A10335:130
Th'overthrow of stage-plays, by the way of controversy betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes…Th'overthrow of stage-playes, by the way of controversie betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes…
Th'overthrow of stage-plays, by the way of controversy betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes wherein all the reasons that can be made for them are notably refuted; th'objections answered, and the case so cleared and resolved, as that the judgement of any man, that is not froward and perverse, may easily be satisfied. Wherein is manifestly proved, that it is not only unlawful to be an actor, but a beholder of those vanities. Whereunto are added also and annexed in th'end certain latin letters betwixt the said Master Rainoldes, and D. Gentiles, reader of the civill law in Oxford, concerning the same matter.Th'overthrow of stage-playes, by the way of controversie betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes wherein all the reasons that can be made for them are notably refuted; th'objections aunswered, and the case so cleared and resolved, as that the iudgement of any man, that is not froward and perverse, may easelie be satisfied. Wherein is manifestly proved, that it is not onely vnlawfull to bee an actor, but a beholder of those vanities. Wherevnto are added also and annexed in th'end certeine latine letters betwixt the sayed Maister Rainoldes, and D. Gentiles, reader of the civill law in Oxford, concerning the same matter.
Middelburg: printed by Richard Schilders, 1599
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
For your partiality and weakness of sight doeth bewray it self, in that, where I had noted how your new Nymph, by lively expressing of amorous pangs, brought fuel enough to heat & melt a hart of ice or snow: you reply, that she hath been worse reported of to me a great deal, then she did deserve, as I and the ⟨p. 105⟩world shall one day see. Now she was so reported of to me by Lactantius, I mean, a man whose word I offer you no wrong if I believe before yours; a man, that deserveth to be as well esteemed of, as he, for sundry causes, & for some, better, a man, who did report it, not of surmise, but of knowledge; not of hear-say, but of sight; not of that which might be, but which had happened in senses and affections moved and tickled with it. And the thing which the world and I should one day see, whereby your meaning showed in the words ensuing, is, that she did proffer honest, lawful, virtuous, marriage-meaning love, as 6her speech committed now to print declareth; doeth not prove that he reported worse a great deal to me of her expressing those pangs, then she deserved. For that very 7action, which she did insinuate her self to be 8enraged & 9burn with desire of, is yhonest, and lawful, belonging unto virtuous and marriage-meaning love. Yet if one should say, that the open doing of it, like a zCynic, or using of sweet words and gestures tending to it, like aBacchus and Ariadne, can not shake a reed, much less surprise or wound a strong and constant heart: he might seem unworthy to be talked withal by men of ingenuous modesty and judgement. Wherefore sith the proffer of nothing else but honest and marriage-meaning love, made in words only by a hansom boy apparelled like a woman did ravish a Propertius, and inflame an Herod; notwithstanding you thought that it could not possibly work any such effect, as I and the world also should perceive: your thick interrogations wherewith you come upon me, as with so many foins and pricks of a sword, to make me yield that youths attired in women's raiment, & dancing a few solemn measures like