The Anonymous Masque-like Entertainment in Egerton MS. 1994, and Richard Brome

The Anonymous Masque-like Entertainment in Egerton MS. 1994, and Richard Brome John Cutts New information has come to light which makes it necessary to reopen the discussion on the authorship of the anonymous entertain­ ment in B.M. Egerton MS. 1994 which has been variously entitled “Time’s Triumph’T— “Juno in Arcadia” 2— “Juno’s Pastoral, or The Bonds of Peace” 3— “ Sight and Search,”4 and which is dated in the manuscript for August 5th, 1643. So far suggested attributions to Mildmay Fane5 and to Chapman,® based largely on stylistic affinities, have been dismissed as unsatisfactory to varying degrees.7 In addition to this, a detailed consideration of the entertainment in relation to the Masque form has concluded that this anonymous piece ought not to be called a Masque even.8 The present state of scholarship thus leaves the entertainment without a definite author, category, or title. It seemed to me that in order to break out of this stalemate a different approach was called for, and accordingly I set out to investi­ gate the entertainment’s use of song. Happily enough this procedure has resulted in uncovering new and important evidence on the enter­ tainment particularly with regard to the problem of authorship. It is only fair to point out that Elsley made an effort in this direction but only came up with evidence which tended to confirm, as he thought, the author’s habit of borrowing from other writers, because he concentrated on one snatch of song which he could identify, ignor­ ing the entertainment’s chief and only long song which of itself largely characterizes the kind of vocal music called for. Elsley correctly pointed out that when time’s madness infects the character Age he breaks out into song and first sings a two-line snatch: Turne Ammarillis to thy swaine thy Damon calls : the back againe (f. 220) which represents the first lines of a six-line ditty to be found in Shirley’s play Love Tricks or the School of Complement: Turtle, Amarilis, to thy Svoane, Thy Damon cals thee hacke againe, Here is a pretty Arbor by, Where Apollo cannot pry, 277 278 Comparative Drama Here let’s sit, and while I play Sing to my Pipe a Roundelay. (1631, Sig. F4; 1637, Sig. F) The obvious conclusion is that the author “helped himself to a song from Shirley’s The School of Complement” (Elsley, p. 63), and on the basis of this Elsley suggested that he probably “ took another one,” namely “Stay Nimph, stay Nimph cryed Apol” (f, 218— this is all there is of the snatch in the manuscript) “ also from a contemporary play” (p. 63) but was unable to trace it. This “ lifting” is seen thus as akin to the borrowings from Chapman’s Byron’s Tragedy and Middle Temple Masque. On the whole I think it safer to recall that drama­ tists were in the habit of using snatches (one or two lines, usually first lines or memorable refrains) of popular songs, and that such borrow­ ing does not help us with the authorship problem one way or the other. Snatches by their very nature are indeterminate. One cannot conclude from this that the author of this entertainment did not write “all his own songs” (Elsley, pp. 84, 94). Elsley accepts “Hoy, boy, Hoy, boy . . .” and the mad song of Act IV (“Art thov mad . . .” ) as the author’s own and specifies that they reach “ a much lower level of achievement” (p. 84) .9 What now invites serious investigation is the discovery that “ Hoy, boy, Hey, boy . . . ,” the one long song in the entertainment, “ a rollick­ ing, indecent piece which [Age] sings at the height of his amorous fits” (p. 103a) : Hoy boy Hoy boy come come away boy & bring me my longing desire A lass that is neat and can well doe ye flfeete When Lusty young blood is afire Let her wast be small though her body be tall and her age not aboue eighteene let her care for no bed but here let her spred her mantle vpon this greene /let Let her face be fare and her breast be bare a voice let...