subtle strokes with which, at any later time, he would have prepared the way for it. In fact, however, Shakespeare never again suggested that a true lover can give up his love for his friend. (3) The affinities of The Two Gentlemen with Romeo and Juliet have been often noticed. They point, not assuredly to his having already written the great tragedy, but to his being already familiar with the novel in verse-the History of Romeus and Juliet, by Arthur Brooke (1562),—to which he presently gave a more potent transformation. Thus Sir Thurio is a faint sketch of the County Paris, the duke's threats to Silvia anticipate the more realistic fury of old Capulet, Valentine's 'banished' cry is the prelude to Romeo's, his ladder-device and the rendezvous at Friar Patrick's cell have their obvious counterparts. The name Julia was perhaps suggested by Juliet, although, as we see, it is rather Silvia's story to which Juliet's lends colour.1 (4) All these stories Shakespeare probably knew as plays, even in 1562 Brooke declares that he had seen Romeo and Juliet on the stage,—but none are accessible to us in any dramatic form he can have known; the German prose of Julius and Hippolyta being, in any case, but a rude paraphrase of the original. The case is different, however, with a fourth story. Fidele and Fortunio the Receipts of Love discoursed in a Comedie of ij Italian Gentlemen, translated into English by A. M., is the title in the Sta. Reg., 1584, of a play extant in only two copies. In both copies the title-page is lost; the running title is Two Italian Gentlemen. The translator was very probably Anthony Munday, 1 This correspondence of Silvia in situation-as of Julia in name to Juliet may explain the confusion which has crept in at iii. 1. 81, where Verona, Juliet's city, is put for Milan, elsewhere Silvia's. In iv. 5. I and v. 4. 129 Milan is also replaced by Padua. who has been thought to be ridiculed in Love's Labour's Lost as Anthony Dull. The action is a specimen of the perfectly-developed love-intrigue, the 'two Italian gentlemen' being suitors to two Italian ladies (Victoria and Virginia) each of whom loves the other's suitor. To this scheme the plots both of the Midsummer Night's Dream and of The Two Gentlemen approximate. But the suits are here prosecuted with the aid of an enchantress and waxen images— an unwholesome Italian device adopted by Middleton in The Witch, but of which Shakespeare in serious drama kept wholly aloof, though he allows his Fairies to make and mar the foolish fates of mortals with the magical love-juice. But Proteus is made to borrow a fine illustration from the use of waxen images in witchcraft (ii. 4. 201). The most interesting feature of the Two Italian Gentlemen, however, is the frequency with which the verse breaks into lyrical symmetries and alternations of rhyme and rhythm. As thus: Their promises are made of brittle glass Ground with a fillip to the finest dust, From this to the lyric quatrains of Shakespeare's early comedies is no very considerable step. (5) Slight affinities have also been suggested to the Arcadia, especially in Valentine's reception by the outlaws. These greenwood scenes are almost 1 This has been held, without sufficient reason, to point to Shakespeare's knowledge of Giordano Bruno's Candelajo, where Bonifacio, to win the love of Vittoria, resorts to a conjurer, who tells him to hold a wax image of her to the fire, but without melting it. too slight and unsubstantial for comparison-nowhere else has Shakespeare sung of the woods with so complete a suppression of his 'wood-notes wild'; but the faint hints of Arcadian forests seem at least to be mingled with other hints as faint of English Sherwood. Silvia can contemplate the contingency of being 'a breakfast' for 'a hungry lion' (v. 4. 33),-as Puck will presently hear one 'roar' in the Attic woods (Midsummer-Night's Dream, v. 1. 378); but this romantic touch is balanced by the palpable reminiscence of Robin Hood's code ('to do no outrages on silly women and poor passengers,' iv. 1. 71), and the mention of Robin Hood by name (iv. 1. 36). The Italian traits of character in the Duke and in Proteus are similarly balanced by the purely English topography; the Two Gentlemen go by river from Verona to Milan, and by a river which ebbs and flows (ii. 3. 58) like the Thames. (6) A like slender link connects Launce and Speed with the punning clowns of Lyly, in particular with Licio and Petulius in his Midas (1589). Affected misunderstandings are a part of the method of both. E.g. in the Midas— Licio. She hath the eares of a want. Pet. Doth she want eares? Licio. I say the eares of a want, a mole. And Speed retorts upon Launce after a similar feat: 'Well, your old vice still, mistake the word.' But Speed's wit, though often puerile enough, is more various and sprightly than his forerunner's, and Launce belongs to a region of humour wholly inaccessible to Lyly. In lifelike vigour of drawing he is inferior to none of Shakespeare's later clowns, but he is inferior in dramatic fitness for his place. He is not a vital limb in the organic body of the play. He does not help to move the main action, as Bottom and the VOL. I 209 P Nurse and Touchstone do. Half a dozen years later, when Rosalind and Celia were in the plight of Silvia, a function was found for Touchstone as their indispensable escort. Speed and Launce are obviously not made for so fine a service, and Silvia's embarrassment has to be relieved by the suddenly improvised creation of the chivalrous Sir Eglamour. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT I. SCENE I. Verona. An open place. Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS. Val. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus: But since thou lovest, love still and thrive therein, Pro. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu ! Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest Wish me partaker in thy happiness When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger, If ever danger do environ thee, 8. shapeless, devoid of definite aim. IC |