Like Peele’s, Greene’s origins were middle class. He was born in Norwich and educated at Cambridge, where he received the B.A. and the M.A. degrees. He went to London and became a writer of plays, pamphlets, and “novels.” For a few years he was quite successful; but like Peele, he died at an early age, in great poverty.
During his brief life, Greene was exceedingly prolific; his plays greatly influenced Shakespeare’s romantic comedies, and were still popular after his death. Grosart’s edition of his Complete Works is in fifteen volumes, and it is unlikely that Grosart discovered all that he had written. Most of Greene’s poems appeared in his “novels,” of which there are more than two dozen, and in his pamphlets, of which there are more.
TEXT:
The Plays and Poems of Robert Greene, in 2 vols., edited by J. Churton Collins (1905).
SEPHESTIA’S SONG TO HER CHILD
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
Mother’s wag, pretty boy,
Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.
When thy father first did see
Such a boy by him and me,
Fortune changed made him so,
When he left his pretty boy,
Last his sorrow, first his joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
Streaming tears that never stint,
Like pearl drops from a flint,
Fell by course from his eyes,
That one another’s place supplies:
Thus he grieved in every part,
Tears of blood fell from his heart,
When he left his pretty boy,
Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
The wanton smiled, father wept;
Mother cried, baby lept;
More he crowed, more we cried;
Nature could not sorrow hide.
He must go, he must kiss
Child and mother, baby bliss;
For he left his pretty boy,
Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
THE PALMER’S ODE
Old Menalcas on a day,
As in field this shepherd lay,
Tuning of his oaten pipe,
Which he hit with many a stripe,
Once was young and full of glee:
“Blithe and wanton was I then;
Such desires follow men.
As I lay and kept my sheep,
Came the God that hateth sleep,
Clad in armor all of fire,
Hand in hand with Queen Desire;
And with a dart that wounded nigh,
Pierced my heart as I did lie;
That when I woke I ’gan swear,
Phyllis’ beauty palm did bear.
Up I start, forth went I,
With her face to feed mine eye:
There I saw Desire sit
That my heart with love had hit,
Laying forth bright beauty’s hooks
To entrap my gazing looks.
Love I did and ’gan to woo,
Pray, and sigh; all would not do.
Women, when they take the toy,
Covet to be counted coy.
Coy she was, and I ’gan court;
She thought love was but a sport.
Profound hell was in my thought;
Such a pain Desire had wrought
That I sued with sighs and tears.
Still ingrate she stopped her ears,
Till my youth I had spent.
Last a passion of Repent
Told me flat that Desire
Was a brand of love’s fire,
Which consumeth men in thrall,
Virtue, youth, wit, and all.
At this saw back I start,
Beat Desire from my heart,
Shook off love and made an oath
To be enemy to both.
Such fond toys as cloyed my head.
But this I learned at Virtue’s gate:
The way to good is never late.”