are

SUS

as

me.

K. Edw Third. Yes, if this be the hand Is this report rais'd on poor Isabel. of Mortimer.

K). Edw. Third. I do not think her so un(Showing letter.)

natural. Y. Mor. (Aside.) False Gurney hath Lord. My lord, I fear me it will prove betray'd me and himself.

too true.

K. Edw. Third. Mother, you

much; Q. Isab. (Aside.) I fear'd murder cannot be hid.

pected for his death, Y. Mor. It is my hand; what gather you

And therefore we commit you to the by this?

Tower K. Edw. Third. That thither thou didst Till further trial may be made thereof; send a murderer.

If you be guilty, though I be your son, Y. Mor. What murderer? Bring forth Think not to find me slack or pitiful. the man I sent.

Q. Isab. Nay, to my death, for too long K*. Edw. Third. Ah, Mortimer, thou

have I lir'd knowest that he is slain;

Whenas my son thinks to abridge my And so shalt thou be too.—Why stays he

days. here?

K. Edw. Third. Away with her! her Bring him unto a hurdle, drag him forth;

words enforce these tears, Hang him, I say, and set his quarters

And I shall pity her if she speak again.

Q. Isab. Shall I not mourn for my beup, But bring his head back presently 3 to

loved lord,

And with the rest accompany him to his Q. Isab. For my sake, sweet son, pity

grave? Mortimer!

2 Lord. Thus, madam, 't is the king's will Y. Mor. Madain, entreat not; I will

you shall hence. rather die,

Q. Isab. He hath forgotten me; stay, I Than sue for life unto a paltry boy.

am his mother. K. Edw. Third. Hence with the traitor! 2 Lord. That boots not; therefore, gentle with the murderer!

madam, go. Y. Mor. Base Fortune, now I see that in Q. Isab. Then come, sweet death, and rid thy wheel

me of this grief. There is a point, to which when men

E.rit. aspire,

Re-enter 1 Lord, with the head of Young They tumble headlong down: that point

Mortimer.
I toucli’d,

1 Lord. My lord, here is the head of MorAnd, seeing there was no place to mount

timer. up higher,

K. Edw. Third. Go fetch my father's Why should I grieve at my declining

hearse, where it shall lie; fall?

And bring my funeral robes. Farewell, fair queen; weep not for Mor

Ereunt Attendants. timer,

Accursed head, That scorns the world, and, as a traveller,

Could I have ruld thee then, as I do Goes to discover countries yet unknown.

now, K. Edw. Third. What! suffer you the Thou had'st not hatched this monstrous traitor to delay ?

treachery!(Young Mortimer is taken away.)

Here comes the hearse; help me to Q. Isab. As thou receivedst thy life from

mourn, my lords. me,

Re-enter Attendants with the hearse and Spill not the blood of gentle Mortimer! K. Edw. Third. This argues

that you

funeral robes. spilt my father's blood,

Sweet father, here unto thy murdered Else would you not entreat for Mortimer.

ghost Q. Isab. I spill his blood ? No!

I offer up this wicked traitor's head; K. Edw. Third. Aye, madam, you; for so And let these tears, distilling from mine the rumor runs.

eyes, Q. Isab. That rumor is untrue; for lov- Be witness of my grief and innocency. ing thee,

Exeunt. 3 immediately.

1 THOMAS DEKKER

THE SHOEMAKERS' HOLIDAY

1

Thomas Dekker (c. 1570–1637 or later) 1599, to another of Dekker's plays, the was a Londoner, possibly of Dutch descent. masque-like Old Fortunatus. Thus even the His name first appears early in 1598 in the playwrights of the people had their occasional diary of Philip Henslowe, proprietor of the social triumphs. Dekker took his story from Rose and Fortune theaters. Dekker was one a collection of three prose_tales on shoeof the most prolific of Henslowe's play-car- makers, The Gentle Craft (1598), by Thomas penters, for he is mentioned as sole author Deloney, whose position in the narrative-ficor collaborator in connection with forty-one tion of the day as a purveyor of romantically plays in the five years 1598–1602. The diary rose-colored, pseudo-realistic tales for the conalso throws a sad light on Dekker's hand-to- sumption of middle-class readers somewhat mouth existence, by its records of loans made corresponds to that of Dekker in the drama. by Henslowe, sometimes to rescue him from From the second of these stories, that of the the debtors' prison; there is reason to be- two royal shoemakers Crispine and Crispilieve that he was once confined for debt for anus, Dekker obtained the background of war, three years together. From 1603 to 1613 he the motive of the Lacy-Rose story, the shoeturned out a series of prose pamphlets, chiefly fitting episode, Rose's flight to the Lord on London life, vividly informing and force- Mayor's, and the final royal sanction of their ful in style. He drops out of sight early in marriage. From Deloney's account of Simon the thirties.

Eyre, the madcap shoemaker of fower Street,

come practically all the figures and details of The Shoemakers' Holiday is the merriest the Eyre story, as well as the suggestion_for 'example of a sort of play very popular with the Ralph-Jane story, although Dekker reLondon playgoers of Erizabethan days the verses Deloney's situation of the lost wife rebourgeois comedy of London life,- citizens' turning from France to prevent her husband comedy, it has been called to distinguish it from marrying again. There are in 'he play from the romantic.comedy of Shakespeare, the three threads of narrative - a romantic lovesatirical humor-comedy of Ben Jonson, and story, a bourgeois love-story, and a picture of the tragicomedy of Beaumont and Fletcher. London life and manners, supplying the backSuch plays were written for the most part by ground The binding of the three Dekker acdramatists not so fortunate as these men, complishes skilfully enough according to who had established positions as writers for Elizabethan standards. The relations of Lacy the high-class theaters such as the Globe and and Ralph, first as soldiers enlisted for the the Blackfriars, and for a better class of audi- French war, second as employees of Eyre, tors than those which filled the more popular unite the first two. Hammon, appearing first houses like the Rose and the Fortune Dek- as the suitor of Rose, later as the lover of ker, Heywood, and, less representatively, Jane, furnishes another bond. It is Lacy, as Middleton are the best known members of a Hans, who is responsible for Eyre's first_comlarge group of playwrights who thus catered mercial success, which leads to Eyre's electo the theatrical wants of the common-peo- tion as sheriff. The Lord Mayor's entertainple, giving them in large measure pictures of ment of the new sheriff and his apprentices at the life which they lived.

Old Ford brings Lacy and Rose together The Shoemakers Holiday was finished by again, and prepares for Rose's. escape to July 15, 1599, when Henslowe enters a pay- Eyre's protection at the end of act four. The ment for it of three pounds — so munificently two love-threads are firmly knotted by Eirk's were his fortunate authors rewarded! It was tricks for the weddings, and the complicano doubt written in the six weeks immediately tions of the last act are thorough and yet natpreceding, for on May 30, Dekker had received ural. In other words, the play holds together payment for Agamemnon ; the world-wide dif- well-it is Dekker's most coherent piece of ference in subject matter between two con- plotting. The weakest link in the chain, the secutive plays is suggestive of the versatility point where credulity is subjected to the of the popular playwright, as the short in- severest strain, is the opportune removal by terim is of the forced draught under which death of so many aldermen as stood between he worked. The play was performed by the Eyre and the Lord Mayoralty (IV. iv), but Admiral's Men at the Rose; its success we it would be captious to inquire too closely may inter from the fact that on New Year's into the ways of Providence when it comes Day of 1600 it was acted at court, a distinc- to the aid of a hard-pressed dramatist. tion which had been granted on December 27, The romantic plot has been criticised as

What we remember from Middleton is the matter of sympathy with the life about them, story, the ingenious intrigue, and the social and the sympathetic display of the author's background; he created no characters so sym- personality in his work; where Middleton pathetic or of such enduring vitality as Eyre, completely effaces himself, always in Dekker's Friscobaldo in The Honest Whore, and the plays we feel the man himself, cheery, heroine in Patient Grissil. Middleton and friendly, lovable. Dekker part company most widely in this