Lesser known than the 'Upstart Crow' (btw Rob I thought that webpage rather
scant - I was hoping to save myself the labour of copying all this out) is
another passage in the 'Groat'. Now scholars disagree about whether this is
about WS, as the character 'Roberto' (Greene) encounters is supposedly a few
years Roberto's elder, but there may be in-jokes that are lost to us. (For
instance, the phrase 'it is strange' always seems to occur in conjunction to
attacks on Lord Strange's company - it occurs to just before the Upstart
Crow passage.) It goes thus:
" 'What is your profession?' said Roberto. 'Truly sir,' said he, 'I am a
player.' 'A player!', quoth Roberto, 'I took you rather for a gentleman of
great living; for .... by outward habit .... you would be taken for a
substantial man.' 'So am I, where I dwell', quoth the player, 'reputed able
at my proper cost to build a windmill. What though the world once went hard
with me .... it is otherwise now, for my share in playing apparel will not
be sold for 200 l.' 'Truly', said Roberto, 'it is strange that you should so
prosper at that vain practice, for that it seems to me your voice is nothing
gracious.' 'Nay' .... quoth the player, 'I can serve to make a pretty
speech, for I was a country author, passing at a moral, for it was I that
penned the Moral of man's wit, the Dialogue of Dives, and for seven years
space was absolute interpreter of the puppets.'
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 7:07 PM
Subject: Re: Poem/Play (was Re: Pinter on Blair et al.)
> From: "Peter Cudmore" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > Why Google when we can Rodent?
> >
> >> Greene later apologised (or someone apologised for him).
> >> Don't remember the details off-hand but I'm sure it's googleable.
> >>
> >> R.
>
> You mean why keep a dog and bark yourself?
>
> There's apparently an entire website devoted to this:
>
>
http://www.william-shakespeare.org.uk/william-shakespeare-upstart-crow.htm
>
> Cool!! Learn something new every day.
>
> A Newly-Enlightened Thingumyjig
>
> (Henry Chettle, see bottom of URL, who issued the apology, is the author
of
> an [unintentionally] hysterically funny play called _The Tragedy of
> Hoffman_. It begins:
>
>
> The Tragedy of Hoffman.
>
> Enter Hoffman. I. i
>
> Hoffman.
>
> Hence Clouds of melancholy
> Ile be no longer subiect to your schismes,
> But thou deare soule, whose nerues and artires
> In dead resoundings summon vp reuenge,
> And thou shalt hate, be but appeas'd sweete hearse,
> The dead remembrance of my liuing father, strikes ope a curtaine
> And with a hart as aire, swift as thought where appeares a body.
> I'le execute iustly in such a cause. 10
>
> Where truth leadeth, what coward would not fight?
> Ill acts moue some, but myne's a cause that's right.
>
> thunder and lightning.
>
> See the powers of heauen in apparitions,
> And frightfull aspects as insenced,
> That I thus tardy am to doe an act
> Which iustice and a fathers death excites;
> Like threatening methors antedates destruction. thunder
> Againe I come, I come, I come.
> Bee silent thou effigies of faire virtue 20
> That like a goodly syen wear't pluckt vp
> By murderous, winds, infectious blasts and gusts ...
>
> Dunno if there's a FOE webcopy, but it is included in the Questia texts.
> The *really* funny bit is at the end when the villain, about to gleefully
> chop-off Hoffman's head, accidentally brains himself with the
executioner's
> axe. But Questia is a pig to use for full-length texts
>
> A Thoroughly Helpful Rodehog
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