TABLE OF REFERENCE TO THE EXTRACTS.

WILLIAM ROWLEY, THOMAS DECKER, JOHN FORD, ETC.

xi

SPECIMENS

OF

ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS.

GORBODUC, A TRAGEDY. BY THOMAS SACKVILLE, LORD BUCKHURST, AFTERWARDS EARL OF DORSET; AND THOMAS NORTON.

Whilst king Gorboduc in the presence of his councillors laments the death of his eldest son, Ferrex, whom Porrex, the younger son, has slain; Marcella, a court lady, enters and relates the miserable end of Porrex, stabbed by his mother in his bed.

GORBODUC, AROSTUS, EUBULUS, and others.

Gorb. What cruel destiny,

What froward fate hath sorted us this chance ?
That even in those where we should comfort find,
Where our delight now in our aged days

Should rest and be, even there our only grief

And deepest sorrows to abridge our life,

Most pining cares and deadly thoughts do grave.

Arost. Your grace should now, in these grave years

Have found ere this the price of mortal joys,
How full of change, how brittle our estate,
How short they be, how fading here in earth,
Of nothing sure, save only of the death,

To whom both man and all the world doth owe
Their end at last; neither should nature's power
In other sort against your heart prevail,