• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

And make thy fall my Comic merriment.

COMEDY.

Thy policy wants gravity; thou art

Too weak. Speak, Fiend, as how?

ENVY.

Why, thus:

From my foul Study will I hoist a Wretch,

A lean and hungry Meager Cannibal,

Whose jaws swell to his eyes with chawing Malice:

And him I'll make a Poet.

COMEDY.

What's that to th' purpose?

ENVY.

This scrambling Raven, with his needy Beard,

Will I whet on to write a Comedy,

Wherein shall be compos'd dark sentences,

Pleasing to factious brains:

And every other where place me a Jest,

Whose high abuse shall more torment than blows:

Then I my self (quicker than Lightning)

Will fly me to a puissant magistrate,

And weighting with a Trencher at his back,

In midst of jollity, rehearse those gauls,

(With some additions)

So lately vented in your Theater.

He, upon this, cannot but make complaint,

To your great danger, or at least restraint.

COMEDY.

Ha, ha, ha! I laugh to hear thy folly;

This is a trap for Boys, not Men, nor such,

Especially desertful in their doings,

Whose stay'd discretion rules their purposes.

I and my faction do eschew those vices.

But see, O see! the weary Sun for rest

Hath lain his golden compass to the West,

Where he perpetual bide and ever shine,

As David's off-spring, in his happy Clime.

Stoop, Envy, stoop, bow to the Earth with me,

Let's beg our Pardons on our bended knee.

[They kneel.]

ENVY.

My Power has lost her Might; Envy's date's expired.

Yon splendant Majesty hath felled my sting,

And I amazed am.

[Fall down and quake.]

COMEDY.

Glorious and wise Arch-Caesar on this earth,

At whose appearance, Envy's stroken dumb,

And all bad things cease operation:

Vouchsafe to pardon our unwilling error,

So late presented to your Gracious view,

And we'll endeavour with excess of pain,

To please your senses in a choicer strain.

Thus we commit you to the arms of Night,

Whose spangled carcass would, for your delight,

Strive to excell the Day; be blessed, then:

Who other wishes, let him never speak.

ENVY.

Amen.

To Fame and Honour we commend your rest;

Live still more happy, every hour more blest.

FINIS.

THE MERRY DEVIL OF EDMONTON

This comedy concerns the magician, Peter Fabel, nicknamed the Merry Devil. Scholars have conjectured dates of authorship for the play as early as 1592, though most favour a date in the 1600–4 period. The Merry Devil of Edmonton enters the historical record in 1604, when it is mentioned in a contemporary work called the Black Booke. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on October 22, 1607, and published the next year, in a quarto printed by Henry Ballard for the bookseller Arthur Johnson.

The play was performed at Court on May 8, 1608 and was also one of the twenty plays that the King's Men acted at Court in the Christmas season of 1612–13 during the festivities celebrating the wedding of Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of King James I, with Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

Publisher Humphrey Moseley obtained the rights to the play and re-registered it on September 9, 1653 as a work by Shakespeare. Moseley's attribution to Shakespeare was repeated by Edward Archer in his 1656 play list, and by Francis Kirkman in his list of 1661. The play was bound with Fair Em and Mucedorus in a book titled "Shakespeare. Vol. I" in the library of Charles II.

As its publishing history indicates, the play was popular with audiences and it was mentioned by Ben Jonson in the Prologue to his play The Devil is an Ass. While The Merry Devil of Edmonton was a King's Men play and Shakespeare may have had a minor role in its creation, it has no distinctive aspects of his style. Individual 19th-century critics attempted to attribute the play to Michael Drayton or to Thomas Heywood; but their attributions have not been judged credible by other scholars. Many scholars now believe it to be the work of the popular Jacobean playwright Thomas Dekker.

Thomas Dekker, the likely author of the play

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

The Prologue.

INDUCTION.

ACT I.

SCENE I.