingfield.
Ralph. Sirrah Ned, wouldst fain have her?
P. Edw. Ay, Ralph.
Ralph Why, Ned, I have laid the plot in my head; thou shalt have her already.
P. Edw. I'll give thee a new coat, an learn me that.
Ralph. Why, Sirrah Ned, we'll ride to Oxford to Friar Bacon: O, he is a brave scholar, sirrah ”

“ Wily. Alas, sir, it is Hebrew unto me,
To tell me of George-a-Greene or any other!
Search me, good sir, and if you find a letter
About me, let me have the punishment that's due.
Grime. Why are you muffled? I like you the worse for that.
Wily. I am not, sir, asham'd to show my face;
Yet loth I am my cheeks should take the air:
Not that I'm chary of my beauty's hue,
But that I'm troubled with the toothache sore.
[Unmuffles.
Grime. [aside] . A pretty wench, of smiling countenance!
Old men can like, although they cannot love ”

“ Without being original in structure or style Greene was individual in outlook and temper. He had a keener eye for the little things than any dramatist of his time, and he had also a better sympathy for the quick flashing moods and manifestations of human character. His knowledge of the concrete realities of character is an attribute of the man himself. In depicting fairies he lacks, as did Lyly, the imagination to vitalise an unreal world in the spirit of a Shakespeare. ”

“ Cheer thee, my boy, I will do much for thee.
Ned. But not so much as to dishonour me.
Jane. An if thou diest, I cannot live, sweet Ned.
Ned. Then die with honour, mother, dying chaste.
Jane. I am armed:
My husband's love, his honour, and his fame,
Join [304] victory by virtue. Now, King James,
If mother's tears cannot allay thine ire,
Then butcher him, for I will never yield:
The son shall die before I wrong the father.
K. James. Why, then, he dies.
Alarum within. Enter a Messenger.
Mess. My lord, Musgrove is at hand.
K. James. Who, Musgrove? The devil he is! Come, my horse! ”

“ That, if a man but dally by her feet,
He thinks it straight a witch to charm his daughter.
Jen. Well, what will you give me, if I bring her hither?
Geo. A suit of green, and twenty crowns besides.
Jen. Well, by your leave, give me room. You must give me something that you have lately worn.
Geo. Here is a gown, will that serve you?
[Gives gown.
Jen. Ay, this will serve me. Keep out of my circle, lest you be torn in pieces by she-devils.—Mistress Bettris, once, twice, thrice!
[Jenkin throws the gown in, and Bettris comes out. [310]
O, is this no cunning? ”

“ There undertaking the composition of serious plays, the first extant play is produced in 1587 or 1588, he is incorporated Master of Arts at Oxford in July 1588, and continues "that high and loose course of living which poets generally follow" (Anthony Wood) , writing love pamphlets until about 1590, and then, in obedience to a promise repeatedly made by himself, pressing forward the exposure of the devices used by cozeners and conny-catchers, until his untimely death on 3rd September 1592. ”

“ Of the comedy of Fair Em, which resembles Friar Bacon in more than one point, Greene cannot have been the author; the question as to the priority between the two plays is not so easily solved. The conjecture as to his supposed share in the plays on which the second and third parts of Henry VI. are founded has been already referred to. ”

“ The comic element is not absent, being supplied in abundance by Adam, the clown of the piece, who belongs to the family of Slipper, and of Friar Bacon’s servant, Miles.
Greene’s dramatic genius has nothing in it of the intensity of Marlowe’s tragic muse; nor perhaps does he ever equal Peele at his best. On the other hand, his dramatic poetry is occasionally animated with the breezy freshness which no artifice can simulate. ”

“ Roberto's lamentations were overheard by one sitting on the other side of the hedge, who, getting over, offered such comfort as his ability would yield, doing so "the rather," as he said, "for that I suppose you are a scholar, and pity it is men of learning should live in lack." Greatly wondering Roberto asked how he might be employed. "'Why, easily,' quoth he, 'and greatly to your benefit; for men of my profession get by scholars their whole living.' 'What is your profession?' said Roberto. 'Truly, sir,' said he, 'I [Pg xx] am a player.' 'A player!' quoth Roberto ”

“ But hear you, sir, hath the king granted you this custom?
First Shoe. King or kaisar, none shall pass this way,
Except King Edward;
No, not the stoutest groom that haunts his court;
Therefore down with your staves.
K. Edw. What were we best to do?
K. James. Faith, my lord, they are stout fellows;
And, because we will see some sport,
We will trail our staves.
K. Edw. Hear'st thou, my friend?
Because we are men of peace and travellers,
We are content to trail our staves.
First Shoe. The way lies before you, go along.
Enter Robin Hood and George-a-Greene, disguised. ”