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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. JAN. 29, 1916.
stamp of Dekker. It was the Queen-Mother's exhortation to the musicians:
Chime out your softest strains of harmony,
And on delicious music's silken wings
Send ravishing delight to my love's ears,
That he may be enamour'd of your tunes.
Let the reader compare this passage with these from Dekker's acknowledged works:
Music, talk louder, that thy silver voice
May reach my sovereign's ears.
Go, let music
Charm with her excellent voice an awful silence
Through all the building, that her sphery soul
May, on the wings of air, in thousand forms
Invisibly fly, yet be enjoy'd.
. . . .take instruments,
And let the raptures of choice harmony
Thorough the hollow windings of his ear
Carry their sacred sounds, and wake each sense
To stand amazed at our bright eminence.
. . . .and secretly
Commanded music with her silver tongue
To chime soft lullabies into her soul.
Not only had Dekker, as these passages show, a keen appreciation of music, but he had (as we shall see later) a great idea of its power to excite amorous desire, and it is to rouse passion in Eleazar that the Queen- Mother invokes the aid of her musicians. Immediately following the lines above quoted she begs a kiss from him, but he repels her with impatience :
Eleazar. Away, away !
Queen- Mother. No, no, says ay ; and twice away says stay.
So in 'The Shoemaker's Holiday,' when Jane rejects Hammon's advances with " I love not you," he replies :
All this, I hope, is but a woman's fray
That means : come to me, when she cries: away!
In this same scene Eleazar has a speech :
I cannot ride through the Castilian streets
But thousand eyes, through windows and through
doors,
Throw killing looks at me, and every slave At Eleazar darts a finger out, And every hissing tongue cries " There's the Moor !
closely resembling one of Galloway's speeches in Act III. sc. i. of ' Old Fortunatus ' :
. . . see, from the windows Of every eye derision thrusts out cheeks, Wrinkled with idiot laughter ; every finger Is like a dart shot from the hand of scorn.
In Act I. sc. ii. Alvero announces to Eleazar that the King is at the point of death : Death's frozen hand holds royal Philip's heart ;
while in ' Old Fortunatus' (V. ii.) Ampedo,
with his last breath, exclaims :
Death's frozen hand Congeals life's little river in my breast.
The next passage to be noted is in the first speech of the dying King Philip in I. iii- The Queen-Mother, thanking Heaven that she finds him still alive, expresses the hope- that he may yet live
to see Unnumber'd years to guide this empery.
The King replies :
The number of my years ends in one day :
Ere this sun's down, all a king's glory sets.
It is interesting to compare the sentiments of the speeches put into the mouths of dying men by contemporary dramatists. The last thoughts of Dekker' s characters are not of their physical sensations, nor of their sins nor the world to come, but of the transitoriness of life, which in one day or minute is brought to a close. Thus in ' Old Fortunatus,' V. ii., Andelocia assures the dying Ampedo that Fortune's "next morn's eye " shall " overshine the sun in majesty." Ampedo replies: But this sad night shall make an end of me.
The sentiment will be found twice again in the same play: in the first scene, where Fortunatus hesitates in his choice between the gifts offered him by Fortune : The greatest strength expires in loss of breath, The mightiest in one minute stoop to death ;
and in II. ii. where death comes to Fortunatus himself, and he exclaims :
No hand can conquer fate ; This instant is the last of my life's date.
To return to our play, we see Dekker r s hand again a few lines further on :
When a few dribbling minutes have run out, Mine hour is ended.
Compare :
.... those short-lived minutes That dribble out your life.
' Old Fortunatus,' II. ii.
In Act I. sc. iv. w r e have :
Alvero. . . . awake thy soul,
And on thy resolution fasten wings W T hose golden feathers may outstrip their hate,
Eleazar. I'll tie no golden feathers to my wings.
Reference to the pages of ' Old Fortunatus ' will show how constantly " wings " figure in Dekker' s metaphor at this time, and in one of the scenes he contributed to ' The Roaring Girl' (IV. ii.) we get :
Husband, I plucked,
W T hen he had tempted me to think well of him,.
Gilt feathers from thy wings, to make him fly
More lofty.
