THE FATAL DOWRY

BY PHILIP MASSINGER AND NATHANIEL FIELD

EDITED, FROM THE ORIGINAL QUARTO, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

A DISSERTATION presented to the Faculty of Princeton University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

BY CHARLES LACY LOCKERT, Jr. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, KENYON COLLEGE

PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY LANCASTER, PA. 1918

Accepted by the Department of English, June, 1916

PREFACE

This critical edition of The Fatal Dowry was undertaken as a Thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. at Princeton University. It was compiled under the guidance and direction of Professor T. M. Parrott of that institution, and every page of it is indebted to him for suggestion, advice, and criticism. I can but inadequately indicate the scope of his painstaking and scholarly supervision, and can even less adequately express my appreciation of his ever-patient aid, which alone made this work possible.

I desire also to acknowledge my debt to Professor J. Duncan Spaeth of Princeton University, for his valuable suggestions in regard to the presentation of my material, notably in the Introduction; also to Professor T. W. Baldwin of Muskingum College and Mr. Henry Bowman, both of them then fellow graduate students of mine at Princeton, for assistance on several occasions in matters of special inquiry; and to Dr. M. W. Tyler of the Princeton Department of History for directing me in clearing up a lego-historical point; and finally to the libraries of Yale and Columbia Universities for their kind loan of needed books.

INTRODUCTION

In the Stationer’s Register the following entry is recorded under the date of “30º Martij 1632:”

CONSTABLE Entred for his copy vnder the hands of Sir HENRY HERBERT and master SMITHWICKE warden a Tragedy called the ffatall Dowry. Vj d.

In the year 1632 was published a quarto volume whose title-page was inscribed: The Fatall Dowry: a Tragedy: As it hath been often Acted at the Private House in Blackfriars, by his Majesties Servants. Written by P. M. and N. F. London, Printed by John Norton, for Francis Constable, and are to be sold at his shop at the Crane, in Pauls Churchyard. 1632.

That the initials by which the authors are designated stand for Philip Massinger and Nathaniel Field is undoubted.

Later Texts

There is no other seventeenth century edition of The Fatal Dowry. It was included in various subsequent collections, as follows:

In addition to the above, The Fatal Dowry appeared in The Plays of Philip Massinger, adapted for family reading and the use of young persons, by the omission of objectionable passages,—edited by Harness, 1830–1; and another expurgated version was printed in the Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor, 1810. Both of these are based on the text of Gifford.

The edition of Coxeter is closest of all to the Quarto, following even many of its most palpable mistakes, and adding some blunders on its own account. Mason accepts practically all of Coxeter’s corrections, and supplies a great many more variants himself, not all of which are very happy. Both these eighteenth century editors continually contract for the sake of securing a perfectly regular metre (e. g.: You’re for You are, I, i, 139; th’ honours for the honours, I, ii, 35; etc.), while Gifford’s tendency is to give the full form for even the contractions of the Quarto, changing its ’em’s to them’s, etc. Gifford can scarce find words sharp enough to express his scorn for his predecessors in their lack of observance of the text of the Quarto, yet he himself frequently repeats their gratuitous emendations when the original was a perfectly sure guide, and he has almost a mania for tampering with the Quarto on his own account. Symons’ Mermaid text, while based essentially on that of Gifford, in a number of instances departs from it, sometimes to make further

emendations, but more often to go back from those of Gifford to the version of the original, so that on the whole this is the best text yet published.

There has been a German translation by the Graf von Baudisson, under the title of Die Unselige Mitgift, in his Ben Jonson und seine Schule, Leipsig, 1836; and a French translation, in prose, under the title of La dot fatale by E. Lafond in Contemporains de Shakespeare, Paris, 1864.

Date

The date of the composition or original production of The Fatal Dowry is not known. The Quarto speaks of it as having been “often acted,” so there is nothing to prevent our supposing that it came into existence many years before its publication. It does not seem to have been entered in Sir Henry Herbert’s Office Book.1 This would indicate its appearance to have been prior to Herbert’s assumption of the duties of his office in August, 1623. In seeking a more precise date we can deal only in probabilities.2

The play having been produced by the King’s Men, a company in which Field acted, it was most probably written during his association therewith. This was formed in 1616; the precise date of his retirement from the stage is not known. His name appears in the patent of March 27, 1619, just after the death of Burbage, and again and for the last time in a livery list for his Majesty’s Servants, dated May 19, 1619. It is absent from the next grant for livery (1621) and from the actors’ lists for various plays which are assigned to 1619 or 1620. We may therefore assume safely that his connection with the stage ended before the close of 1619. On the basis of probability, then, the field is narrowed to 1616–19.3

More or less presumptive evidence may be adduced for a yet more specific dating. During these years that Field acted with the King’s Men, two plays appeared which bear strong internal evidence of being products of his collaboration with Massinger and Fletcher: The Knight of Malta and The Queen of Corinth. While several parallels of phraseology are afforded for The Fatal Dowry by these (as, indeed, by every one of the works of Massinger) they are not nearly so numerous or so striking as similarities discoverable between it and certain other dramas of the Massinger corpus. With none does the connection seem so intimate as with The Unnatural Combat. Both plays open with a scene in which a young suppliant for a father’s cause is counseled, in passages irresistibly reminiscent of each other, to lay aside pride and modesty for the parent’s sake, because not otherwise can justice be gained, and it is the custom of the age to sue for it shamelessly. Moreover, the offer by Beaufort and his associates to Malefort of any boon he may desire as a recompense for his

service, and his acceptance of it, correspond strikingly in both conduct and language with the conferring of a like favor upon Rochfort by the Court (I, ii, 258 ff.); while the request which Malefort prefers, that his daughter be married to Beaufort Junior, and the language with which that young man acknowledges this meets his own dearest wish, bear a no less patent resemblance to the bestowal of Beaumelle upon Charalois (II, ii, 284–297). Now this last parallel is significant, because The Unnatural Combat is an unaided production of Massinger, while the analogue in The Fatal Dowry occurs in a scene that is by the hand of Field. The similarity may, of course, be only an accident, but presumably it is not. Then did Field borrow from Massinger, or did Massinger from Field? The most plausible theory is that The Unnatural Combat was written immediately after The Fatal Dowry, when Massinger’s mind was so saturated with the contents of the tragedy just laid aside that he was liable to echo in the new drama the expressions and import of lines in the old, whether by himself

or his collaborator. That at any rate the chronological relationship of the two plays is one of juxtaposition is further attested by the fact that in minor parallelisms,4 too, to The Fatal Dowry, The Unnatural Combat is richer than any other work of Massinger.

Unfortunately The Unnatural Combat is itself another play of whose date no more can be said with assurance than that it preceeds the entry of Sir Henry Herbert into office in 1623, though its crude horrors, its ghost, etc., suggest moreover that it is its author’s initial independent venture in the field of tragedy, his Titus Andronicus, an ill-advised attempt to produce something after the “grand manner” of half a generation back. Next in closeness to The Fatal Dowry among the works of Massinger as regards the number of its reminiscences of phraseology stands his share of The Virgin Martyr; next in closeness as regards the strikingness of these parallels stands his share of The Little French Lawyer. These two plays can be dated circa 1620.

To sum up:

The Fatal Dowry appears to antedate the installation of Sir Henry Herbert in 1623.

It was probably written while Field was with the King’s Men; with whom he became associated in 1616, and whom he probably quitted in 1619.

The indications point to its composition during the latter part of this three-year period (1616–19), for it yields more and closer parallels to The Virgin Martyr and The Little French Lawyer, dated about 1620, than to The Knight of Malta and The Queen of Corinth, dated 1617–8,—closer, indeed, than to any work of Massinger save one, The Unnatural Combat, itself an undated but evidently early play, with which its relationship is clearly of the most intimate variety.

The following (at best hazardously conjectural) scheme of sequence may be advanced:

Fletcher and Massinger and Field together wrote The Knight of Malta and The Queen of Corinth—according to received theory, in 1617 or 1618. Thereafter, the last two collaborators (desirous, perhaps, of trying what they could do unaided and unshackled by the dominating association of the chief dramatist of the day) joined hands in the production of the tragedy which is the subject of our study. Then, upon Field’s retirement, Massinger struck off, with The Unnatural Combat, into unassisted composition; but we next find him, whether because he recognized the short-comings of this turgid play or for other reasons, again in double harness, at work upon The Virgin Martyr and The Little French Lawyer. On this hypothesis, The Fatal Dowry would be dated 1618–9.

Sources

No source is known for the main plot of The Fatal Dowry. A Spanish original has been suspected, but it has never come to light. The stress laid throughout the action on that peculiarly Spanish conception of “the point of honor” (see under Critical Estimate, in consideration of the character of Charalois) is unquestionably suggestive of the land south of the Pyrenees, and we have an echo of Don Quixote in the exclamation of Charalois (III, i, 441): “Away, thou curious impertinent.” The identification, however, of the situation at Aymer’s house in IV, ii with a scene in Cervantes’ El viejo celoso (Obras Completas De Cervantes, Tomo XII, p. 277) is extremely fanciful. The only similarity consists in the circumstance that in both, while the husband is on the stage, the wife, who, unknown to him, entertains a lover in the next room, is heard speaking within. But this is a spontaneous outcry on the part of Beaumelle, who does not suspect the proximity of her husband, and her discovery follows, and from this the denouement of the play; whereas in Cervantes’

entremes the wife deliberately calls in bravado to her niece, who is also on-stage, and boasts of her lover,—and the husband thinks this is in jest, and nothing comes of it but comedy.

The theme of the son’s redemption of his father’s corpse by his own captivity is from the classical story of Cimon and Miltiades, as narrated by Valerius Maximus, De dictis factisque memorabilibus, etc. Lib. V, cap. III. De ingratis externorum: Bene egissent Athenienses cum Miltiade, si eum post trecenta millia Persarum Marathone devicta, in exilium protinus misissent, ac non in carcere et vinculis mori coegissent; sed, ut puto, hactenus saevire adversus optime meritum abunde duxerunt: immo ne corpus quidem eius, sic expirare coacti sepulturae primus mandari passi sunt, quam filius eius Cimon eisdem vinculis se constrigendum traderet. Hanc hereditatem paternam maximi ducis filius, et futurus ipse aetatis suae dux maximus, solam se crevisse, catenas et carcerem, gloriari potuit.

In the version of Cornelius Nepos (Vitae, Cimon I) Cimon is incarcerated against his will.

The action of the play is given the historical setting of the later fifteenth century wars of Louis XI of France and Charles the Bold of Burgundy, although this background is extremely hazy. The hero’s name is the title which Charles bore while heir-apparent to the Duchy of Burgundy; mention is made of Charles himself (“The warlike Charloyes,” I, ii, 171), to Louis (“the subtill Fox of France, The politique Lewis,” I, ii, 123–4), and to “the more desperate Swisse” (I, ii, 124), against whom Charles lost his life and the power of Burgundy was broken; while the three great defeats he suffered at their hands, Granson, Morat, Nancy, are named in I, ii, 170. Shortly after these disasters the events which the play sets forth must be supposed to occur; the parliament by which in our drama Dijon is governed was established by Louis XI when he annexed Burgundy in 1477 and thereby abolished her ducal independence.

Collaboration

It is doubtful if Massinger ever collaborated with any author whose manner harmonized as well with his own as did Field’s. In his partnership with Decker in The Virgin Martyr, the alternate hands of the two dramatists afford a weird contrast.5 His union with Fletcher was less incongruous, but Fletcher was too much inclined to take the bit between his teeth to be a comfortable companion in double harness,6 and at all times his volatile, prodigal genius paired ill with the earnest, painstaking, not over-poetic moralist. But in Field Massinger found an associate whose connection with himself was not only congenial, but even beneficial, to the end that together they could achieve certain results of which either was individually incapable; just as it has been established was the case in the Middleton-Rowley collaboration. To a formal element of verse different, indeed, from Massinger’s, but not obtrusively so, a certain moral fibre of his own (perhaps derived from his clerical antecedents), and a like familiarity with stage technique, Field added qualities which Massinger

notably lacked, and thereby complemented him: a light and vigorous (if sometimes coarse) comic touch as opposed to Massinger’s cumbrous humor; a freshness and first-hand acquaintance with life as opposed to Massinger’s bookishness; a capacity to visualize and individualize character as opposed to Massinger’s weakness for drawing types rather than people. The fruit of their joint endeavors testifies to a harmonious, conscientious, and mutually respecting partnership.

In consideration of the above, it is surprising how substantially in accord are most of the opinions that have been expressed concerning the share of the play written by each author.

“A critical reader,” says Monck Mason, “will perceive that Rochfort and Charalois speak a different language in the Second and Third Acts, from that which they speak in the first and last, which are undoubtedly Massinger’s; as is also Part of the Fourth Act, but not the whole of it.”

Dr. Ireland, in a postscript to the text of The Fatal Dowry in Gifford’s edition, agrees with Mason in assigning the Second Act to Field and also the First Scene of the Fourth Act; the Third Act, however, he claims for Massinger, as well as that share of the play with which Mason credits him. Fleay and Boyle, the chief modern commentators who have taken up the question of the division of authorship with the aid of metrical tests and other criteria, agree fairly well with the speculations of their less scientific predecessors, and adopt an intermediate, reconciling position on the disputed Third Act, dividing it between the two dramatists.7

Boyle (Englische Studien, V, 94) assigns to Massinger Act I; Act III as far as line 316; Act IV, Scenes ii, iii, and iv; and the whole of Act V, with the exception of Scene ii, lines 80–120, which he considers an interpolation of Field, whom he also believes to have revised the latter part of I, ii (from Exeunt Officers with Romont to end).

Fleay (Chron. Eng. Dra., I, 208) exactly agrees with this division save that the latter part of I, ii, which Boyle believes emended by Field, he assigns to that author outright; and that he places the division in Act III twenty-seven lines later (Field after Manent Char. Rom.).

In my own investigation I have used for each Scene the following tests to distinguish the hands of the two authors:

(a) Broad aesthetic considerations: the comparison of style and method of treatment with the known work of either dramatist.

(b) The test of parallel phrases. Massinger’s habit of repeating himself is notorious. I have gone through the entire body of his work, both that which appears under his name, and that which has been assigned to him by modern research in the Beaumont & Fletcher plays, and noted all expressions I found analogous to any which occur in The Fatal Dowry. I have done the same for Field’s work, examining his two comedies, Woman is a Weathercock and Amends for Ladies, and Acts I and V of The Knight of Malta and III and IV of The Queen of Corinth, which the consensus of critical opinion recognizes (in my judgment, correctly) as his. He is generally believed to have collaborated also in The Honest Man’s Fortune, but the exact extent of his work therein is so uncertain that I have not deemed it a proper field from which to adduce evidence. His hand has been asserted by one authority or another to appear in various other plays of the period, he having served, as it were, the role of a literary scapegoat on whom it was convenient to father any Scene not identified

as belonging to Beaumont, Fletcher, or Massinger; but there is no convincing evidence for his participation in the composition of any extant dramas save the above named.

(c) Metrical tests. I have computed the figures for The Fatal Dowry in regard to double or feminine endings and run-on lines. Massinger’s verse displays high percentages (normally 30 per cent, to 45 per cent.) in the case of either. Field’s verse varies considerably in the matter of run-on lines at various periods of his life, but the proportion of them is always smaller than Massinger’s. His double endings average about 18 per cent. I have also counted in each Scene the number of speeches that end within the line, and that end with the line, respectively. (Speeches ending with fragmentary lines are considered to have mid-line endings.) This is declared by Oliphant (Eng. Studien, XIV, 72) the surest test for the work of Massinger. “His percentage of speeches,” he says, “that end where the verses end is ordinarily as low as 15.” This is a tremendous exaggeration, but it is true that the ratio of mid-line endings is much higher in Massinger than in any of his contemporaries—commonly 2:1, or higher.