INTRODUCTION TO TWO TRAGEDIES IN ONE.
Reading edition
Of Robert Yarington, the author of Two Tragedies in One absolutely nothing is known. There is no mention of him in Henslowe's Diary, and none of his contemporaries (so far as I can discover) make the slightest allusion to him. The Two Tragedies is of the highest rarity and has never been reprinted before.
There are two distinct plots in the present play. The one relates to the murder of Robert Beech, a chandler of Thames Street, and his boy, by a tavern-keeper named Thomas Merry; and the other is founded on a story which bears some resemblance to the well-known ballad of The Babes in the Wood. I have not been able to discover the source from which the playwright drew his account of the Thames Street murder. Holinshed and Stow are silent; and I have consulted without avail Antony Munday's "View of Sundry Examples," 1580, and "Sundry strange and inhumaine Murthers lately committed," 1591 (an excessively rare, if not unique, tract preserved at Lambeth). Yet the murder must have created some stir and was not lightly forgotten. From Henslowe's Diary[3] (ed. Collier, pp. 92-3) we learn that in 1599 Haughton and Day wrote a tragedy on the subject,—"the Tragedy of Thomas Merrye." The second plot was derived, I suppose, from some Italian story; and it is not improbable that the ballad of the Babes in the Wood (which was entered in the Stationers' Books in 1595, tho' the earliest printed copy extant is the black-letter broadside—circ. 1640?—in the Roxburghe Collection) was adapted from Yarington's play.
Although not published until 1601, the Two Tragedies would seem from internal evidence to have been written some years earlier. The language has a bald, antiquated look, and the stage-directions are amusingly simple. I once entertained a theory (which I cannot bring myself to wholly discard) that Arden of Feversham, 1592, Warning for Fair Women, 1599, and Two Tragedies in One, 1601, are all by the same hand; that the Warning and Two Tragedies, though published later, were early essays by the author whose genius displayed its full power in Arden of Feversham. A reader who will take the trouble to read the three plays together will discover many points of similarity between them. Arden is far more powerful than the two other plays; but I venture to think that the superiority lies rather in single scenes and detached passages than in general dramatic treatment. The noble scene of the quarrel and reconciliation between Alice Arden and Mosbie is incomparably finer than any scene in the Warning or Two Tragedies; but I am not sure that Arden contains another scene which can be definitely pronounced to be beyond Yarington's ability, though there are many scattered passages displaying such poetry as we find nowhere in the Two Tragedies. That Yarington could write vigorously is shown in the scene where Fallerio hires the two murderers (who remind us of Shagbag and Black Will in Arden) to murder his nephew; and again in the quarrel between these two ruffians. Allenso's affection for his little cousin and solicitude at their parting are tenderly portrayed with homely touches of quiet pathos. The diction of the Two Tragedies is plain and unadorned. In reading Arden we sometimes feel that the simplicity of language has been deliberately adopted for artistic purposes; that the author held plenty of strength in reserve, and would not have been wanting if the argument had demanded a loftier style. In Yarington's case we have no such feeling. He seems to be giving us the best that he had to give; and it must be confessed that he is intolerably flat at times. It is difficult to resist a smile when the compassionate Neighbour (in his shirt), discovering poor Thomas Winchester with the hammer sticking in his head, delivers himself after this fashion:—
"What cruell hand hath done so foule a deede, Thus to bemangle a distressed youth Without all pittie or a due remorse! See how the hammer sticketh in his head Wherewith this honest youth is done to death! Speak, honest Thomas, if any speach remaine: What cruell hand hath done this villanie?"
Merry's "last dying speech and confession" is as nasty as such things usually are.
In the introduction to Arden of Feversham I intend to return to the consideration of Yarington's Two Tragedies.
Two Lamentable Tragedies.
The one, of the Murther of Maister Beech A Chaundler in Thames-streete, and his boye, done by Thomas Merry.
The other of a Young childe murthered in a Wood by two Ruffins, with the consent of his Vnckle.
By ROB. YARINGTON.
LONDON.
Printed for _Mathew Lawe, and are to be solde at his Shop in Paules Church-yarde neere vnto S. Austines Gate, at the signe of the Foxe. 1601.
Two Tragedies in One.
Enter Homicide, solus.
I have in vaine past through each stately streete, And blinde-fold turning of this happie towne, For wealth, for peace, and goodlie government, Yet can I not finde out a minde, a heart For blood and causelesse death to harbour in; They all are bent with vertuous gainefull trade, To get their needmentes for this mortall life, And will not soile their well-addicted harts With rape, extortion, murther, or the death Of friend or foe, to gaine an Empery. I cannot glut my blood-delighted eye With mangled bodies which do gaspe and grone, Readie to passe to faire Elizium, Nor bath my greedie handes in reeking blood Of fathers by their children murthered: When all men else do weepe, lament and waile, The sad exploites of fearefull tragedies, It glads me so, that it delightes my heart, To ad new tormentes to their bleeding smartes.
Enter Avarice.
But here comes Avarice, as if he sought, Some busie worke for his pernicious thought: Whether so fast, all-griping Avarice?
Ava. Why, what carst thou? I seeke for one I misse.
Ho. I may supplie the man you wish to have.
Ava. Thou seemes to be a bold audatious knave; I doe not like intruding companie, That seeke to undermine my secrecie.
Ho. Mistrust me not; I am thy faithfull friend.
Ava. Many say so, that prove false in the end.
Ho. But turne about and thou wilt know my face.
Ava. It may be so, and know thy want of grace. What! Homicide? thou art the man I seeke: I reconcile me thus upon thy cheeke. [Kisse, imbrace. Hadst thou nam'd blood and damn'd iniquitie, I had forborne to bight so bitterlie.
Hom. Knowst thou a hart wide open to receive, A plot of horred desolation? Tell me of this, thou art my cheefest good, And I will quaffe thy health in bowles of blood.
Ava. I know two men, that seem two innocents, Whose lookes, surveied with iuditiall eyes, Would seeme to beare the markes of honestie; But snakes finde harbour mongst the fairest flowers, Then never credit outward semblaunces.
Enter[4] Trueth.
I know their harts relentlesse, mercilesse, And will performe through hope of benefit: More dreadfull things then can be thought upon.
Hom. If gaine will draw, I prethy then allure Their hungrie harts with hope of recompence, But tye dispaire unto those mooving hopes, Unleast a deed of murther farther it, Then blood on blood, shall overtake them all, And we will make a bloodie feastivall.
Cove. The plots are laide, the keyes of golden coine, Hath op'd the secret closets of their harts. Inter [sic], insult, make captive at thy will, Themselves, and friends, with deedes of damned ill: Yonder is Truth, she commeth to bewaile, The times and parties that we worke upon.
Hom. Why, let her weepe, lament and morne for me, We are right bred of damn'd iniquitie, And will go make a two-folde Tragedie. [Exeunt.
Truth. Goe you disturbers of a quiet soule, Sad, greedy, gaping, hungrie Canibals, That ioy to practise others miseries. Gentles, prepare your teare-bedecked eyes, To see two shewes of lamentation, Besprinckled every where with guiltlesse blood, Of harmlesse youth, and pretie innocents. Our Stage doth weare habilliments of woe, Truth rues to tell the truth of these laments: The one was done in famous London late, Within that streete whose side the River Thames Doth strive to wash from all impuritie: But yet that silver stream can never wash, The sad remembrance of that cursed deede, Perform'd by cruell Merry on iust Beech, And his true boye poore Thomas Winchester. The most here present, know this to be true: Would Truth were false, so this were but a tale! The other further off, but yet too neere, To those that felt and did the crueltie: Neere Padua this wicked deed was done, By a false Uncle, on his brothers sonne, Left to his carefull education By dying Parents, with as strict a charge As ever yet death-breathing brother gave. Looke for no mirth, unlesse you take delight, In mangled bodies, and in gaping wounds, Bloodily made by mercy-wanting hands. Truth will not faine, but yet doth grieve to showe, This deed of ruthe and miserable woe.
[Exit.