to Venus, sought her in Cyprus and elsewhere, till at last he inquired of a shepherd in the valley by Mount Erycinus (Eryx, in Sicily, from which Venus was named Erycina). The shepherd gave as his opinion of Venus, that "bitter sauces be her chiefest delicates, and these painted sepulchers her richest trophies." "Pilgrim, I may say to thee, Wives, be they neuer so watcht, they will: Maides, be they neuer so bashfull, they wish and Widdowes, be they neuer so coy, they would take me not generally Pilgrime, quoth hee, and with that sitting downe he tooke his pipe in his hand, and plaid so sweetly, that like Argus at Mercuries melodie I fell on sleepe." 66 Mercury took the Pilgrim in his dreaming to a feast of the gods, who sent for the ghosts of Orpheus and Arion to make them music. From Orpheus and Arion came Orpharion," the name of the instrument from which Greene took the title for this pamphlet. Orpheus sang of Eurydice, and told a tale of Lidia, the cruel daughter of Astolpho, King of Lydia, who misused Alcestes, the great knight of Thracia, her faithful lover, and brought him by her practices to a death by starvation, which her people revenged in like manner on herself. Then Arion sang a ditty of grief for sickness of his lady Thetis, and told the story of a faithful Argentina, married to Philomenes, the Prince of Corinth. A neighbouring prince, Marcion, besieged Argentina with his love, and, when she steadily refused him, Marcion made war on her husband. Then Argentina stayed the strife by promising to yield to Marcion if, after three days of starvation, he preferred her to a dish of meat. If he did not, he was pledged to trouble her no more. At the end of the three days, Argentina triumphed with a stew. The tale told, Mars observed, "We see by this event, that as women have their vanities whereby to be checked, so they have instrument having more strings and stops than the lute, and stringed with wire instead of catgut. S-VOL. IX. their virtues redounding greatly to their praise, being both affable and constant, although that single instance of Orpheus and his Lidia did inferre the contrary." A gallant speech from Mars, and true withal. The gallantry of Mars among the gods became so choleric that at last he clapped. hand upon his sword against those who taunted women with inconstancy, and clapped his other hand upon the board with a noise that awoke the poet, "not knowing," he said, “what became of the gods or of Arion's soule, only I remembred their tales." Being awake, he saw the shepherd again, who told him that all dreams on Mount Erycinus will prove true, and he hasted home cured of his restless fancy. In 1589 Robert Greene produced also "Tullie's Love" and "Menaphon." In 1590-he lived only until 1592Greene's books became very serious, and began to include passages of self-condemnation. "Ciceronis Amor, Tullie's Love," published in 1589, was the most popular of Greene's novels. There were ten Tullie's Love." Latin. editions of it between 1589 and 1639. Thomas Watson was among the friends who prefixed verses of commendation, his being six lines in In this tale Lentulus, a young general victorious over the Parthians, is feasted by the senator Flaminius, father of Terentia. Love is discussed at dinner. Lentulus becomes enamoured of Terentia, whose friend Flavia becomes enamoured of Lentulus. Lentulus goes home, and finds a friend ready to welcome him, who has brought with him Cicero, a youth of twenty, already famous for his eloquence. Lentulus and Cicero become friends, and Cicero dictates a love-letter from Lentulus that Terentia shall be unable to resist. It is given by Greene in Latin as well as in English, and a Latin poem is among the English songs and verses interspersed, as usual, in the telling of the tale. Flavia detects in that letter from Lentulus the style of Cicero. Terentia becomes enamoured of Cicero, and By that He resigns Terentia Such is the theme of writes to Lentulus a letter of strong refusal. Cicero becomes enamoured of Terentia, but still, resisting his own passion, pleads honourably for his friend. Fabius, who has been a dissolute youth, loves Terentia, and is purified by love of all his grossness. Terentia fixes her heart on Cicero, whose self-denying efforts on behalf of his friend Lentulus bring on him serious illness. Then Lentulus picks up in his friend's room a letter from Terentia, reproaching Cicero for his continued abnegation of her love in favour of his friend. After this Lentulus seeks only the welfare of his friend. Fabius raises an armed faction to kill the favoured Cicero. Lentulus is Cicero's defender. The civil broil is brought before the Senate, and Cicero, in an oration, now offers to sacrifice his private desire to the common good. speech Fabius is brought to reason. to Cicero. Lentulus marries Flavia. Greene's novel called "Tullie's Love," "wherein," as its title-page set forth, "is discoursed the prime of Ciceroes youth, setting out in liuely portratures how young Gentlemen that ayme at honour should leuell the end of their affections, holding the love of countrie and friends in more esteeme than those fading blossomes of beautie that onely feede the curious suruey of the eye. A worke full of pleasure as following Ciceroes vaine, who was as conceipted in his youth as graue in his age, profitable as conteining precepts worthie. so famous an Orator." But, in his prefatory note to the gentle readers, Greene pleaded, in effect, that attempt to imitate the style of Cicero had somewhat spoilt his style as euphuist, even after he had credited the young Cicero with a liking for conceits that disappeared in his maturer life. The dedication was to Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, who died Earl of Derby, and left as a widow the lady who in her maidenhood was Alice Spenser, with whom Edmund Spenser claimed a tie of kindred and whom Spenser praised, and in whose praise, in her old age, Milton wrote his "Arcades." The persons to whom Greene dedicated his love pamphlets could hardly have been friends of a ruffian, and the worthiness of aim in all these little books is not to be lost sight of when we would be judges of their author's character. Greene's "Menaphon: Camilla's Alarum to slumbering Euphues in his melancholie Cell at Silexedra," was also published in 1589, and was the book in which young Thomas Nash made his first appearance as a writer, with a long prefatory address "To the Gentlemen Students of both Universities." "Menaphon." Sidney's "Arcadia" was first published in 1590, a year later than "Menaphon"; but there is close kindred between the larger work and Greene's little love pamphlet, and there is no story of Greene's in which there are so many little poems interspersed. Menaphon is chief shepherd to Democles, King of Arcadia, who has sent adrift in a boat, without oar or mariner, his daughter Sephestia, with her husband Maximus and their infant son; Lamedon, the king's brother, resolving to go with them. Democles has lost his wife also through grief at the fate of her daughter, and his land is smitten with a plague. For remedy against the pestilence he sends two of his lords to Delphos, who bring back an oracle that no man can interpret. They must wait until time brings the answer to the riddle. Menaphon goes to the shore to see that no sheep have straggled thither to browse on sea-ivy, complains at love, and sings a song, this being the first of its two stanzas― "Some say Love, Foolish Love, Doth rule and govern all the gods, I say Love, Inconstant Love, Sets men's senses far at odds. Some swear Love, Smooth'd-face Love, Is sweetest sweet that men can have : I say Love, Sour Love, Makes virtue yield as beauty's slave, That forceth wisdom to be folly's thrall." Then Menaphon sees Sephestia, with her infant and her old uncle Lamedon, cast on the shore with the wreck of their vessel. Not knowing who they are, he wonders at the beauty of the lady. Sephestia sings a lullaby to her child with the burden 66 Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, When thou art old, that's grief enough for thee." The old man, the lady, and the child are lodged by Menaphon in his own cot, where his sister Carmela is the housewife. Sephestia, who thinks her husband lost under the waves, conceals her name and rank. She calls herself Samela, parrying the love of Menaphon, who sings to her a roundelay. Samela tends the sheep of Menaphon—the fairest shepherdess in Arcady. Maximus, too, has come to shore and settled near by as a shepherd, having changed his name to Melicertus. Melicertus meets Samela. They are drawn to love, but do not recognise each other. Where's the romance when incidents look possible? Menaphon's neighbour, Doron, first describes Samela to Melicertus in a song beginning "Like to Diana in her summer weed, Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed, Husband and wife meet as strangers at a shepherds' festival, and enter on the path of love without knowing that they have already travelled it together, although each reminds the other of the lost one. The shepherdess Pesana, who loves Menaphon, is jealous of Menaphon's regard towards Samela. Menaphon, who loves Samela, becomes jealous of Samela's regard for Melicertus, who pipes a musical description of his mistress, and at the end of a love-suit sings to her a madrigal. When five years old he Samela's child, named Pleusidippus, grows. is perfect in beauty, and has also the temper of a king. His playfellows have made him King of the May, and he shows himself to be resolute and despotic. The boy, when gathering stones and cockles on the shore, |