DISCOVERY 



43 



master went breechless) swore solemnly that she would 

 make clubs trumps if he brought any bastard brat 

 within her doors. The goodman, seeing his wife in 

 her majesty with her mace in her hand, thought it 

 was time to bow for fear of blows ; and desired her 

 to be quiet, for there was none such matter ; but if 

 she could hold her peace they were made for ever : 

 and with that he told her the whole matter, how he 

 had found the child in a little boat, without any 

 succour, wrapped in that costly mantle, and having 

 that rich chain about the neck. But at last, when he 

 showed her the purse full of gold, she began to simper 

 something sweetly, and, taking her husband about 

 the neck, kissed him after her homely fashion, saying 

 that she hoped God had seen their want and now 

 meant to relieve their poverty, and, seeing they could 

 get no children, had sent them this little babe to 

 be their heir. ' Take heed, in any case,' quoth the 

 shepherd, ' that you be secret, and blab it not when 

 you meet with your gossips, for, if you do, we are 

 hke not only to lose the gold and jewels, but our 

 other goods and hves.' ' Tush,' quoth his wife, 

 ' profit is a good hatch before the door : fear not, I 

 have other things to talk of than this ; but I pray 

 you let us lay up the money surely and the jewels, 

 lest by any mishap it be spied.' " 



The sequel brings play and novel into something 

 like their old resemblance. Porrus and Mopsa (the 

 old shepherd and his wife) prospered greatly ; Fawnia, 

 as they named their foster-daughter, grew in beauty 

 as in years, " a jolly girl," and the cause latterly 

 that Porrus' house was frequented by " divers rich 

 farmers' sons " ; till at last Dorastus (Florizel) and 

 she meet and begin their adventures. 



But to deal with the passage quoted, and with its 

 substitute in the play. The great diffeirence in treat- 

 ment at this point between Greene and Shakespeare 

 is due ultimately to the demands of the medium 

 which the latter was employing. But the immediate 

 explanation of Shakespeare's failure (shall we say ?) 

 to make as full use of the novel here as he did in earlier 

 passages, is mainly the fact that he has saddled him- 

 self with Antigonus. Having been created to oppose 

 Leontes and so earn his hatred, it was an almost 

 natural consequence that ht should be sent to bear 

 the supposed " bastard " away, as Leontes decrees,- 



" To some remote and desert place, quite out 

 Of our dominions ; and that there thou leave it. 

 Without more mercy, to its own protection 

 And favour of the climate." 



Hence in the play we have the voyage, the landing in 

 Bohemia, the sudden storm, the clamour of the 

 chase, and the direction " Exit (Antigonus) pursued 

 by a bear." The lonely deserted quiet of the novel, 

 so beautifully appropriate, is sacrificed ; and with 



it much else. The shepherd enters muttering his 

 wrath against " these boiled brains of nineteen and 

 two-and-twenty," who disturb his sheep with their 

 hunting ; and discovers the foundling. But there 

 is no superstitious knocking on his breast ; nor is 

 there any soliloquy, to correspond with the narrative 

 of Porrus' " doubtful dilemma," or anything of the 

 secret " by-way " journey home, and the humorously 

 realistic reception of the shepherd by his wife. Shake- 

 speare is under the necessity of ensuring that no 

 word of the child's fate shall reach the father yet. 

 Instead, therefore, the shepherd halloos to his son — 

 Shakespeare provides him with one— and the comedy 

 of the scene is shifted from the old man and the found- 

 ling to the clownish rehearsal by this son of the sights 

 he had just witnessed, namely, a whole ship's crew 

 wrecked in the storm, and the bear that has already 

 " half-dined on the gentleman " and " 's at it now " ; 

 (the destruction, that is, of all such evidence as might 

 prevent the play's running to the normal five acts). 

 That Greene's version by itself might be dramatised 

 without appreciable loss, seems not impossible. There 

 are two scenes — the sea-coast and the shepherd's 

 house — and the pathway connecting them. But 

 these might be combined, and nothing let slip, by 

 opening before the house : for the humour of Porrus' 

 dilemma hes entirely in the situation, depending 

 really upon his being only half-conscious of the thoughts 

 we can perceive passing through his brain ; so that 

 dumb-show, the gesture and behaviour of the actor 

 while approaching the house, could do for us, much 

 more effectively than any speech, what Greene is 

 really doing with the aid of a freer, narrative medium, 

 namely, interpret in a lively way what is imphed in 

 the situation. But of course, since it was necessary 

 that Antigonus and the ship's comany must be 

 destroyed — and destroyed, with a view to later develop- 

 ments, before some witness — the scene must be at 

 the coast instead of at the shepherd's house ; and 

 so the readiest method of using the novel at this 

 point becomes impossible. While, then, the dramatic 

 medium called for some departure from the novel 

 here as elsewhere, the much wider departure than 

 usual and the particular form which that departure 

 takes, are due to the other changes already made 

 for similar reasons. And surely the result of leaving 

 to Greene's credit one of his happiest inventions, 

 unsullied and safe from the dangers of comparison, 

 cannot possibly be called " vindictive." If Shake- 

 speare remembered the quarrel of 1592 with bitter- 

 ness, would he have worked so as to efface only the 

 worst parts of his enemy's book ? 



I have said thai the scene we have discussed might 

 rouse a suspicion, in one acquainted only with the 

 novel, of more than mere dramatisation. It is just 



