[26]
This MS. is a Cambridge commonplace book of about 1630, containing poems
attributed to Ben Jonson, Sir Walter Raleigh and others, though the greater
portion of the contents appear to be topical verses and epigrams unsigned.
Amongst these is "Tragaedia miserrima Pyrami & Thisbes fata enuncians.
Historia ex Publio Ovidio deprompta. Authore N.R." In the margins are
written corresponding passages in Latin from Ovid, whose story it follows
closely.
The play is in blank verse of a poor kind with occasional rhyming couplets.
After a prologue begins "Actus Primus and ultimus"; there are only five
scenes in all, and the whole is quite short. The characters consist of
Iphidius, father of Pyramus; Labetrus, father of Thisbe; their children,
the protagonists; their respective servants, Straton and Clitipho; and
Casina, "ancilla" or handmaid to Thisbe. There is also "a raging liones
from ye woods." The moral of the play, as stated by Iphidius, is that
"the erraticall motions in children's actions
Must to a regular form by parents be reduc'd."
These lines, and others in the play, would gain by being "reduc'd to a
regular form."
* * * * *
Sec. 3. THE FAIRY PLOT
Siecles charmants de feerie,
Vous avez pour moi mille attraits,
Que de fois dans le reverie,
Mon coeur vous donne de regrets.
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