Dame Custance will have nothing to say to such a stupid lover, “I will not be served with a fool in no wise.  When I choose a husband I hope to take a man,” she says.  In revenge for her scorn Ralph Roister Doister threatens to burn the dame’s house down, and sets off to attack it with his servants.  The widow, however, meets him with her handmaidens.  There is a free fight (which, no doubt, the schoolboy actors enjoyed), but the widow gets the best of it, and Ralph is driven off.

Our first real tragedy was not written until ten years after our first comedy.  This first tragedy was written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset.  It was acted by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple “before the Queen’s most excellent Majestie in her highness’ Court of Whitehall the 18th day of January, 1561.”

Chaucer tells us that a tragedy is a story

    “Of him that stood in great prosperitie,
    And is yfallen out of high degree
    Into miserie, and endeth wretchedly."*

    Prologue to the “Monk’s Tale,” Canterbury Tales.

So our early tragedies were all taken from sad stories in the old Chronicle histories.  And this first tragedy, written by Norton and Sackville, is called Gorboduc, and is founded upon the legend of Gorboduc, King of Britain.  The story is told, though not quite in the same way, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, our old friend, by Matthew of Westminster, and by others of the old chroniclers.  For in writing a poem or play it is not necessary to keep strictly to history.  As Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser’s friend, says:  “Do they not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of Poesie and not of History, not bound to follow the story, but, having liberty, either to fain a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience?"*

Sidney, Apologie for Poetrie.

The story goes that Gorboduc, King of Britain, divided his realm during his lifetime between his sons Ferrex and Porrex.  But the brothers quarreled, and the younger killed the elder.  The mother, who loved her eldest son most, then killed the younger in revenge.  Next the people, angry at such cruelty, rose in rebellion and killed both father and mother.  The nobles then gathered and defeated the rebels.  And lastly, for want of an heir to the throne, “they fell to civil war,” and the land for a long time was desolate and miserable.

In the play none of these fearful murders happen on the stage.  They are only reported by messengers.  There is also a chorus of old sage men of Britain who, at the end of each act, chant of what has happened.  When you come to read Greek plays you will see that this is more like Greek than English tragedy, and it thus shows the influence of the New Learning upon our literature.  But, on the other hand, in a Greek drama there was never more than one scene, and all the action was supposed to take place on one day.