A10335:132
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.
Procum agere, he saith, of the masculine gender; not of the feminine, Procam. A thing, from allowing whereof he was so far; much more from terming them tetrica ingenia & ab omnibus Gratiis aliena, who do disallow it; though you, not contented ⟨p. 107⟩to adjoin this also, enlarge it with comparison of your speech to Momus; as if Erasmus likewise blamed us for 3accounting all matters touching love, and pleasant mirth, unchaste, jump as your self do for 4calling that unhonest and wanton, which is merry and light: but Erasmus was so far from allowing a maid to be a wooer, or wooesse, what shall I name it? that in express words fhe disalloweth it as 5unseemly. By the judgment therefore of your own witness it was a misbehaviour in Nais to be wooing. What? And was it not a misbehaviour also in her to be railing? to say unto Hippolytus, that his mother was a 6tiger, his father was a 7bull, him self a 8proud, a cruel, a barbarous savage man? to ban him? to curse him? to wish him the most horrible kind of death that might be? and all because he would not leave his lawful liberty to satisfy her lust? Or would your Erasmus have reproved me as 9rigorous, to say no more, for blaming this in a maiden; and him self have liked it, gwho misliked in men that they feign and spread lewd reports of such as yield not to their wooing? Truly, for mine own part, albeit Nais had not transgressed any duty with so foul language, and might without impeachment of maidenly modesty, have sued to be Hippolytus bedfellow: yet should I have thought it a thing unbeseeming a youth of tender years to be inured, and taught, how he may by amorous speeches, looks, and gestures, woo for a husband, or a wife. But seeing she did that which can not be cleared of wantonness and scurrility: my minor (notwithstanding the circumstance I mistook) is most true and certain for the branch concerning her. Yea, it is as certain and true, with alteration of the name only, even for the very crime too wherewith I charged her in stead of her brother Pandarus: that is to say, for bawdry. Which word why you should censure by terming it the broad name of bawdry, I know not: sith the Latin words, leno, and lena, have none in our English correspondent to them (for ought that I know) but a bawd; and lenocinium, bawdry.