Saturday 12 October 2013

Shakespeare's Mucedorus?

What, then, is the claim? Other than that the stage direction "being pursued with a bear" in a King's Men revival of 1610 cannot be entirely unconnected with Shakespeare ...
The new claim, made in Collaborative Plays by Shakespeare and Others, is that the following scene in the revised Mucedorus is either Shakespeare or someone else - Fletcher, perhaps - writing very self-consciously in the style of Shakespeare:

[SCENE 10]
Sound music
Enter the King of Valencia, Anselmo, Roderigo, Lord Barachius, with others
VALENCIA Enough of music, it but adds to torment:
            Delights to vexèd spirits are as dates
            Set to a sickly man, which rather cloy than comfort.
            Let me entreat you to entreat no more.
RODERIGO Let your strings sleep: have done there!     Let the music cease
VALENCIA Mirth, to a soul disturbed, are embers turned,
            Which sudden gleam with molestation,
            But sooner lose their light for’t.
’Tis gold bestowed upon a rioter
Which not relieves, but murders him:
’Tis a drug given to the healthful,
Which infects not cures.
How can a father that hath lost his son—
A prince both wise, virtuous and valiant—
Take pleasure in the idle acts of time?
No, no: till Mucedorus I shall see again
All joy is comfortless, all pleasures pain.
ANSELMO Your son, my lord, is well.
VALENCIA I prithee, speak that thrice.
ANSELMO The prince, your son, is safe.
VALENCIA O, where, Anselmo? Surfeit me with that.
ANSELMO In Aragon, my liege,
And at his parture, bound my secrecy,
By his affectious love, not to disclose it.
But care of him and pity of your age
Makes my tongue blab what my breast vowed, concealment.
VALENCIA Thou not deceiv’st me: I ever thought thee
            What I find thee now, an upright, loyal man.
            But what desire or young-fed humour
            Nursed within the brain
Drew him so privately to Aragon?
ANSELMO A forcing adamant:
            Love mixed with fear and doubtful jealousy,
            Whether report gilded a worthless trunk,
            Or Amadine deserved her high extolment.
VALENCIA See our provision be in readiness:
            Collect us followers of the comeliest hue
            For our chief guardians: we will thither wend.
            The crystal eye of heaven shall not thrice wink
            Nor the green flood six times his shoulders turn,
            Till we salute the Aragonian king.
            Music speak loudly now, the season’s apt,
            For former dolours are in pleasure wrapped.

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