Dryden's Exemplary Drama

A Study of: The Indian Queen, The Conquest of Granada, Aureng-Zebe, All for Love, Oedipus, and Don Sebastian

written as a senior thesis, as an English major at Yale, course = English 91, May 1, 1969, advisor: Eugene Waith
edited for posting on the Web in October 2001 to April 2002

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim electronic copies of this essay for non-commercial purposes provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. This essay has not yet been published in paper form. You can contact the author directly: Richard Seltzer, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. seltzer@samizdat.com

• Preface
• Introduction
• The Indian Emperor or the Conquest of Mexico
• Almanzor and Almahide or the Conquest of Granada
• Aureng-Zebe
• The Changing Hero
• All for Love or The World Well Lost
• Oedipus
• Footnotes
• Other Critical Works Consulted

Preface

"Certain it is that Nature is the same, and Man is the same: He loves, grieves, hates, envies, has the same affections and passions in both places, and the same springs that give them motion. What mov'd pity there will here also produce the same effect." (Thomas Rymer, Tragedies of the Last Age)¹

Rymer had to explain why the plays of Fletcher, about which he was primarily writing, were extremely popular in 1678 despite the fact that they did not follow Aristotle's rules. Rymer contended that it was not the plays as Fletcher wrote them that pleased audiences, but rather that they pleased "upon account of Machines, actors, Dancers, and circumstances which are merely accidental to the Tragedy." (Spingarn, II, 184).

An over-emphasis on the rules leads to absurdities of critical judgment, leads on away from the initial assumption that a play should be judged on the basis of the effects it produces. A poor playwright strictly following the rules can produce a poor play, and a Shakespeare breaking those same rules can produce a great play. From this at least two conclusions can be drawn:

• Shakespeare wrote great plays despite the fact that he broke the rules; but they would have been even better had he followed the rules.
• The greatness of his plays is due to an organic, rather than a formal unity; their greatness would be impaired by any attempt to revise them to make them follow formal rules.

Except for that conclusion in favor of rules, many would now agree with Rhyme's assumptions. For over two hundred years, Dryden's dramas have not been popular. They fail to move audiences. The conclusion arrived at is that their ephemeral popularity, depended like many Broadway hits, on "Machines, actors, Dancers, and circumstances where are merely accidental to the Tragedy."

Dryden is quite frequently in agreement with Rymer. In his prefaces, he discusses how well he has adhered to the rules and where a rule is broken, he explains what beauty or delight has been gained at the rule's expense. His critical opinions were in continual flux: he broke the rules with greater audacity in his early plays than in his later ones. But he seems to have taken the rules into account as guidelines throughout his career. He revised The Tempest (1667) along with Davenant, and Antony and Cleopatra (1677) and Troilus and Cressida (1679) on his own, bringing them into greater accord with the rules. However, Dryden disagreed with one of Rymer's fundamental assumptions:

21) And one reason of that success [of Rollo, A King and No King, and The Maid's Tragedy in particular, and, in general, of plays which depart from the rules] is, in my opinion, this, that Shakespeare and Fletcher have written to the genius of the age and nation in which they lived; for tho' nature, as he objects, is the same in all places and reason too the same, yet the climate, the age, the dispositions of the people to whom a poet writes may be so different that what pleased the Greeks would not satisfy an English audience.
22) And if they proceeded upon a foundation of truer reason to please the Athenians than Shakespeare and Fletcher to please the English, it only shows that the Athenians were a more judicious people; but the poet's business is certainly to please the audience. ("Heads to an Answer to Rymer", 1677)²

This paper is in basic agreement with Dryden's notion of shifting tastes. Though the nature of man does not change, what man expects to find in a work of art does change. A work that does not operate in accord with the current conception of what is good literature will be considered bad literature until popular taste shifts again in its favor.

Metaphysical poetry went through a relatively recent resurrection, and it is conceivable that Dryden's drama may one day have similar good fortune.

But despite shifts in taste, the nature of man has remained constant within the range of written history. Therefore, if one can determine the contemporary assumptions on which Dryden's dramas are based, it should be possible to acquire a taste for these dramas.

We will try to identify those assumptions by considering criticisms and justifications of drama in Dryden's time, and the nature of the audience Dryden tried to please. Then we will consider in detail The Indian Emperor (1665), The Conquest of Granada (1670), Aureng-Zebe (1675), All for Love (1677), Oedipus (1678), and Don Sebastian (1689), focusing attention on their structure, trying to establish a basis for appreciating such works and judging their merit on their own terms.

Perhaps the Parson stretch'd a point too far,
when with our Theatres he wag'd a War.
-- Epilogue to Vanbrugh's The Pilgrim, 1700³

He therefore that undertakes an Heroick Poem, which is to exhibit a venerable and amiable Image of Heroick vertue, must not only be the Poet, to place and connect, but also the Philosopher, to furnish and square his matter, that is, to make both Body and Soul, colour and shadow of his Poem out of his own Store: which how well you have performed I am now considering.
-- Thomas Hobbes, "Answer to Davenant's Preface to Gondibert, 1650, in Spingarn, II, 60

Introduction

In his History of the Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge (1667), Thomas Sprat outlined the purpose of the Society:
 

"... to make faithful Records, of all the Works of Nature, or Art, which can come within their reach: that so the present Age, and posterity, may be able to put a mark mark on the Errors, which have been strengthened by long prescription: to restore the Truths, that have lain neglected: to push on these, which are already known, to more various uses: and to make a way more passable, to what remains unreveal'd. This is the compass of their Design. And to accomplish this, they have indeavor'd, to separate the knowledge of Nature, from the colours of Rhetorick, the devices of Fancy, or the delightful deceit of Fables." ⁴

"But how are poetical fictions, how are hippocentaurs and chimeras, or how are angels and immaterial substances to be imaged; which, some of them, are things quite out of nature; others, such whereof we can have no notion? This is the last refuge of our adversaries; and more than any of them have yet had the wit to object against us. The answer is easy to the first part of it; the fiction of some beings which are not in nature (second notions, as the logicians call them) has been founded on the conjunction of two natures, which have a real separate being... And poets may be allowed the like liberty for describing things which really exist not, if they are founded on popular belief." (Ker, I 186-187) ⁵

"You are not obliged, as in History, to a literal belief of what the poet says; but you are pleased with the image, without being cozened by the fiction." (Ker, I, 185)

William Prynne's Histriomastrix: or the Actor's Tragedie ⁶ (1633) is a compendium of Puritan arguments on the immorality of drama. This work seems to have had a dual purpose:

• To awaken true Believers to the moral dangers of attending, or acting in plays;
• To convince those in power that it is to the benefit of the State to suppress drama, and if that should fail, to discredit a ruling power that sanctioned drama.

"As long as we know our selves to be flesh beholding those examples in Theaters which are incident to flesh, we are taught by other men's examples how to fall. And they that come honest to a Play may depart infected." (pp. 360-361)

"It is evident that by Saint Augustine's resolution: that State-playes incurably vitiate and desperately corrupt, if not subvert mens manners; and so bring ruine to the State that suffers them... (p. 475)

What are they but the very filth, the crosse, the scumme of the Societies and places where they live? the very Mothes, the Drones and Cankerwormes of the Common-weale? the shame and blemish of Religion? the most putred, scandalous, noxious, and degenerate branches both of Church and State, which should be spued out, be lopped off from both, had they their just demerits?" (p. 145)

"... it is most evident: that it hath been alwayes a most infamous thing for Kings and Emperours to act Playes or Masques either in private or publike; or to sing, or dance upon a Stage or theatre; or to delight in Playes and Actors." (p. 858)

The Puritans, enemies of both Court and Stage, closed the theaters from 1642 to 1660. In exile in Paris, Davenant, playwright and author of the last of the Caroline masques, formulated a theory of the proper relation between Court and poetry, a theory which seems in direct response to criticisms like Prynne's.

Davenant quotes Plato's Republic:

"If any Man, having ability to imitate what he pleases, imitate in his Poem both good and evil, let him be reverenc'd as a sacred and admirable, and pleasant Person; but be it likewise known, he must have no place in our Common-wealth. And yet before his banishment he allows him the honor of a Diadem, and sweet Odours to anoint his head; and afterwards says: Let us make use of more profitable, though more severe and less pleasant Poets, who can imitate that which is for the honor and benefit of the Common-wealth." (Preface to Gondibert, 1650, Spingarn, II, p. 52)

"Thus we have first observ'd the Four chief aids of Government: Religion, Armes, Policy, and Law, defectively apply'd, and then we have found them weak by an emulous war amongst themselves: it follows next we should introduce to strengthen those principal aids (still making the people our direct object) some collateral help, which I will safely presume to consist in Poesy." (Spingarn, II, p. 44)

"I may now believe I have usefully taken from the Courts and Camps the patterns of such as will be fit to be imitated by the most necessary men; and the most necessary men are those who become principall by prerogative of blood, which is seldom unassisted with education, or by greatnesse of minde which in exact definition is Vertue. The common crowd, of whom we are hopelesse, we desert, being rather to be corrected by laws, where precept is accompanied with punishment, then to be taught by Poesy; for few have arriv'd at the skill of Orpheus or at his good fortune, whom we may suppose to have met with extraordinary Grecian Beasts, when so successfully he reclaim'd them with his Harp. Nor is it needfull that Heroick Poesy should be levell'd to the reach of Common men: for if the examples it presents prevail upon their Chiefs, the delight of IMitation (which we hope we have prov'd to be as effectuall to good as to evil) will rectify, by the rules which those Chiefs establish of their own lives, the lives of all that behold them; for the example of life doth as much surpasse the force of Precept as Life doth exceed Death." (Spingarn, II, p. 14)

Hobbes, in his answer to Davenant's preface, characterizes "Court, City, and Country" in such a way that the social differences are also moral differences, with the Court as the most morally elevated section of society. He divides poetry into genres on the basis of which of these "three Regions of mankinde" serves the poet as pattern for his characters.

"As Philosophers have divided the Universe, their subject, into three Regions: Celestiall, Aeriall, and Terrestriall, so the Poets (whose worke it is, by imitating humane life in delightful and measur'd lines, to avert men from vice and incline them to vertuous and honorable actions) have lodg'd themselves in the three Regions of mankinde: Court, City, and Country, correspondent in some proportion to those three Regions of the World. For, there is in Princes and men of conspicuous power, anciently called Heroes, a lustre and influence upon the rest of men resembling that of the Heavens; and an insincereness, inconstancy, and troublesome humor of those that dwell in populous Cities, lie the mobility, blustring, and impurity of the Aire; and a plainness, and though dull, yet a nutritive faculty in rurall people, that endures a comparison wit the Earth they labour.

"From hence have proceeded three sorts of Poesy: Heroique, Scommatique, and Pastorall. Every one of these is distinguished again in the manner of Representation, which sometimes is Narrative, wherein the Poet himself relateth, and sometimes Dramatique, as when the persons are every one adorned and brought upon the Theater to speak and act their own parts. There is therefore neither more nor less than six sorts of Poesy. For the Heroique Poem narrative, such as is yours [i.e., Davenant's Gondibert] is called an Epique Poem. The Heroique Poem Dramatique is Tragedy. The Scommatique Narrative is Satyre, Dramatique is Comedy. The Pastorall narrative is called simply Pastorall, anciently Bucolique; the same Dramatique, Pastorall Comedy. The Figure therefore of an Epique Poem and of a Tragedy ought to be the same, for they differ no more but in that they are pronounced by one or many Persons." (Spingarn, II, p. 54-55)

In his dedication to the Siege of Rhodes Davenant sums up his effort, as a response to religious criticism, to ennoble drama:

Dramatic poetry meets with the same persecution now, from such who esteem themselves the most rein'd and civil, as it ever did from the barbarous. And yet whilst those virtuous enemies deny Heroic Plays to the gentry, they entertain the people with a seditious Farce of their won counterfeit gravity. But I hope you will not be unwilling to receive (in this poetical dress) neither the beieg'd nor the besiegers, since they come without their vices: for as others have purg'd the stage from corruptions of the art of the drama, so I have endeavour'd to cleanse it from corruptions of manners; nor have I wanted to care to render the ideas of greatness and virtue pleasing and familiar." ⁸

"... Poets, while they imitate, instruct. The feign'd Heroe inflames the true; and the dead vertue animates the living. Since, therefore, the world is govern'd by precept and Example; and both these can only have influence from those persons who are above us, that kind of Poesy which excites to vertue the greatest men, is of greatest use to human kind." (p. 15)

"... an Heroick Play ought to be an imitation, in little of an Heroick Poem." (p. 20)

"The first of these heroic dedications makes a noteworthy point: "The favour which heroic plays have lately found upon our theatres, has been wholly derived to them from the countenance and approbation they have received at court. The most eminent persons for wit and honour in the royal circles having so far owned them, that they have judged no way so fit as verse to entertain a noble audience, or to express a noble passion..." (Indian Emperor II, 285). There is nothing new in the idea that Dryden addressed his plays to a courtly audience, but not enough has been made of the significance of his emphasis upon the fitness of the plays for his audience... Ideally, the spectators in the theater would also possess the heroic inclinations which he ascribes to his patrons, and in fact they may often have been as nobly inclined as the actual persons to whom Dryden dedicated the plays. As to the readers, the dedication shows them clearly enough what sentiments they are expect to have, and  puts them in the position of measuring up to the author's expectations. In the dedications, then, Dryden is creating an ideal audience. The noble characters there, as we have seen, are almost as much his creations as are the heroes of this plays, and all are cut from the same cloth." ⁹

Dryden makes explicit this logic behind his idealized portraits of court figures in his poem "To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on His Coronation." (1661):

"No promise can oblige a price so much
Still to be good, as long as have been such.
A noble emulation heats our breast,
And your own fame now robs you of your rest:
Good actions still must be maintain'd with good,
As bodies nourish'd with resembling food." (1. 73-78) ¹⁰

During this brief survey of the relation between science and poetry, Court and Stage in the Restoration, several assumptions have appeared that are significant in the structure of the pays we are about to consider:

• There is a moral as well as a social hierarchy of man; and, presumably, in an ideal society, these hierarchies coincide: the common crowd is relatively depraved and the Court relatively virtuous.
• Poetry is meant to instruct as well as delight.
• Man learns by the example of those higher than himself socially and/or morally.
• Only a Hero is capable of learning from the example of the sort of Hero represented in these plays.

The Indian Emperor or The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards (1665), being the Sequel of The Indian Queen

We are presented with three heroic characters: Montezuma, Cortez, and Guyomar. Montezuma was the principal hero of The Indian Queen, (1664, by Sir Robert Howard and Dryden), the play of which The Indian Emperor is the sequel. In the twenty years which Dryden tells us have intervened, Montezuma has become an old emperor, similar to the old Ynca he once opposed. Cortez in many ways resembles the Montezuma of the earlier play. Guyomar, son of Montezuma, is a virtuous admiring friend of Cortez.

The theme is first stated in the opening scene. The "pleasant Indian Country" inspires Cortez with hopes of a new life in this new world:

On what new Happy Climate are we thrown,
So long kept secret, and so lately known?
As if our old world modestly withdrew,
and here, in private, had brought forth a new!

Corn, Wine and Oyl are wanting to this Ground,
In which our Countries fruitfully abound:
... all untaught and salvage does appear.

Wild and untaught are Terms which we alone
Invent, for fashions differing from our own...

Pizarro points out that Spain is far from being Paradise:

In Spain our Springs, like Old Mens children, be
Decay'd and wither'd from their Infancy:
No kindly Showers fall on our barren earth
To hatch the seasons in a timely birth.

Cortez is disillusioned with the Old World and so seeks the New and hopes to find it, compared with Spain, a sort of Paradise:

...The Sun no Climat does so gladly see:
When forc'd from hence, to view your parts, he mourns;
Takes little journies, and makes quick returns.

Methinks we walk in dreams of fairy Land,
Where golden Ore lies mixt with common sand;
Each downfal of a flood the Mountains pour
From their rich bowels rolls a silver shower.

Cortez: Heaven from all ages wisely did provide
This wealth, and for the bravest Nation hide,
Who with four hundred foot, and forty horse,
Dare boldly go a New found World to force.

In the second scene, as in the first, hopes of a fresh start are combined with reminders of the past. It is Montezuma's birthday, and the whole court is present as he is about to crown the "Queen of all the year",

Her, among this beauteous quire,
Whose perfections you admire,
Her, who fairest does appear... (I ii, 279)

Montezuma: Since my Orazia's Death I have not seen
A beauty so deserving to be Queen
As fair Almeria.
Almeria (to her Brother and Sister aside):
--Sure he will not know
My birth I to that injur'd Princess owe,
Whom his hard heart not only love deny'd
But in her sufferings took an unmanly Pride.
Alibech (to her Sister): Since Montezuma will his choice renew,
In dead Orazia's room electing you,
'Twill please our Mothers Ghost that you succeed
To all the glories of her Rivals Bed.
Almeria: If new be carried to the shades below,
The Indian Queen will be more pleas'd to know
That I his scorns on him, that scorn'd her, pay.
Almeria (replies to Montezuma): Heaven may be kind, the Gods uninjur'd live,
And crimes below cost little to forgive.
By thee, Inhumane, both my Parents dy'd;
One by thy sword, the other by thy pride. (I ii, 279-280)

In the midst of these ceremonies, in the second scene, Cortez and Montezuma confront each other for the first time. Taxallans, allies of Cortez and traditional enemies of the Mexicans, attack the courtly party. Cortez rushes in to stop the fighting. His intention was to propose terms of peace before starting any fighting; the Taxallans had broken his explicit orders. Cortez vents his disillusionment at this "new" world which is not much different from the "old":

Where, banish'd Vertue, wilt thou shew thy face,
If treachery infects they Indian race? (I ii, 284)

While Cortez is being disillusioned, Montezuma is amazed by "the Stranger":

(Montezuma kneels to Cortez)
Montezuma: Patron of Mexico and god of Wars,
Sun of the Sun, and brother of the STars.
Cortez: Great Monarch, your devotion you misplace.
Montezuma: They actions show thee born of Heavenly Race,
If then thou art that cruel god whose eyes
Delight in Blood, and Humane Sacrifice,
They dreadful Altars I with Slaves will store,
And feed they nostrils with hot reeking gore;
Or if that mild and gentle god thou be,
Who dost mankind below with pity see,
With breath of incense we will glad they heart:
But if, like us, of mortal seed thou art,
Presents of choicest Fowls, and Fruits I'll bring,
And in my Realms thou shalt be more than King. (I ii, 284-285)

Cortez informs Montezuma that he is "Like you a Man", that he is ambassadour "From Charles the Fifth, the Worlds most Potent King." There follows a comic passage playing on Montezuma's ignorance of Charles and Spain and on the pretensions of both monarchs. It is absurd for either monarch to think that to him "Heaven thinks fit/ That all the Nations of the Earth submit..." (I ii, 285). There is a duplication of Heavens, for each monarch claims he owes his throne to a different set of gods:

Montezuma: Your gods I slight not, but will keep my own. (I ii, 287)

The scene ends with Cortez' and Cydaria's lyric mutual declaration of love. Cydaria associates Spain with the place "That souls must go to when the body dies" (I ii, 288). The expects Cortez to be a "new" man, to have no past, to have come into existence when she first saw him. She cannot understand why he cannot call off the war, why he cannot offer more reasonable conditions. He tries to explain his duty to his king.
 

Cortez: If for my self to Conquer here I came,
You might perhaps my actions justly blame:
Now I am sent, and am not to dispute
My Princes orders, but to execute. (II ii, 292)

Cydaria: Then all your care is for your Prince I see,
Your truth to him out-weighs your love to me;
You may so cruel to deny me prove,
But never after that, pretend to love.
Cortez: Command my Life, and I will soon obey,
To save my Honour I my Blood will pay.
Cydaria: What is this Honour that does Love controul?
Cortez: A raging Fit of Vertue in the Soul;
A painful burden, which great minds must bear,
Obtain'd with danger, and possess'd with fear. (II ii, 292)

Not only is Cortez tied to the past, to Spain by duty, but also he has loved before. Cydaria is shocked to learn of it. She had assumed that this was the first time for both of them, that their love was something unique, brand new.

Cydaria: Your Love! Alas! then have you Lov'd before!
Cortez: 'Tis true I lov'd, but she is Dead, she's Dead,
And I should think with her all Beauty fled,
Did not her fair resemblance live in you,
And by that Image my first Flames renew. (II ii, 297)

Cydaria: Ah happy Beauty, whosoe're thou art!
Though dead, thou keep'st possession of his Heart;
and art my Rival in his Memory;
Within his Memory, ah, more than so,
Thou liv'st and triumph'st ore Cydaria too.
Cortez: What strange disquiet has uncalm'd your breast,
In humane fair, to rob the dead of rest!
Poor Heart!
She slumbers deep, deep in her silent Tomb,
Let her possess in Peace that narrow Room.
Cydaria: Poor heart, he pities and bewails her death,
Some god, much hated soul, restore thy breath,
That I may kill thee, but some ease 'twill be,
I'll kill my self for but resembling thee.

Martin Clifford, a contemporary of Dryden, noted in an oft quoted passage the similarity of many of Dryden's characters:

But I am strangely mistake if I have not seen this very Almanzor of yours in some disguise about this town, and passing under another name. Pr'thee tell me true, was not this Huffcap once the Indian Emperor? and at another time did he not call himself Maximin? Was not Lyndaraxa once caller Almeria? I mean under Montezuma the Indian Emperor. I protest and vow they are either the same, or so alike, that I cannot, for all my heart, distinguish one from the other. You are therefore a strange unconscionable thief; thou art not content to steal from others, but dost rob thy poor wretched self too. ¹¹

Clifford suggests that the repetition of character types is a sign of Dryden's weakness as a dramatist. However, in the case of The Indian Emperor the repetition is an integral part of the theme: Cortez seeks a new world and finds an old one; the great new Conquest of Mexico follows the same pattern as the old Indian wars; Cortez and Almeria reenact much of the behavior of the young Montezuma and Zempoalla; the present reveals itself as a repetition of the past. This theme reminds one of the message of "Ecclesiastes":

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
and there is nothing new under the sun. (1:9, Revised Standard Version)

... ye Immortal Souls, that once were Men,
And now resolv'd to Elements agen,
Who wait for Mortal frames in depths below,
And did before what we are doom'd to do;
Once, twice, and thrice, I wave my Sacred wand,
Ascend, ascend, ascend at my command. (II i, 291)

In The Indian Emperor the focus is on action, on The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. Cortez is recognized as heroic because of his military exploits: "Thy actions show thee born of Heavenly Race..." (I ii, p. 284). The contrast between Cortez and Montezuma and between the Montezuma of this play and the younger Montezuma of The Indian Queen emphasizes the limitations to a heroism of action. There are two major limitations to such a heroism: 1) Duty 2) physical age.

At the first announcement of the arrival of Cortez, the high priest declares:

Old Prophecies foretell our fall at hand,
When bearded men in floating Castles Land,
I fear it is of dire Portent. (I ii, 282)

From some cause, not explained, Quetzalcoatl incurred the wrath of one of the principal gods and was compelled to abandon the country... When he reached the shores of the Mexican Gulf, he took leave of his followers, promising that he and his descendants would revisit them hereafter, and then, entering his wizard skiff, made of serpents' skins, embarked on the great ocean for the fabled land of Tlapallan. He was said to have been tall in stature, with a white skin, long, dark hair, and a flowing beard. The Mexicans looked confidently to the return of the benevolent deity; and this remarkable tradition, deeply cherished in their hearts, prepared the way, as we shall see hereafter, for the future success of the Spaniards. ¹²

All primitive tribes agree in recognizing this category of the outsiders, those who are not only outside the provisions of the moral code which holds within the limits of one's own people, but who are summarily denied a place anywhere in the human scheme. ¹³

But Almanzor is tax'd with changing sides: and what tye has he on him to the contrary? He is not born their Subject whom he serves: and he is injur'd by them to a very high degree. (Preface to Granada, p. 24)

In Montezuma we have the type of hero identical with Oroondates and Artaban -- invincible, matchless, of dauntless spirit and ungovernable pride. His fortunes are those of Artaban rather than of Oroondates: he has been raised obscurely, ignorant of his high birth; as a free lance he goes from one side tot he other carrying victory. (p. 64)

The type of characters are the same although of surprising descent. It is with no small astonishment that we identify our Artaban -- hero of The Indian Queen -- with the Montezuma of history. As soon as the machinery gets under way we discover the real Artaban in the character of Cortez..." (pp. 65-66)

In The Indian Emperor, neither Cortez nor Montezuma is free to switch sides or to do as he wishes. Montezuma is Emperor with all the responsibilities of a head of state. Cortez is prevented by his duty to the Spanish king from stopping the war or from offering more reasonable terms. At the end of Act I, Montezuma nd Cortez are inclined to become friends and to aid one another, but both are presented by duty.

Montezuma: -- This as a Prince,
Bound to my Peoples and the Crowns defence,
I must return, but, as a man by you
Redeem'd from death, all gratitude is due.
Cortez: It was an act my Honour bound me to,
But what I did were I again to do,
I could not do it on my Honours score,
For Love would now oblige me to do more.
Is no way left that we may yet agree?
Must I have War, yet have no Enemy? (I ii, 287)

The other limitation, that of age, is illustrated by Montezuma. In the twenty years since the events of The Indian Queen, his heroic qualities have faded. He is now capable of an unheroic blind Love for Almeria, who forces him to act contrary to his personal code of Honor. Since Cortez in his youthful heroic acts duplicates the career of Montezuma, the implication is that he too will become the corrupt old ruler of Mexico.

A quiet minor role is impossible for Montezuma. Activity is part of his very nature, and there is a point beyond which further limitation makes life impossible for him. Decisively defeated, his future dependent on the Victor's generosity, he cannot live.

Cortez: Despair not, Sir, who know but Conquering Spain
May part of what you lost restore again?
Montezuma: No, Spaniard, know, he who to Empire born,
Lives to be less, deserves the Victors scor:
Kings and their Crowns have but one Destiny:
Power is their Life, when that expires, they die (V ii, 333)

With regard to pity, which becomes more significant in the later, less active dramas, the Hero is defined as capable of pitying others, but disdaining to solicit pity for himself. Cortez addresses Montezuma after rescuing him from the Rack:

Ah, Father, Father, what do I endure,
To see these Wounds my pity cannot Cure.
Montezuma: Am I so low that you should pity bring,
And give an Infants Comfort to a King?
Ask these, if I have once unmanly groan'd;
Or ought have done deserving to be moan'd. (V ii, 330)

Guyomar is a different sort of Hero from Cortez or Montezuma, a companion Hero that was to become familiar in Dryden's drama.  He does nothing extraordinary, but is always honorable, carefully fulfilling his many duties.

Guyomar is a Court Hero involved in a courtly love situation. C.S. Lewis describes the typical courtly love situation:

The lady is allowed free choice in her acceptance or rejection of a lover in order that she may reward the merit of the best.  She must not abuse this power in order to gratify her own fancies. ¹⁵

If you oblige me suddenly to chuse,
The choice is made, for I must both refuse.
For to my self I owe this due regard,
Not to make love my gift, but my reward:
Time best will show whose services will last. (I ii, 282)

One I in secret Love, the other Loath;
But where I hate, my hate I will not show,
and he I love, my Love shall never know;
True worth shall gain me, that it may be said,
Desert, not fancy, once a Woman led. (II ii, 294)

Odmar eventually proves to be a villain and Guyomar remains true; at the end Alibech admits that it was Guyomar whom she loved all along. In the meantime, Guyomar was obliged to follow her every command. In fact, he was heroic to the extent that he fulfilled all his obligations, delicately weighing them in times of conflict. His personal ambitions are modest: after the fall of Mexico, he refuses to share the power with Cortez:

Think me not proudly rude, if I forsake
Those gifts I cannot with my Honour take:
I for my Country Fought, and would again,
Had I yet left a Country to maintain:
But since the Gods decreed ti otherwise,
I never will on its dear Ruines rise. (V ii, 336-337)

In La Calprenede "Everything is built to heroic proportions... The level is uniformly elevated." (Hill, p. 45) But in Guyomar we find a modest hero, one whose exploits are dictated only the demands of duty to State, to Father, and to Love. He is quite unlike the self-willed Cortez, who if freed from duty would be more extravagant in his sudden shifts and brave exploits. Guyomar admires Cortez' variety of heroism:

Son of the Sun, my Fetters cannot be
But Glorious for me, since put on by thee... (II iii, 298)

Guyomar: Brother, that Name my breast shall ever own...
[He embraces Cortez] (II iii, 299)

The characters in The Indian Emperor are active rather than reflective. They are involved in the situation at hand. When they are forced to recognize that that "real" situation is not the "ideal" one for which they had hoped, they briefly state what they perceive and move on to the next act. In other words, none of the characters is preoccupied with the "theme" of the play of which he is a part. The explicit statements of the cyclic or repetitive nature of events are isolated: they derive from the action, but lead to no further actions, i.e., no one changes his pattern of behavior because of disillusionment or because of an increased awareness of the "meaning" of preceding events.  The action illustrates the theme, is permeated with it, but the theme makes nothing happen: the scenes could be multiplied almost indefinitely with little change in the total effect, a series of tableaux.

That a play is ordered round a theme, (even if it be a potentially "great" theme), does not make the play "good" or "great". In some plays, the theme integrates the many strands of plot to produce a powerful unified effect. Such is not the case in The Indian Emperor. In so far as the audience is imaginatively involved in the actions on the stage, the "theme" goes by unnoticed. Only a detached observer sees the patterns as repeating patterns and the hopes of the characters as unreliable. Interest in the action works counter to interest in the theme and vice versa. Instead of action and theme dynamically developing together, the action merely provides examples of the theme.

Imagine Macbeth with no recognition of the nature of his own ambition and the pattern of events in which he has entrapped himself. Imagine the play as composed just of the events: an ambitious noble killing the king to rise to power and in turn being killed himself. Add a few parallel plots illustrating the rise and fall of violent, ambitious men. Then perhaps you will get a sense of what is missing in The Indian Emperor.

Almanzor and Almahide or The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards (1670)

I observ'd then, as I said, what was wanting to the perfection of his Siege of Rhodes: which was design and variety of characters. (p. 20)

In The Herculean Hero ¹⁶, Eugene Waith focuses on the uniqueness of Almanzor. The other characters and plot elements function as foils for Almanzor and his actions. "... the number of characters surrounding the hero only serves to emphasize his uniqueness." (p. 156) Concerning Dryden's categorization of Almahide, Ozmyn, and Benzayda as "patterns of exact virtue" (Preface to Granada, p. 24), Waith notes "... Almanzor is deliberately excluded from this category. The distinction Dryden is making brings out his love for a greatness which is irregular. This is the greatness of Antony, for whom virtue's path is too narrow (All for Love I 124-125). It is equally Almanzor's ..." (p. 154) Almahide's "love of quiet and peace are juxtaposed to Almanzor's warlike fierceness -- her love of order with his irregularity" (p. 161). "Almanzor rises to his faults; Abdalla, Abdelmelech, and Zulema stoop to theirs; and where mere restrain might make them better men, he needs only to be shown how his heroism might be put to an even better use." (p. 164) Waith's purpose is to describe a certain type of hero and his evolution. In the process, he has touched on a central structural principle of The Conquest of Granada: not only does Almanzor stand out in his heroic eccentricity, but the other characters are of two distinct types:

• Almahide, Ozmyn, and Benzayda, successors of Guyomar with his love of order and Honor
• Abdalla, Abdelmelech, Zulema, and their cohorts in machiavellian chaos.

Selin and Abenamar enter the play opposed in a bitter feud. Ozmyn, son of Abenamar, has killed Selin's son in a battle between the city's two factions. Selin seeks revenge, and Benzayda, his daughter, humanely intervenes on Ozmyn's part. She knows her brother was killed in a fair fight, and she will not be a party to the unnecessary slaughter of a brave and honorable man.

The parents' motives are those of revenge: the crudest form of social impulse, based on a mechanical, eye-for-eye notion of justice. Benzayda has a New Testament view of justice. She is motivated by Love, Honor, Mercy, and a Justice that considers not only events, but also individuals involved in events. She is quite willing (at times almost anxious) to die for Love or Honor or her variety of Justice. When making decisions, she consciously weighs her obligations to others and to her own principles:

When Parents their Commands unjustly lay,
Children are priviledg'd to disobey. (1, IV ii, 68)

This Honor, however, has its limitations. With their parents at war with each other, they are continually placed in situations in which Honor makes contradictory demands at the same time. When this occurs, they are totally helpless and indecisions:

Benzayda: My wishes contradictions must imply;
You must not go; and yet he must not die.
Your Reason may, perhaps, th'extrmes unite;
But there's a mist of Fate before my sight.
Ozmyn: The two Extremes too distant are to close;
And Humane Wit can no mid-way propose...
Benzayda: What Foe! oh wither would your vertue fall!
It is your Father whom the Foe you call...
Ozmyn: What e'er I plot, like Sisyphus in vain
I heave a stone that tumbles down again!
I have no refuge, but the arms of death;
To that dark Sanctuary I will go;
She cannot reach me when I lie so low (2, III ii, 122-124)

The world of the play as well as the world at large "is govern'd by precept and Example" (p. 15). Ozmyn and Benzayda serve as "patterns of exact vertue" not only for the edification of the audience, but also as an integral part of the stage action. It is by their example of "vertue" that their parents are reconciled to them and to each other:

Abenamar: Benzayda, 'twas your Vertue vanquish'd me:
That, could alone surmount my cruelty. (2, IV, 132)

Selin: I'le answer you, when I can speak for tears.
But, till I can --
Imagine what must needs be brought to pass: [embraces Ozmyn]
My heart's not made of Marble nor of Brass.
Did I for you a cruel death prepare
And have you -- have you, made my life your care!
There is a shame contracted by my faults,
Which hinders me to speak my secret thoughts.
And I will tell you (when that shame's remov'd)
You are not better by my Daughter lov'd.
Benzayda be yours -- I can no more. [Ozmyn embracing his knees] (2, II i, 105)

Selin: My Son!
Ozmyn: My Father! (2, II i, 105)

Ozmyn and Benzayda's dilemma can be stated in terms of the larger conflict between Moor and Christian for Granada. At first, they are natural-Christians, Christians by temperament and morality rather than by doctrine, stranded in a pagan world. The pagan and Christian values are in continual conflict. A partial resolution is brought about by the conversion of their parents to their Christian-like perspective. The final resolution is brought about by the Christian conquest of Granada bringing the religious and social forms necessary to sustain and support their natural religious inclinations. The Christian order of Ferdinand and Isabella conquers the chaos of a state in which natural moral inclinations and socially sanctioned obligations are separate and in conflict.

The kinds of characters in Granada are most clearly distinguished by their attitudes to fate or fortune. The word "fate" or "destiny" implies a preordained order, a fixed and unalterable pattern of past, present, and future events. This pattern is more or less visible to human eyes, but even apparently random events lead inexorably to the fulfillment of the individual and/or general destiny. The word "fortune" implies random, undirected chance. All apparent patterns are only accidental and the luck of today will be balanced by future misfortune. "Fortune" and "fate" are different manifestations of the same attitude toward human events: the view that the pattern of a man's life is primarily determined by factors external to him, beyond his control: an ironic perspective: man as primarily at the mercy of his environment. Lyndaraxa alternates between the world-view of "fortune" and that of "fate".

To succeed in the world of Fortune, one must watch which way the wind blows and change one's tack accordingly. In that world, principles and ideals are dead weight that make it difficult for one to change one's course. Light machiavellian craft can easily outmaneuver the heavy armada of principle-laden opponents.

Lyndaraxa: O Could I read the dark decrees of fate,
That I might once know whom to love or hate!
For I my self scarce my own thought can guess;
So much I find 'em varied by success.
As in my wether-glass my Love I hold;
Which falls and rises with the heat or cold.
I will be constant yet, if fortune can;
I love the King; let her but name the Man. (1, IV ii, 61)

She compares herself to Tamburlaine, the self-seeking warrior consistently favored by Fortune. Such a pattern of extraordinary good luck suggests the other world-view: that each man has his preordained destiny that he merely acts out. Her success was inevitable.

Lyndaraxa: You murmur now, but you shall soon obey.
I knew this Empyre to my fate was ow'd:
Heav'n held it back as long as e're it cou'd.
[to Abdelmelech] For thee, base wretch, I want a torture yet --
--I'le cage thee, thou shalt be my Bajazet.
I on no pavement but on thee will tread,
And, when I mount, my foot shall know thy had. (2, V, 160)

Lyndaraxa: Sure destiny mistakes; this death's not mine;
She dotes, and meant to cut another line.
Tell her I ama  Queen; -- but 'tis too late;
Dying, I charge REbellion on my fate:
Bow down ye slaves --
Bow quickly down, and your Submission show.
I'm pleas'ed to taste an Empire 'ere I goe. (2, V, 160-161)

Ozmyn and Benzayda are helplessly shuttled back and forth across the battlefield according to the demands of contingency and of Honor.  At times they seem just as trapped in a mechanical world as Lyndaraxa and her cohorts.

Benzayda: Blind Queen of Chance, to Lovers too severe,
Thou rulest Mankind, but art a Tyrant there!
Thy widest Empyre's in lover's brest;
Like open Seas we seldom are at rest.
Upon thy Coasts our wealth is daily cast;
And thou, like Pyrates, mak'st no peace at last. (2, II ii, 121)

In all events preserve your Honor free:
For that's your own, though not your destiny. (2, III iii, 125)

Almanzor is puzzled by the same problem of fate:

O Heaven, how dark a Riddle's thy Decree,
Which bounds our Wills, yet seems to leave 'em free!
Since thy fore-knowledge cannot be in vain,
Our choice must be what thou did'st first ordain:
Thus, like a Captive in an Isle confin'd,
Man walks at large, a Pris'ner of the Mind:
Wills all his Crimes, while Heav'n th' Indictment draws;
And, pleading guilty, justifies the laws. --
Let Fate be Fate; the Lover and the Brave
Are rank'd, at least, above the vulgar Slave:
Love makes me willing to my death to run;
And courage scorns the death it cannot shun. (2, IV iii, 141)

Almanzor expects no rewards and fears no punishments and is therefore free of any system of government, whether of God or of Boabdelin, that is based on reward and punishment. He has "an inviolable faith in his affection" (Dedication to Granada, p. 18) and will risk his life for those he admires, respects, and loves, but no God or king can hire or coerce him, no shift of Fortune can affect his will.

Almanzor: Great Souls by kindness only can be ti'd. (1, IV i, 60)

Almanzor: No, there is a necessity in Fate,
Why still the brave bold man is Fortunate:
He keeps his object ever full in sight,
And that assurance holds him firm, and right.
True, 'tis a narrow path that leads to bliss,
But right before there is no precipice:
Fear makes men look aside, and then their footing miss. (1, IV ii, 72-73)

Great Souls discern not when the leap's too wide,
Because they onely view the farther side.
Whatever you desire you think is near:
But, with more reason, the even I fear. (1, IV ii, 72)

Dryden says of Almanzor in the Dedication of Granada:

I have form'd a Heroe, I confess, not absolutely perfect, but of an excessive and overboyling courage: but Homer and Tasso are my precedents. Both the Greek and the Italian Poet had well consider'd that a tame Heroe who never transgresses the bounds of moral vertue, would shine but dimly in an Epick poem. The strictness of those Rules might well give precepts to the Reader, but would administer little occasion to the writer. But a character of an excentrique vertue is the more exact Image of humane life, because he is not wholly exempted from its frailties... I design'd in him a roughness of Character, impatient of injuries; and a confidence of himself, almost approaching to arrogance. But these errors are incident only to great spirits. They are the moles and dimples which hinder not a face from being beautiful; though that beauty be not regular. (pp. 16-17)

You see how little these great Authors did esteem the point of Honour, so much magnify'd by the French, and so ridiculously ap'd by us. They made their Heroes men of honour; but so, as not to divest them quite of humane passions and frailties. They contented themselves to show you what men of great spirits would certainly do, when they were provok'd, not what they were oblig'd to do by the strict rules of moral vertue; for my own part, I declare my self for Homer and Tasso; and am more in love with Achilles and Rinaldo than with Cyrus and Oroondates. I shall never subject my characters to the French standard; where Love and Honour are to be weigh'd by drams and scruples; yet, where I have design'd the patterns of exact vertue, such as in this Play are the Parts of Almahide, Ozmyn, and Benzayda, I may safely challenge the best of theirs. (p. 24)

Whereas Ozmyn and Benzayda remain natural-Christian and eventually convert their parents to their perspective; Almahide, Ozmyn's sister, explicitly converts to Christianity.

Almahide: Thou Pow'r unknown, if I have err'd forgive:
My infancy was taught what I believe.
But if the Christians truly worship thee,
Let me thy godhead in thy succour see:
So shall thy Justice in my safety shine,
And all my dayes, which thou salt add, be thine! (2, V, 149)

Almahide: I owe my life and hour to his sword;
But owe my love to my departed Lord. (2, V, 162)

Almahide sometimes sees her situation as a dilemma of duty and Honor. She talks of what she "owes" to both men, and she sees suicide as a solution. But for Almanzor there is no question of "duty". He is bound only by affection and if Honor should be an obstacle to that affection, he'll rise above Honor and act according to his own eccentric laws. Almanzor presents Almahide with an alternative to suicide: she can shift perspective and act like Almanzor, consider herself above duty to a husband like Boabdelin.

Almahide: But Heav'n which made me great; has chose for me:
I must th'oblation for my People be.
I'le cherish Honour, then, ad Life despise;
What is not Pure, is not for sacrifice.
Yet, for Almanzor I in secret mourn!
Can Vertue, then, admit of his return?
Yes; for my Love I will, by Vertue, square:
I'le like Almanzor act, and dare to be
As haughty, and as wretched too as he.
What will he think is in my Message meant!
I scarcely understand my own intent:
But Silk wormlike, so long within have  wrought,
That I am lost in my own Web of thought. (2, II ii, 102)

Almanzor: Hold, hold!
Such fatal proofs of love you shall not give;
Deny me; hate me; (both are just) but live!
Your Vertue I will ne'r disturb again:
Nor dare to ask, for fear I should obtain. (2, IV, 144)

Deny your own desires; for it will be
Too little now to be deni'd by me.
Will he, who does all great, all noble seem,
Be lost and forfeit to his own Esteem?
Will he, who may with Heroes claim a place,
Belye that fame, and to himself be base?
Think how August and godlike you did look
When my defence, unbrib'd you undertook.
But, when an Act so rave you disavow,
How little, and how mercenary now! (2, IV, 143)

Almanzor: ...what is Honour, but a Love well hid? (2, IV, 142)

Almahide wants a strictly Platonic love, one that she can easily reconcile to her duty to Boabdelin:

Farewell; and may our loves hereafter, be
But, Image-like, to heighten piety. (2, IV, 144)

Almahide: And would you all that secret joy of mind
Which great Souls onely in great actions find,
All that, for one tumultuous minute loose?
Almanzor: I wou'd that minute before ages choose.
Praise is the pay of Heav'n for doing good,
But Love's the best return for flesh and blood. (2, IV, 143)

Be you, like me; dull Reason hence remove;
And tedious forms; and give a loose to love.
Love eagerly; let us be gods to night;
And do not, with half yielding, dash delight. (2, IV, 142)

For Almahide, the choices are suicide or a conversion to Almanzor's perspective. Since Almanzor insists on the value of life, her wish for self-sacrifice, for suicide is ironically selfish: she would thereby break rather than affirm the tie that binds her to Almanzor. But she is afraid to leap from her world to his.

Conversion to Christianity is a temporary resolution. In Moorish Granada this would at least be a further justification fro martyrdom, or as a nun she could preserve both her Honour and her Platonic love for Almanzor. Isabella, like divine grace, finally resolves the dilemma.  Almahide is not obliged to persist in her attachment to the dead man she despised. A year of mourning will suffice. Then everyone can live happily ever after.

The Christian conquest of Granada brings the social forms necessary to sustain and support Almahide's natural moral inclinations. The old social order, headed by monarchs who would be machiavellian if they had more intelligence, was stifling and confining for Almahide, who, like Ozmyn, seemed out of place. Almanzor, in comparison to that old world, seemed a natural phenomenon, more a god than a man.

Almanzor (to Abdalla): If from thy hands alone my death can be,
I am immortal; and a God, to thee. (1, III, 58)

Almanzor: Born, as I am still to command, not sue,
Yet you shall see that I can beg for you [Almahide].
And if your Father will require a Crown,
Let him but name the Kingdom, 'tis his own.
I am, but while I please, a private man;
I have that Soul which Empires first began:
From the dull crowd which every King does lead,
I will pick out whom I will choose to head:
The best and bravest Souls I can select,
And on their Conquer'd Necks my Throne erect. (1, IV, 73)

Almanzor: I bring a heart which homage never knew;
Yet it finds something of it self in you:
Something so kingly, that my haughty mind
Is drawn to yours; because 'tis of a kind. (2, V, 161)]

The new order is headed by a king and queen of Almanzor's heroic level who by their example and their laws assist rather than stifle the heroic rise of their subjects. Almahide is renamed "Isabella of Granada", and the path is cleared for her and Almanzor to follow the pattern of their heroic monarchs and become in turn exemplars for the people of Granada. The scene is set for the moral regeneration of the kingdom.

For Almanzor, greatness is associated with a quality of the Soul, and the state of one's Soul is associated with one's world-view, with one's attitude to Justice, Fate, Love. Affection for Almanzor involves a recognition of exemplary qualities. Before he knows the Duke of Arcos is his father, even when they are on opposite sides in battle, Almanzor admires and respects the Duke of Arcos as a friend. Later, Almanzor immediately admires Ferdinand's "haughty mind".

Love sets the Soul in violent agitation, radically changes the Soul.

Almahide: Had love not shown me, I had never seen
An Excellence beyond Boabdelin.
I had not, aiming higher, lost my rest;
But with a vulgar good been dully blest. (1, V, 83)

Almanzor: Forgive that fury which my Soul does move;
'Tis the Essay of an untaught first love.
Yet rude, unfashion'd truth it does express:
'Tis love just peeping in a hasty dress.
Retire, fair Creature, to your needful rest;
There's something noble lab'ring in my brest:
This raging fire which through the Mass does move,
Shall purge my dross, ad shall refine my Love. (1, III, 56)

I'me pleas'd and pain'd since first her eyes I saw,
As I were stung with some Tarantula:
Armes, and the dusty field I less admire;
And soften strangely in some new desire.
Honour burns in me, not so fiercely bright,
But pale as fires when master'd by the light.
Ev'n while I speak and look, I change yet more;
And now am nothing that I was before.
I'm numb'd, and fix'd, and scarce my eyeballs move;
I fear it is the Lethargy of Love!
'Tis he; I feel him now in every part:
Like a new Lord he vaunts about my Heart,
Surveys in state each corner of my Brest,
While poor fierce I, that was, am dispossest.
I'm bound; but I will rowze my rage again:
And though no hope of Liberty remaine,
I'll fright the Keeper when I shake my chaine. (1, III, 54)

My Love's my Soul; and that from Fate is free:
'Tis that unchang'd; and deathless part of me. (2, III, 128)

Abdelmelech, formerly Abdalla's friend, is similarly "blinded" by Lyndaraxa. Both their Souls are pulled down to Lyndaraxa's blind perspective where no true friendship is possible.

Abdemelech: Fly, fly, before th'allurements of her face;
'Ere she return with some resistless grace,
And with new magique covers all the place.
Abdalla: I cannot, will not; nay I would not fly;
I'le love; be blind, be cousen'd till I dye.
And you, who bid me wiser Counsel take,
I'le hate, and if I can, I'le kill you for her sake.
Abdelmelech: Ev'n I that counsell'd you, that choice approve,
Prudence, that stemm'd the stream, is out of breath;
And to go down it, is the easier death. (1, III, 48)

Characters of the moral level of Lyndaraxa are practiced in deception and use Love as but one of their tools with which to gain power. By her, Abdelmelech is "Bound in the fetters of dissembled Love" (2, IV ii, 134). In contrast, Almanzor only says what he means, cannot sustain a lie:

My heart's so plain,
That men on every passing thought may look,
Like fishes gliding in a Crystal brook:
When troubled most, it does the bottom show,
'Tis weedless all above; and rockless all below. (1, IV i, 60)

Zulema: Man makes his fate according to his mind.
The weak low Spirit Fortune makes her salve... (1, II, 44)

Lyndaraxa: My Smiles shall make Abdalla more than Man (1, III, 52)

When Tamburlaine asserts himself, he uses his own name as the credentials of his power:
I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains,
And with my hand burn Fortune's wheel about,
And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere
Then Tamburlaine be slain or overcome. (1, I ii, 1. 173-176)

Great Souls by kindness onely can be ti'd... (1, IV i, 60)

I have that Soul which Empires first began ... (1, IV ii, 73)

The minds of Heroes their own measures are ... (2, IV ii, 133)

Great Souls discern not when the leap's too wide... (1, IV ii, 72)

At the opposite end of the heroic scale is Lyndaraxa, surrounded by a horde of opportunities like herself: her "lovers' Abdalla and Abdelmelech, her brothers Sulema and Hamet, and Abdalla's brother Boabdelin. Their only motive is their own personal gain in the form of power, wealth, or sexual satisfaction. Lyndaraxa switches her "love" and allegiance from Abdalla to Abdelmelech and back again.  THe mob led by Zulema, chief of the Zegrys, and Abdelmelech, chief of the Abencerages, shifts mechanically, opportunistically, bound by laws of economics and self-preservation. It's the world of Davenant's "common crowd" and Hobbes' "City." It's a chaotic world where the prevailing rule is the survival of the luckiest, where any victory is only momentary, where all morals are machiavellian. It's a nightmare world resembling that of Jacobean tragedy: a world of corruption, intrigue, fortuitous slaughter: an impotent, ironic world.

In Granada, individual Souls are in movement and all Souls together are bound up in a general struggle. For a moment, it seems that all could be swallowed up by the corruption of Lyndaraxa's world.

Abdelmelech: Heav'n is not Heav'n; nor are there Deities.
There is some new Rebellion in the Skies.
All that was Good and Holy, is dethron'd:
And Lust, and Rapine are for justice own'd. (2, V, 148)

Almanzor, at the top of this heroic scale, is a young Stranger with no ties of duty but his love for Almahide. He is a Hero with all limitations removed: Dryden's most complete express of the active super-Hero.

Aureng-Zebe (1675)

Aureng-Zebe gathers up many themes and characters long familiar in Dryden's rhymed plays. The Emperour is a variation upon the old Montezuma in The Indian Emperour, debasing himself and imperilling his kingdom by a love he cannot control. ¹⁷

But Aureng-Zebe, by no strong passion sway'd,
Except his Love, more temp'rate is, and weigh'd:
This Atlas must our sinking state uphold;
In Council cool, but in Performance bold:
He sums their Virtues in himself alone,
And adds the greatest, of a Loyal Son:
His Father's Cause upon his Sword he wears,
And with his ARms, we hope, his fortune bears (I i, 91)

Arimant: Oh! had he still that Character maintain'd,
Of Valour, which in blooming Youth, he gain'd!
He promis'd in this East a glorious Race;
Now, sunk from his meridian, set apace.
But as the Sun, when he from Noon declines,
And with abated heat, less fiercely shines,
Seems to grow milder as he goes away,
Pleasing himself with the remains of Day;
So he, who, in his Youth, for Glory strove,
Would recompense his Age with Ease and Love (I i, 91)

Arimant: Whate'er can urge ambitious Youth to fight,
She pompously displays before their sight... (I i, 89)

This free confession shows you long did strive:
And virtue, though oprest, is still alive. (I i, 95)

Him would I, more than all the Rebels, shun (I i, 94)

I will not, cannot, dare not, see my Son. (I i, 95)

O Aureng-Zebe! thy virtues shine too bright.
They flash too fierce: I, like the Bird of Night,
Shut my dull eyes, and sicken at the sight.
Thou hast deserv'd more love than I can show:
But 'tis thy fate to give, and mine to owe.
Thou seest me much distemper'd in my mind:
Pull'd back, and then push'd forward to be kind.
Virtue, and -- fain I wou'd my silence break,
But have not yet the confidence to speak. (I i, 97)

After successfully defending the citadel against Morat's assaults, Aureng-Zebe seems for a time reconciled with his father.

Emperor: My Son, your valour has, this day been such,
None can enough admire, or praise too much. (II i, 110)

Emperor: Age has not yet
So shrunk my Sinews, or so chill'd my Veins,
But conscious Virtue in my breast remains,
But had I now that strength, with which my boiling Youth was fraught;
When in the vale of Balasor I fought,
And from Bengale their Captive Monarch brought;
When Elephant 'gainst Elephant did rear
His Trunck, and Castles justl'd in the Air;
My Sword thy way to Victory had shown:
And ow'd the Conquest to it self alone.
Aureng-Zebe: Those fair Ideas to my aid I'll call,
And emulate my great Original;
Or, if they fail, I will invoke in Arms,
The power of Love, and Indamora's charms (II i, 110-111)

Witness, ye Pow'rs,
How much I suffer'd, and how long I strove
Against th' assaults of this imperious Love!
I represented to my self the shame
Of perjured Faith, and violated Fame.
Your great deserts, how ill they were repay'd;
All arguments in vain, I urg'd and weigh'd:
For mighty Love, who Prudence does despise,
For Reason, who'd me Indamora's Eyes.
What would you more, my crime I sadly view,
Acknowledge, am asham'd, and yet pursue. (II i, 112)

After his second confrontation with this father, it is clear to Aureng-Zebe that the Emperor will not willingly give up Indamora. For the first time, the young hero talks of death: he would rather die than renounce Indamora. At this point, Aureng-Zebe seems to become disengaged from the action, seems to step back, disillusioned, and contemplate the futility of the world about him. If the "best of kings" comes to such an end as this, if this is the result of an heroic life, Aureng-Zebe does not want to follow in his father's footsteps. He wants nothing to do with this world, this life:

How vain is Virtue which directs our ways
Through certain danger, to uncertain praise!
Barren and aery name! thee Fortune flies;
With thy lean Train, the Pious and the Wise.
Heaven takes thee at thy word, without regard;
And lets thee poorly be thy own reward.
The World is made for the bold impious man,
Who stops at nothing, seizes all he can.
Justice to merit does weak aid afford;
She trusts her Balance, and neglects her Sword.
Virtue is nice to take what's not her own;
And, while she long consults, the Prize is gone. (II i, 113)

The Emperor is disillusioned with himself and the world. He, like Aureng-Zebe, cynically, satirically comments on the nature of man.

Believe me, Son, [Morat] and needless trouble spare;
'Tis a base World, and is not worth our care.
The Vulgar, a scarce animated Clod,
Ne'er pleas'd with ought above 'em, Prince or God.
WEre I a God the drunken Globe should roul:
The little Emmets with the human Soul
Care for themselves, while at my ease I sat,
And second Causes di the work of Fate;
Or, if I would take care, that care should be
For Wit that scorn'd the world, and lived like me (III i, 119)

Of business you complain'd; now take your ease;
Enjoy what e'er decrepid Age can please:
Eat, Sleep, and tell long Tales of what you were
In flow'r of Youth, if any one will hear (IV i, 137)

Aureng-Zebe's willingness to die in act IV is unique in Dryden's drama.  Quite frequently, heroes and heroines are willing to die for each other and, especially, are willing to die together, hoping to be reunited after death. But in this case, the emphasis is on disillusionment.  Aureng-Zebe does not want to live in this deceptive, imperfect world. In what he thinks are his last moments, he considers not Indamora, but "life":

When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat;
Yet, fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think to morrow will repay:
To morrow's falser than the former day;
Lies worse; and while it says, We shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange couzenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And, from the dregs of Life, think to receive,
What the first sprightly running could not give.
I'm tired with waiting for this Chymic gold,
Which fools us young, and Beggars us when old. (IV i, 129)

Ah, Sex, invented first to damn Mankind!
Nature took care to dress you up for sin:
Adorn'd, without; unfinish'd left, within.
Hence, by no judgment you your loves direct;
Talk much, ne'r think, and still the wrong affect.
So much self-Love in your composures mixed,
That love to others still remain unfix'd;
Greatness, and Noise, and Show, are your delight;
Yet wise men love you, in their own despight;
And, finding in their native Wit no ease,
Are forc'd to put your folly on to please. (IV i, 141)

Indamora: Be no more jealous! [Giving him her hand.]
Aureng-Zebe: -- Give me cause no more:
The danger's greater after, than before.
If I relapse; to cure my jealousie
Let me (for that's the easiest parting) die. (IV i, 142)

My Father's kind; and, Madam, you forgive:
Were Heaven so pleased, I now could wish to live.
And, I shall live.
With Glory and with Love, at once, I burn:
I feel the inspiring heat, ad absent God return. ¹⁸ (IV i, 143)

After winning the battle, Aureng-Zebe returns to see Morat dying in Indamora's arms. Once again he rails against the frailty of womankind (V i, 156). She and her love are not perfect:

If you had loved, you nothing yours could call:
Giving the least of mine, you gave him all.
True love's a Miser: so tenacious grown:
He weighs to the least grain of what's his own.
More delicate than Honour's nicest sense:
Neither to give nor take the least offence.
With, or without you, I can have no rest;
What shall I do? y'are dog'd within my breast:
Your Image never will be thence displac'd;
But there it lies, stabb'd, mangl'd, and defac'd. (V i, 158)

Since perfect bliss with me you cannot prove,
I scorn to bless by halves the man I love. (V i, 158)

Aureng-Zebe: O Indamora, you would break my heart!
Could you resolve, on any terms, to part?
I thought you love eternal: was it ti'd
So loos'ly, that a quarrel could divide?
I grant that my suspicions were unjust;
But would you leave me, for a small distrust?
Forgive those foolish words --
They were the froth my raging folly mov'd,
When it boiled up: I knew not then I lov'd,
Yet then lov'd most. (V i, 159)

Urg'd by my Love, by hope of Empire fir'd;
'Tis true, I have perform'd what both requir'd:
What Fate decreed; for when great Souls are giv'n,
They bear the marks of Sov'reignty from Heaven. (V i, 144)

Indamora: Could that Decree [for Aureng-Zebe's death] from any Brother come?
Nature her self is sentenc'd in your doom.
Piety is no more, she sees her place
Usurp'd by Monsters, and a savage Race...
Think there's a Heav'n, Morat, though not for you. (III, 126)

Had Heav'n the Crown for Aureng-Zebe design'd,
Pity, for you, had pierc'd his generous mind.
Pity does with a Noble Nature suit... (III, 126)

Morat: I without guilt, would mount the Royal Seat;
But yet 'its necessary to be great.
Indamora: All Greatness is in Virtue understood:
'Tis onely necessary to be good.
Tell me, what is't at which great Spirits aim,
What most your self desire?
Morat: -- Renown, and Fame,
And Pow'r, as uncontrol'd as is my will.
Indamora: How you confound desires of good and ill!
For true renown is still with Virtue joyn'd;
But lust of Pow'r lets loose th' unbridl'd mind.
Yours is a Soul irregularly great,
Which wanting temper, yet abounds with heat:
So strong, yet so unequal pulses beat.
As Sun which does through Vapours dimly shine:
What pity 'its you are not all Divine!
New molded, thorow lighten'd, and a breast
So pure, to bear the last severest test;
Fit to command an Empire you should gain
By Virtue, and without a blush to Reign...
Dare to be great, without a guilty Crown;
View it, and lay the bright temptation down:
'Tis base to seize on all, because you may;
That's Empire, that which I can give away...
Morat: Renown, and Fame, in vain, I courted long;
And still pursu'd 'em though directed wrong. (V, 146)

-- Cease to inhanse her misery:
Pity the Queen, and show respect to me...
[to her] Your grief, in me such sympathy has bred,
I mourn; and wish I could recall the dead.
Love softens me; and blows up fires, which pass
Through my tough heart, and melt the stubborn Mass. (V, 147)

Morat: I leave you not; for my expanded mind
Grows up to Heav'n, while It to you is joyn'd:
Not quitting, but enlarg'd! A blazing Fire,
Fed from the Brand. [Dies] (V, 155)

"Pity" in this context is an unselfish sympathy, a concern for other human beings. It is similar to the unselfish kind of love which is requisite for salvation in I Corinthians 13:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. (Revised Standard Version)

Whereas Aureng-Zebe and the Emperor are preoccupied with the discrepancy between the "ideal" and the "real", Morat at first has no conception of the "ideal." He takes for granted a world of self-interested opportunism. It is only through Indamora's lessons and finally through the example of her grief that Morat learns the fundamentals of the heroic "ideal."

The Changing Hero

Whether they [the Herculean legends] signify the supremacy of Dorian man in Argolis or of man in the universe, they tell of a wonderful force inherent in the human body, capable of conquering this world and even of defying the world beyond. (Waith, Hero, 18)

The feats of a muscle-man like Hercules can be extraordinary, but are not likely to be "exemplary". Hercules makes no attempt to convert others to his brand of heroism: he does not try to sell muscle-building equipment or to teach a new set of exercises. His strength is unique. It is to be marveled at, but not to be imitated.

In contrast, Almanzor's heroism is meant to be imitated. He tries to convert Almahide. He is careful to define the heroic world-view in such a way that she and others can follow his example.

Though this distinction between Almanzor and Hercules is clear, the distinction between Almanzor and Tamburlaine is blurred. Tamburlaine combines extraordinary ruthlessness and daring with extraordinary good fortune. He, like Hercules, emphasizes his own uniqueness, and his success seems to confirm his claims of almost divine power.  He considers himself in control of Fortune, but is in fact merely Fortune's favorite: he is eventually struck down by disease.

Though Almanzor's generalized form of speech distinguishes him from Tamburlaine, the two "heroes' are similar in terms of good fortune. As in the case of Tamburlaine, much of Almanzor's success in battle can be ascribed to his boldness and unwavering self-confidence. He is not concerned about reward and punishment and hence does not change his course with the winds of fortune, but rather fortune seems to change its course for him. But despite this "rational" explanation, the fact remains that the circumstances are ideal for Almanzor's exploits. Each time Almanzor changes his allegiance, there is an army waiting for him to lead them, an army sufficiently strong to win.  Throughout the play, Almanzor's ignorance of his parentage give him an extraordinary freedom of action: he is the Stranger, unbounded by duty to any family or nation. When the fighting is over, it is revealed that Arcos is his father: he is a nobel and a Christian, a fit spouse for Almahide and viceroy for Granada.  Montezuma in The Indian Queen and Cortez in The Indian Emperor are also Strangers in circumstances ideal for heroic battlefield accomplishments. In other words, while the speeches define the "hero" in terms of an inner quality, a world-view, the actions show him to be a man of extraordinary good fortune, a good fortune that is independent of the inner quality that arises by no "necessity". The Hero is a man of great Soul and great Luck.

As Dryden refined his definition of the Hero in his later dramas (All for Love, Don Sebastian, and Cleomenes), he portrayed the Hero at the ebb of his fortunes, after a major defeat. Given the opportunity, the Heroes of these later plays have the greatness of Mind to boldly and intelligently win battles. But to have won battles is not to be a Hero, and to have lost them is not to be excluded from that category. In other words, heroism is a personal quality independent of external circumstances, beyond the realm of Fate and Fortune.

Arthur Kirsch in Dryden's Heroic Drama sees a shift in emotional emphasis from admiration in the early plays to pity in the later ones.

Pity and the capacity for tears have begun to supersede the union of private and public pride as the credentials of heroism, and the focal scenes are those which occasion a display of these sentiments rather than those which demonstrate grandeur and evoke admiration. (p. 124)

This shift can be seen from another perspective which emphasizes the continuity of Dryden's drama.  Whereas the hero of the early plays was a hero of great Soul and great Luck; the hero of the later plays has the great Soul, the inner quality without the Luck. Whereas Cortez and Almanzor are primarily Active, with short spells in prison; Aureng-Zebe, Antony, Oedipus, Don Sebastian, and Cleomenes are primarily passive during the stage action. Their heroic deeds occur primarily before the play begins. During the play, they wait for events beyond their control to unfold. Frequently, they are imprisoned or trapped because their greatness of Mind rules out the opportunities for escape, rules out the possibility of action under the given circumstances. Their greatness of Soul is demonstrated by this decision not to escape and their readiness to accept death unflinchingly. In Granada, inimitable heroic feats and exemplary stances coexist. In the later plays the feats are de-emphasized: the mind and emotions of the hero, the exemplary stances predominate.

"Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart."
-- The Circus Animal's Desertion -- Yeats

All for Love or the World Well Lost (1677)

Serapion: Portents and Prodigies are grown so frequent
That they have lost their Name. Our fruitful Nile
Flow'd ere the wonted Season with a Torrent
So unexpected and so wondrous fierce,
That the wild Deluge overtook the haste
Ev'n of the Hinds that watch'd it: Men and Beasts
Were born above the tops of Trees that grew
On th'utmost margin of the the Water-mark.
Then, with so swift an Ebb the Floud drove backward
It slipt from underneath the scaly herd;
Here monstrous Phocae panted on the Shore;
Forsaken Dolphins there with their broad tails,
Lay lashing the departing Waves; hard by 'em,
Sea-Horses, floundering in the slimy mud,
Tossed up their heads, and dashed the ooze about them. [opening speech]

Antony (to Dolabella): Thou hast what's left of me.
For I am now so sunk from what I was,
Thou find'st me at my lowest water-mark.
The Rivers that ran in and rais'd my fortunes,
Are all dry'd up, or take another course:
What I have left is from my native Spring;
I've still a heart that swells, in scorn of fate,
And lifts me to my banks. (III i, 220)

Ventidius: You laught.
Antony: I do, to see officious love
Give Cordials to the dead.
Ventidius: You would be lost then?
Antony: I am.
Ventidius: I say you are not. Try your fortune.
Antony: I have, to th' utmost. Dost thou think me desperate,
Without just cause? No, when I found all lost
Beyond repair, I hid me from the World,
And learnt to scorn it here; which now I do
So heartily, I think it is not worth
The cost of keeping (I i, 200)

The flood image used to describe Antony's ebbing fortunes recalls a tide image used by Arimant to describe the relative fortunes of Aureng-Zebe and Morat.

Arimant: Fortune seems weary grown of Aureng-Zebe,
While to her new made Favourite, Morat,
Her lavish hand is wastefully profuse:
With Fame and flowing Honour tided in,
Born on a swelling Current smooth beneath him. (III i, 118)

In his youth, Antony was favored by Fortune and gained a reputation as a Hero. Now that his fortunes have ebbed and he can no longer perform amazing "heroic" feats, he wonders what he is.

Antony: Fortune is Caesar's now; and what am I (III i, 221)

Antony: O Hercules! why should a Man like this,
Who dares not trust his fate for one great action,
Be all the care of Heav'n? Why should he Lord it
O're Fourscore thousand me, of whom each one is braver than himself? (II i, 207)

Antony: Octavius is the Minion of blind Chance,
But holds from Virtue nothing. (II i, 207)

Antony: Oh, he's the coolest Murder, so stanch,
He kills, and keeps his temper. (III i, 218)

Antony combines Almanzor's eccentric virtue, his irregular greatness, with Aureng-Zebe's reflectiveness and scorn of the world.

Gentleman: He eats not, drinks, not, sleeps not, has no use
Of any thing, but thought; or if he talks,
'Tis to himself, and then 'tis perfect raving:
Then he defies the World, and bids it pass;
Sometimes he gnawes his Lip, and curses loud
The Boy Octavius; then he draws his mouth
Into a scornful smile, and cries, Take all,
The World's not worth my care.
Ventidius: Just, just his nature.
Virtues his path; but sometimes 'tis too narrow
For his vast Soul; and then he starts out wide,
And bounds into a Vice that bears him far
From his first course, and plunges him in ills:
But when his danger makes him find his fault,
Quick to observe and full of sharp remorse,
He censures eagerly his own misdeeds,
Judging himself with malice to himself,
And not forgiving what as Man he did,
Because his other parts are more than Man. --

In All for Love, the theme may be stated: in what sense can a man abandoned by Fortune be a Hero? In so far as Antony is a Hero, but at first does not understand in what sense he is still a Hero, his self-consciousness, his reflections on his own character are reflections on the theme of the play: character, theme, and action interact.

In general, the characterization of All for Love is more rounded, less monolithic than that of Granada. There are vestiges of the levels of the heroic hierarchy (which we shall examine later), but the characters are individuals rather than types An interesting example of this is Ventidius, who seems for most of the play to be a pattern of exact virtue.

Antony (to Alexas about Ventidius): Now, on my soul, he loves me, truly loves me;
He never flattered me in any vice,
But awes me with his virtue: ev'n this minute
Methinks he has a right of chiding me.
Lead to the Temple: I'll avoid his chiding presence;
It checks too strong upon me. (III i, 217)

Ventidius considers himself in the role of Antony's physician, trying to bring him back to his old self.

Ventidius: You are too sensible already
Of what y'have done, too conscious of your failings,
And, like a Scorpion, whipt by others first
To fury, sting yourself in mad revenge.
I would bring Balm and pour it in your wounds,
Cure your distempered mind, and heal your fortunes. (I i, 199-200)

But he who came to "bring balm" ends up stinging Antony with jealousy "like a Scorpion". Despite himself, Ventidius too lusts for Cleopatra.

Ventidius: ... Even I who hate her,
With a malignant joy behold such beauty;
And while I curse, desire it. (IV i, 237)

His virtues lie so mingled with his crimes,
As would confound their [the gods'] choice to punish one,
And not reward the other. (III i, 218)

Antony and Cleopatra are both transparent, like Almanzor, incapable of sustained deception (IV i, 235-236; IV i, 242). Ventidius frequently acts like the hero of exact virtue who admires the irregular greatness of the super-hero. ²¹ He always advises in terms of Honor. Alexas always advises in terms of self-interest. He says what he thinks will produce the effect he desires, regardless of what he may know or believe. Thus we are presented with the vestiges of the heroic hierarchy: the super-hero, the honor-hero, and the villain. However, whereas in Granada it ws possible to move from one level of the hierarchy to another, in All for Love this does not occur. The levels are shown in their separateness, as levels of meaning or of language, or of perspective. Characters of different levels think differently and misunderstand one another, and these misunderstandings precipitate the final catastrophe. This is particularly evident in the scene in which Alexas lies to Antony, telling him that Cleopatra has committed suicide. Ventidius greets the news with "heav'n be prais'd." Then after a lament from Antony and another expression of joy from Ventidius, Antony turns to Alexas:

Antony: (to Alexas): Why stayst thou here?
Is it for thee to spy upon my Soul,
And see its inward mourning. Get thee hence;
Thou art not worthy to behold, what now
Becomes a Roman Emperor to perform.
Alexas (aside): He loves her still:
His grief betrays it. Good! The joy to find
She's yet alive, compleats the reconcilement.
I've sav'd my self, and her. But, Oh! the Romans!
Fate comes too fast upon my Wit,
Hunts me too hard, and meets me at each double. EXIT (V, 254)

Ventidius: O Women! Women! Women! all the gods
Have not the pow'r of doing good to Man,
As you of doing harm. EXIT (II i, 216)

The levels of the hierarchy can be distinguished perhaps best in this play in terms of values. Alexas values money, power and the life that allows him to enjoy them. Antony and Cleopatra set their love "Above the price of Kingdoms!"

Antony: ... Give, you Gods,
Give to your Boy, your Caesar,
This Rattle of a Globe to play withal,
This Gu-au World, and put him cheaply off:
I'll not be pleas'd with less than Cleopatra. (II i, 216)

I'm not asham'd of honest Poverty;
Not all the Diamonds of the East can bribe
Ventidius from his faith. (II i, 209)

And what's this Toy,
In balance with your fortune, Honor, fame? (II i, 215)

Thus we see that in All for Love the outlines of the heroic hierarchy are discernible and that through misunderstandings between levels the hierarchy serves a dramatic function, giving rise to the major actions of the play.

Arthur Kirsch notes the presence of "sentimental effects" in All for Love:

As in Aureng-Zebe, however, the heroism of All for Love is subverted at every turn by sentimental effects which emphasize not the heroic glory of love, but its domesticity and compassion. (Drama, 128)

In All for Love a capacity for sympathetic tears, for pity "the noblest and most god-like of moral virtues" (Ker, I, 210) is a prerequisite for heroism. In the two primary tear-scenes (act I between Antony and Ventidius; and act II with Antony, Dolabella, Octavia, and children), the tears are evidence of a sincere concern for others, of a recognition of strong ties of honor, friendship, and duty. The tears separate Ventidius, Dolabella, and Octavia from the category of villains, (Alexas seems incapable of sympathetic tears), and give significance to Antony's decisions. The world is but a toy to Antony; but friends and duty matter, and friends and duty must be abandoned for love. In other words, though the ties and demands that evoke sentimental responses are opposed to Antony's heroic love, the emotions themselves are not in conflict: the love can only be heroic if the parties involved are compassionate and honor-conscious.

This distinction will be made more clear by considering the case of Morat. Morat has a great capacity for passion. He, like Antony, abandons his legal wife for the woman he passionately loves. But Morat never cries except at the moment of "conversion". His passion is selfish and his self-assertion is brutal. Instead of pitying those in distress, he creates or intensifies distress.  He fails to meet the prerequisite for heroism: he has (before his "conversion") no capacity for sympathetic tears, no human compassion.

Cleopatra and Dolabella weep as they leave Antony at the end of act IV. Cleopatra's tears and the domestic speeches serve the function of establishing Antony and Cleopatra's heroic equivalence. She, as he, feels strongly the ties of honor and duty, but recognizes love as an even stronger tie.

We began this chapter considering the theme of All for Love to be: in what sense is Antony, abandoned by Fortune, still a hero? The answer is in the Title: love. Antony's capacity for a particular kind of honor-conscious, compassionate, world-scorning love makes him a hero; and Cleopatra's similar nature makes her a heroine. If they are "capable of conquering this world and even of defying the world beyond", it is through their love that they do so or through the inner qualities that make such a love possible. As Antony exclaims when he is reconciled with Cleopatra in Act II: "...we have more than conquered Caesar now."

I do not dispute the preference of Tragedy: let every Man enjoy his taste: but 'tis unjust that they who have not the least notion of Heroique writing should therefore condemn the pleasure which others receive from it, because they cannot comprehend it. (Preface to The State of Innocence, 419)

Oedipus (1678)

In our own Age, Corneille has attempted it [a version of Oedipus], and it appears by his Preface, with great success: But a judicious Reader will easily observe, how much the Copy is inferiour to the Original. He tells you himself, that he owes a great part of his success to the happy episode of Theseus and Dirce; which is the same thing, as if we should acknowledge, that we are indebted for our good fortune to the underplot of Adrastus, Eurydice, and Creon. The truth is he miserably fail'd in the character of his Hero: if he desir'd that Oedipus should be pitied, he shou'd have made him a better man. (Preface to Oedipus, 351; "We" includes Nathaniel Lee.  Dryden wrote Acts I and III "and drew the Scenery of the whole Play" [346]; Lee wrote the rest.)

To Corneille Sophocles' version seemed incomplete because it lacked Love:

...l'amour n'ayant point de part dans ce sujet ni les femmes d'emploi, il etait denue des principaux ornements qui nous gagnent la voix publique. ("Au Lecteur", Oedipe, 1659) ²²

Dryden employs an underplot with Adrastus and Eurydice. Adrastus is a Prince of Argos captured in battle by Oedipus. He admires Oedipus as a great Hero, and they are firm Friends despite their former conflict. Eurydice is analogous to Corneille's Dirce: a daughter of Laius and Jocasta, heir to the throne, and lover of Adrastus. But in Dryden's version, Oedipus and Jocasta are represented as Lovers. Even after he has dreamt that she is his mother, Oedipus addresses her:

Life of my life, and treasure of my Soul!
Heav'n knows I love thee. (II, 380)

If the goal of a play is exemplary, then it must be clear to the audience which character is the greatest Exemplar of Virtue. The Hero must stand out and the other heroic levels must be shown clearly in their proper relation.  Dryden criticizes Corneille for the double error of not sufficiently elevating Oedipus and of attempting to construct an underplot around Theseus, a character with an heroic reputation greater than that of Oedipus.

He [Corneille] forgot that Sophocles had taken care to shew him [Oedipus] in his first entrance, a just, a merciful, a successful, a Religious Prince, and in short, a Father of his Country: instead of these he has drawn him suspicious, designing, more anxious of keeping the Theban crown, than solicitous for the safety of his People: Hector'd by Theseus, contemn'd by Dirce, scarce maintaining a second part of his own Tragedie. This was an errour in the first concoction; and therefore never to be mended in the second or third: He introduc'd a greater Heroe than Oedipus himself: for when Theseus was once there, that Companion of Hercules must yield to none: the Poet was oblig'd to furnish him with business, to make him too close, to lose his other King of Branford in the Crowd. (Preface to Oedipus, 351)

In Dryden's Oedipus, the Hero is clearly elevated above the other characters both Traditionally and morally:

"... it is on this one character that the pity and terror must be principally, if not wholly, founded -- a rule which is extremely necessary, and which none of the critics I know have fully enough discovered to us. For terror and compassion work but weakly when they are divided into many persons. If Creon had been the chief character in Oedipus, there had neither been terror nor compassion moved; but only detestation of the man and joy for his punishment; if Adrastus and Eurydice had been made more appearing characters, then the pity had been divided, and lessened on the part of Oedipus: but making Oedipus the best and bravest person, and even Jocasta but an under part to him, his virtues and the punishment of his fatal crime drew both the pity and the terror to himself. (Preface to Troilus and Cressida, 1679, Ker, I, 216)

For Corneille Oedipus was a usurper, one whose right to reign was highly questionable. Theseus and Dirce, with their absolute devotion to Honor and Love (Honor more than Love) and their willingness (almost anxiousness) to die for Honor or for one another, were represented as of a higher heroic order than Oedipus. Though Oedipus was central to the traditional plat mechanism, Theseus and Dirce were the highest Exemplars, Oedipus just providing them with dilemmas to test and display their Virtue.

For Dryden, absolute devotion to Honor and Love (Love more than Honor) is characteristic of the second order of heroes, such as Ozmyn and Benzayda, whom hi compared to the contemporary French heroes. Dryden's Oedipus is the kingly King, the heroic King. He reigns not because of blood-right but because he answered the Sphinx's Riddle: he saw clearly the nature of Man. When a rebellious mob (instigated by Creon) asserts the hereditary claims of Eurydice and Creon and seeks their marriage to consolidate those claims and overthrow Oedipus, Tiresias describes Oedipus' heroic claim to the throne as more legitimate:

This Creon shook for fear,
The Blood of Laius, cruddled in his Veins:
Till Oedipus arrived,
Call'd by his own high courage and the Gods,
Himself to you a God: ye offer'd him
Your queen and Crown; (but what was then your Crown!)
And Heav'n authoriz'd it by his success:
Speak then, who is your lawful King? (I, 363)

Adrastus succinctly categorizes himself: "... Honour was my only motive..." (I, 365). He admires Oedipus as his heroic exemplar.

Eurydice categorizes Creon:

Thou who lov'st nothing but what nothing loves,
And that's thy self... (III, 384)

For the fable itself; 'tis in the English more adorned with episodes, and larger than in the Greek poets; consequently more diverting. For, if the action be but one, and that plain, without any counter-turn of the design or episode, i.e., underplot, how can it be so pleasing as the English, which have both under-plot and a turned design, which keeps the audience in expectation of the catastrophe? whereas in the Greek poets we see through the whole design at first. ("Heads to an Answer to Rymer" #29, 1677) ²³

In Oedipus, Dryden systematically eliminates the climactic effect of the original. He underplays Sophocles' foreshadowing and adds an element of the unexpected.

Sophocles' Tiresias: This day will show your birth and will destroy you. ²⁴

Dryden's Tiresias: Who would not now conclude a happy end?
But all Fate's turns are swift and unexpected (IV, 405)

Inconsistencies, probably unwittingly, add to the emphasis on the "marvelous". Considering that the knowledge that his "hand" was guilty of incest and parricide failed to shake his faith in the innocence of his Soul (e.g., III, 398), it is hard to understand how the revelation of the particular circumstances could produce such a violent reaction in him that he would attempt suicide and then blind himself. His stance of innocence and defiance both before and after that scene makes it seem that the brief acceptance of guilt and the blinding were concessions to tradition inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the play. There is one evident sign of hasty composition: Tiresias prophesies that Oedipus will be blind when next they meet:

Tiresias (to Oedipus): So short a time, as I have yet to live
Exceeds thy pointed hour; Remember Lajus:
No more; if e're we meet again, 'twill be
In Mutual darkness; we shall feel before us
To reach each others hand; Remember Lajus. (II, 394)

Heroic stances are expounded in the midst of surprising melodramatic innovations. After Oedipus has blinded himself, he meets Jocasta. Though his "hand" may be unwittingly committed crimes, by his own inner laws he knows he is innocent. He loves Jocasta and she loves him: no mechanical law of incest can break their bond of affection:

Jocasta: In spight of all those Crimes the cruel Gods
Can charge me with, I know my Innocence;
Know yours: 'tis Fate alone that makes us wretched,
For you are still my Husband.
Oedipus: Swear I am
And I'll believe thee, steal into my Arms,
Renew endearments, think 'em no pollutions
But chaste as Spirit joys: gently I'll come,
Thus weeping blind, like dewy Night, upon thee,
And fold thee softly in my arms to slumber. (V, 420)

In their "famous last words" the major characters sum up their reactions to death in hierarchic fashion:

3) Creon: If I must plunge in Flames,
Burn first my Arm; base instrument, unfit
To act the dictates of my daring mind:
Burn, burn for ever, o weak Substitute of that the God, Ambition (V, 424)

2) Adrastus: She's gone [Eurydice]; o deadly Marks-man, in the heart!
Yet in the pangs of death she grasps my hand:
Her lips too tremble, as if she would speak
Her last farewell.  O, Oedipus, thy fall
Is great; and nobly now thou goest attended!
They talk of Heroes, and Celestial Beauties,
And wondrous pleasures in the other World;
Let me but find her there, I ask no more. (V, 424-425)

2) Jocasta: What hoa, my Oedipus! see, where he stands! [in the tower above]
His groping Ghost is lodg'd upon a Tow'r,
Nor can it find the Road: Mount, mount my soul;
I'll wrap thy shivering Spirit in Lambent Flames! and so we'll sail.
But see! we're landed on the happy Coast;
And all the Gods, that come to try our Cause:
Jove, Jove, whose Majesty now sinks me down,
He who himself burns in unlawful fires,
Shall judge, and shall acquit us. O, 'tis done;
'Tis fixt by Fate, upon Record Divine:
And Oedipus shall now be ever mine. (V, 425-426)

1) Oedipus: Jocasta! lo, I come.
O, Lajus, Labdacus, and all your Spirits
Of the Cadmean Race, prepare to meet me,
All weeping rang'd along the gloomy shore:
Extend your ARms t'embrace me; for I come;
May all the Gods too from their Battlements
Behold and wonder at a Mortals daring;
And when I knock the Goal of dreadful death,
Shout and applaud me with a clap of Thunder:
Once more, thus wing'd by horrid Fate, I come
Swift as a falling Meteor; lo, I flye,
And thus go downwards, to the darker Skye. [THUNDER] (V, 426)

In Dryden's previous drama the rise of a character from the level of villain (e.g., Morat, Selin, and Abenamar) was occasioned by an example of innocent suffering and manifested by a display of pity. Also, in the previous dramas, the super-hero was accompanied by lesser companion heroes who admired and imitated him. In Oedipus the same character serves as both suffering innocent and super-hero: the mob responds with pity and Adrastus with admiration.

After it is certain that Oedipus' "hands" are guilty of parricide and incest (tough the sequence of events leading to the crimes has not yet been clarified) and an angry mob is storming the Palace to demand his banishment, Adrastus declares himself Oedipus' admiring companion-in-arms, (he knows a Great Soul when he sees one):

Your City
Is all in Arms, all bent to your destruction:
I heard but now, where I was close confin'd,
A Thundring shout, which made my Jaylours vanish,
Cry, Fire the Palace; where's the cruel King?
Yet, by th'Infernal Gods, those awful pow'rs
That have accus'd you, which these ears have heard,
And these Eyes seen, I must believe you guiltless;
For, since I knew the Royal Oedipus,
I have observ'd in all his acts such a truth
And God-like clearness; that to the last gush
Of blood and Spirits, I'll defend his life,
And here have Sworn to perish by his side. (IV i, 401)

Survey curs'd Oedipus,
As one who, tho' unfortunate, 's beloved,
Thought innocent, and therefore much lamented
By all the Thebans; you must mark him dead:
Since nothing but his death, not banishment,
Can give assurance to your doubtful Reign. (V i, 414)

Dryden's Oedipus provides us with an opportunity of comparing the super-Hero with the Heroes of Greek tragedy.

Sophocles' Oedipus is humbled.

Oedipus: Now lead me away from here.
Creon: Let go the children, then, and come.
Oedipus: Do not take them from me.
Creon: Do not seek to be master in everything, for the thing you mastered did not follow you throughout your life. (trans. Grene, Oedipus, l. 1521-23)

Chorus: You that live in my ancestral Thebes, behold this Oedipus
him who knew the famous riddles and was a man most masterful,
not a citizen who did not look with envy on his lot --
see him now and see the breakers of misfortune swallow him!
Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till\ he has passed the limit of his life secure from pain. (trans. Grene, Oedipus, l. 1524-30)

What will be is in other hands than ours.

Our happiness depends
on wisdom all the way.
The gods must have their due.
Great words by men of pride
bring greater blows upon them.
So wisdom comes to the old.
(Sophocles Antigone, trans. Elizabeth Wykoff, l. 1343-54) ²⁵

Dryden tried to create a Hero whose greatness was independent of Fortune and who therefore did not fall when Fortune was reversed, who remains, despite all circumstantial stress, a Great Soul. He tried to create a hierarchy of Soul, a ranking without hubris., without vanity, but rather a "manly pride". What in another Vanity would see,

Abenamar: Appears but noble confidence in him [Almanzor]
No haughty boasting; but a manly pride;
A Soul too fiery, and too great to guide:
He moves excentrique, like a wandring star;
Whose Motion's just; though 'tis not regular.
(Granada 1, V, 1978)

Oedipus: A generous fierceness dwells with innocence;
And conscious vertue is allow'd some pride.
(Oedipus, III, 392)

In one scene, Dryden's Oedipus takes a stance deceptively similar to that of Christ:

Hear me thus prostrate: Spare this groaning Land,
Save innocent Thebes, stop the Tyrant Death;
Do this, and lo I stand up an Oblation
To meet your swiftest and severest anger,
Shoot all at once, and strike me to the center. (II, 371)

Yes, I will dye, o Thebes to save thee!
Draw from my heart my blood; with more content
Than e're I wore my crown. (II, 372)

Christ takes upon himself all the sin of the World, sees himself as responsible for all Sin, and thereby his death somehow cleanses mankind. By taking responsibility (Oedipus for acts that were beyond his control and Christ for the sins of the World) they contribute to the feeling of communion of community of mankind.

From behind a bush, a child darts right under the wheels of a truck. In one case, the truck driver says there was nothing he could do to prevent it; the kid came out of nowhere; it isn't his fault; the kid should have looked where he was going. Witnesses would be indignant and angry at the driver's heartlessness, would hold him partly responsible, would consider such a hard-hearted man capable of criminal negligence. In another case, the driver is completely shaken; he feels totally responsible and doesn't know what he can do: he's shattered. Witnesses would try to comfort the driver and assure him that it wasn't his fault; he couldn't have prevented it; he shouldn't take it so much to heart: it could have happened to anybody. "Here seems to be a balance of guilt and responsibility that driver and witnesses establish between each other. The reaction of the witnesses compensates for that of the driver. Likewise, the reaction of the audience compensates for that of the tragic hero; and paradoxically, Christ's taking on of the Sins of the World, his cleansing mankind of sins, operates to make one conscious of one's sinful nature, of the fact that one had sins that another had to suffer for, makes one compensate for the disproportionate guilt He has taken on Himself by feeling guilty and responsible oneself.

We said that in one scene Dryden's Oedipus take a stance deceptively similar to that of Christ. This Oedipus is willing to die to save the town, but there is no mention of taking on his shoulders the guilt of the town. He is free of the rule of reward and punishment: no punishment can disturb him. And he would be glad to use his freedom from fear of punishment to free the town. His offer is not an offer of submission, is not humble, but rather is a gesture of self-assertion. He does not say, "I am guilty, Gods; vent your wrath on me alone." Rather, this is "innocent Thebes": no one is guilty, not the town nor he. Death is a "Tyrant" persecuting a poor innocent victim. Oedipus is trying to rescue that fair city with an heroic gesture. He offers the Gods a deal. They rule by reward and punishment, and according to the logic behind sacrifice they can be ruled by the same system. Oedipus wants to hire the Gods, to use them. He will buy them off with his own life. His death would be a means of controlling the Gods, the ultimate in heroic power. He does not humbly submit himself as sacrificial victim, but rather if the Gods fulfill their part of the bargain, he'll fulfill his and dare the Gods to do their worst; he'll stand up, a challenge to his tormentors.

Oedipus: Do this and lo I stand up an Oblation
To meet your swiftest and severest anger,
Shoot all at once, and strike me to the center. (II, 371)

Don Sebastian (1689)

Muley-Zedan: Now Africa's long Wars are at an end;
And our parch'd earth is drench'd in Christian Blood,
My conquering Brother will have Slaves enow,
To pay his cruel Vows for Victory.
What hear you of Sebastian, King of Portugal? (opening speech, p. 29)

Muley-Zeydan: Thus, Moluch, still the Favorite of Fate
Swims in a sanguine torrent to the Throne.
As if our Prophet only work'd for him;
The Heavens and all the Stars are his hir'd Servants. (I i, 29)

Dorax is introduced as "always out of humour".

Dorax: I have cause:
Tho all mankind is cause enough for Satyr. (I i, 31)

Dorax: ... he [Sebastian] was a Man,
Above man's height, even towr'ing to Divinity.
Brave, pious, generous, great, and liberal:
Just as the Scales of Heaven that weigh the Seasons,
He lov'd his People, him they idoliz'd:
And thence proceeds my mortal hatred to him,
That thus unblameable to all besides\ He err'd to me alone:
His Goodness was diffus'd to human kind,
And all his cruelty confin'd to me. (I i, 32)

In Granada, the heroic order of Almanzor and Almahide is found to coincide with the Christian order of Ferdinand and Isabella: Ozmyn and Benzayda find refuge and justice in the Christian camp; Almahide is converted to Christianity; and Almanzor discovers that he was born a Christian: their natural moral inclinations were Christian even though they did not pray to the Christian God. In Don Sebastian, the Christian religion and heroism are even more closely bound than in Granada. The characters are conscious from the start of their Christianity or Mohammedanism, and we are soon informed of their attitudes to their respective religions.

As the Christian captives come forward to take their lots, Dorax introduces them: "Now for our Heroes". The "Heroes" are contrasted by their reactions to imminent death.

Dorax: Old venerable Alvarez, well I know him,
The Fav'rite once of this Sebastian's Father;
Now Minister; (too honest for his Trade).
Religion bears him out, a thing taught young;
I Age ill practis'd, yet his prop in Death.
Oh! he has drawn a black, and smiles upon't,
As who should say; my Faith and soul are white
Tho my Lot swarthy: Now if there be hereafter
He's blest; if not, well cheated, and dyes pleas'd. (I i, 36)

Dorax' attitude to the "hereafter" indicates his conversion to Mohammedanism was not a switch from one faith to another, but rather from Christianity to no religion at all.

Dorax: ... He's [the Mufti] gone too soon;
I had to tell him of his holy jugglings,
Things that wou'd startle Faith, and make us deem not this, or that, but all Religions false. (II i, 51)

Dorax: There's the Amorous airy spark, Antonio;
The wittiest Womans toy in Portugal.
Lord what a loss of Teats and Serenades!
The whole She Nation will b'in mourning for him...
He looks uneasie at his future Journey,
And wishes his Boots off again; for fear
of a bad Road, and a worse Inn at night.
Go to bed fool, and take secure repose,
For thou shalt wake no more. (I i, 36-37)

I've a moist sweaty palm; the more's my Sin;
If it be black, yet only dy'd, not odious
To wash this Ethiope white. -- [looks] Pox of the Proverb!
As black as Hell: another lucky saying!
I think the Devil's in me: -- good again,
I cannot speak one syllable, but tends
To Death, or to Damnation. (I i, 37)

Sebastian is the last of the "Heroes" to draw his lot. Muley-Moluch describes him as a super-hero defiant of Fate and Death:

Mark him who now approaches to the Lott'ry,
He looks secure of Death, superior greatness,
Like Jove when he made Fate, and said thou art
The Slave of my Creation; I admire him. (I i, 37)

At such a moment, Moluch, as Morat, seems almost a Hero. But Moluch is only "generous by fits". He is incomplete, like Morat, a sort of brute. The emphasis in his character is on his Mohammedanism, or rather on this lack of religion, his impiety. When he first appears, he tells the Mufti:

Preach Abstinence no more; I tell thee, Mufti,
Good feasting is devout; and thou, our Head,
Hast a Religious, ruddy Countenance:
We will have learned Luxury: our lean Faith Gives scandal to the Christians; they feed high:
Then look for shoals of Converts, when thou has Reform'd us into feasting. (I i, 33)

Muley-Moluch (to the Mufti): Know thou say'st better dally
With a dead Prophet, than a living King. (I i, 35)

Muley-Moluch: Expound thy Mahomet, make him  speak my sense,
Or he's no Prophet here, and thou no Mufti,
Unless thou know'st the trick of thy vocation,
To wrest and rend the Law to please thy Prince. (III i, 66)

Dorax: The genius of your Moors is mutiny;
They scarcely want a Guide to move their madness:
Blustering when courted, crouching when opprest.
Wise to themselves, and fools to all the world.
Restless in change, and perjur'd to a Proverb.
They love Religion sweeten'd to the sense;
A good luxurious palatable faith. (III i, 75)

Mustapha: Both rich and poor for their own interest pray,
'Tis ours to make our Fortunes while we may;
For Kingdoms are not conquer'd every day. (I i, 45)

The theme of religion gives this play an extraordinary unity. THe heroic hierarchy redefined with respect to religion resembles a Chain of Being, a scale of human dignity. Dorax describes Sebastian as "a Man,/ Above man's height, even towr'ing to Divinity." (I i, 32) In contrast, Antonio is a "Womans toy" and the common soldiers are animals.

Dorax: I spitted Frogs; I crush'd a heap of Emmets;
A hundred of 'em to a single Soul,
And that but scanty weight too... (I i, p. 31)

The Mufti is introduced as trying to cheat his god by taking out the best of the captives as personal slaves and sacrificing the dross.  After the lottery, Mustapha, in turn, tries to cheat the Mufti. Alvarez and Antonio are among the "Chattles" Mustapha tries to capitalize on.

Alvarez gets off relatively lightly, purchased by an agent of Dorax after a brief banter about what the man and his "virtues" are worth in cash. He maintains some human dignity in this degrading situation.

Antonio: Thou wilt not make a Horse of me?
Mustapha: Horse or Ass, that's as thy Mother made thee. (I i, p. 42)

Mustapha (bridling Antonio): Now Sirrah, follow, for you have rope enough:
To your paces, Villain, amble, trot, and gallop: --
Quick about there. -- Yes, the more Money's bidden for you, the more your credit.

[Antonio follows, at the end of the Bridle, on his hands and feet, and does all  his Postures.]

Second Merchant: He's well chin'd, and has a tolerable good back; that's half in half. [To Mustapha] I wou'd see him strip, has he no Diseases about him?
Mustapha: He's the best piece of Man's-flesh in the Market,
not an Eye-sore in his whole Body. Feel his Legs,
Master, neither Splint, Spavin, nor Wind-gall...
Mustapha: Try him a loose trot a little.
[Puts the Bridle into his -- the Merchant's -- hand, he strokes him.]
Antonio: For Heaven's sake, Owner spare me; you know I am but new broken.
Second Merchant: 'Tis but a washy Jade, I see: What ;do you ask for this Bauble?
Mustapha: Bauble do you call him; he's a substantial true-bred
Beast; bravely forehanded; mark but the cleanness
of his shapes too; his Dam may be a Spanish Gennet,
but a true Barb by the Sire, or I have no skill in
Horse-flesh. -- Marry I ask Six Hundred Xeriffes for him. (I i, p. 43)

The ensuing dialogue between the Mufti and Mustapha plays on the contrast between the literal significance of words and their contextual meaning: abstractions and religious terms in the mouths of opportunists who believe only in cash and personal advantage and who both know that's all they believe in.

Mustapha: Good, my Lord, take pity upon a poor man in this World, and damn me in the next. (I i, p. 44)

Johayma: ... And how can I tell that he's a Christian? and he were well searched he may prove a Jew for ought I know. (II ii, p. 62)

Antonio's religion is a mockery of religion, his Honour a mockery of Honour, and his Love a mockery of heroic Love, a matter of mutual use and abuse. He considers Johayma's proposition:

How far a Christian shou'd resist, I partly know; but how
far a lewd young Christian can resist is another
question. She's tolerable, and I am a poor Stranger,
far from better Friends, and in a bodily necessity:
Now have I a strange temptation to try what other Females
are belonging to this Family: I am not far from the
Womens apartment I am sure; and if these Birds are within
distance, here's that will chuckle 'em together.
(pulls out his Flute). If there be variety of Moors
flesh in this Holy Market, 'twere madness to lay out
all my money upon the first bargain. (II ii, p. 63)

Not very Heroick; but self-preservation is a point above
Honour and Religion too... If I had died honourably, my
fame indeed wou'd have sounded loud, but I shou'd never
have heard the blast: Come, don't make yourself worse
natur'd than you are: to save my life, you wou'd be
content, I shou'd promise any thing. (III ii, 83)

Antonio: I'll marry thee, and make a Christian of thee, thou pretty damn'd Infidel.
Morayma: I mean you shall; but no earnest, till the bargain be made before witness...
Antonio: I vow and swear by Love; and he's a Diety in all Religions.
Morayma: But never to be trusted in any; he has another name too, of a  worse sound. (III ii, 84)

The Mufti himself is at the nadir of the Chain of Being.  His wife suggests that he is impotent: somewhat less than a healthy horse like Antonio.

Johayma: And besides, I have always long'd for an Eunuch;
for they say that's a Civil Creature, and almost as
harmless as your self Husband: speak fellow, are not
you such a kind of peaceable thing?
Antonio: I was never taken for one in my own Country; and not
very peaceable neither, when I am well provok'd. (II ii, 62)

Mufti: This 'tis to have a sound Head-piece; by this I
have got to be chief of my Religion; that is, honestly
speaking, to teach others what I neither know nor believe
my self. For What's Mahomet to me, but that I get by him?
Now for my Policy of this night: I have mew'd up my suspected
Spouse in her Chamber. No more Embassies to that lusty
young Stallion of a Gardener. Next my habit of a Slave,
I have made my self as like him as I can, but all his
youth and vigor; which when I had, I pass'd my time as
well as any of my Holy Predecessors. (IV ii, 91)

Morayma comes running up "with a Casket in her hand" an embraces her father, mistaking him for Antonio.

Morayma: Now I can embrace you with a good Conscience; here
are the Pearls and Jewels, here's my Father. (IV ii, 91)

Morayma had called the Jewels her "Father" at her last meeting with Antonio. "I mean all that's good of him; his Pearls and Jewels, his whole contents, his heart, and Soul..." (III ii, 84) Now in the garden scene in the confusion after Antonio appears, the Mufti confirms her assessment of his Soul.

[Mufti runs to Morayma and lays hold on her, then snatches away the Casket.]
Mufti: Now, to do things in order, first I seize the Bag, and
then upon the Baggage; for thou art but my flesh and
blood, but these are my Life and Soul.
Morayma: Then let me follow my flesh and blood, and keep to your self your life and Soul. (IV ii, 95)

All the characters of the play, with the exception of Celia and Bonario, move themselves downward on the scale of being. By choosing their lower faculties over their higher, they succeed in reducing themselves to animals and clods. (p. 19)

When put to the test of which is more important, the Jewels or each other, (a parody of the typical heroic dilemma of Honor or Love), Antonio and Morayma opt for each other. Morayma prefers her "flesh and blood" Antonio to her father's "Life and Soul" Jewels. And as for Antonio:

It makes me mad, to think how many a good night will be
lost betwixt us! take back thy Jewels; 'tis an empty
Casket without thee; besides, I shou'd never leap well
with the weight of all thy Father's sins about me, thou
and they had been a Bargain... they'll serve to make thy peace with him. (IV ii, 94-95)

The Chain of Being imagery of the subplot is paralleled in the main plot. Once again, among the Mohammedans, the tendency is toward a downward movement "to animals and clods".

Muley--Moluch first enters the stage majestically "with Attendants' the Mufti, and Muley-Zeydan":

Our Amours now may rust, our idle scymiters
Hang by our sides, for Ornament not use:
Children shall beat our Atabals and Drums,
And all the noisie Trades of War, no more
Shall wake the peaceful morn... (I i, 33)

Sebastian: Fate was not mine,
Nor am I Fate's: Now I have pleas'd my longing,
And trod the ground which I beheld from far,
I beg no pity for this mouldring Clay;
For, if you give it burial there it takes
Possession of your Earth:
If burnt and scatter'd in the air; the Winds
That strow my dust, diffuse my royalty,
And spread me o'er your clime; for where one Atome
Of mine shall light, know, there Sebastian Reigns.
Muley-Moluch: What shall I do to conquer thee?
Sebastian: Impossible!
Souls know no Conquerors.
Muley-Moluch: I'll show thee for a Monster through my Affrick.
Sebastian: No, thou canst only show me for a Man:
Affrick is stored with Monsters; Man's a Prodigy,
They Subjects have not seen. (I i, 38)

In what a ruine has thy headstrong Pride,
And boundless thirst of Empire plung'd thy People!
Sebastian: What say'st thou, ha! No more of that.
Muley-Moluch: Behold.
What Carcasses of thine they Crimes have strew'd,
And left our Affrick Vultures to Devour.
Benducar: Those Souls were those thy God entrusted with thee,
To cherish, not destroy.
Sebastian: Witness, O Heaven, how much
This sight concerns me! Wou'd I had a Soul
For each of these' how gladly wou'd I pay
The Ransom down: But since I have but one,
'Tis a King's life, and freely 'tis bestow'd.
Not your false Prophet, but eternal Justice
Has destin'd me the Lot, to dye for these:
'Tis fit a Sovereign so shou'd pay such subjects;
For Subjects such as they are seldom seen,
Who not forsook me at my greatest need;
Nor for base lucre sold their Loyalty,
But shar'd my dangers to the last event,
And fenc'd 'em with their own: These thanks I pay you:
[Wipes his eyes]
And know, that when Sebastian weeps, his Tears
Come harder than his Blood.
Muley-Moluch: They plead too strongly
To be withstood. My Clouds are gath'ring too,
In kindly mixture with this Royal showr:
Be safe, and owe thy Life, not to my gift,
But to the greatness of thy mind, Sebastian:
Thy Subjects too shall live; a due reward
For their untainted Faith, in thy concealment. (I i, 39-40)

With the lightning rapidity of the Almanzor tradition, Muley-Moluch falls in love with Almeyda.

Muley-Moluch: But is't not strange?
Benducar: To love? not more than 'tis is live; a Tax
Impos'd on all by Nature, paid in kind,
Familiar as our being. (II i, 45)

In his introduction to Volpone, directly after th section already quoted about the movement of characters "downward on the scale of being", Kernan points out the use of irony in the play:

But Jonson turns a simple moral point into the chief structural principle of his play by the use of dramatic irony. Each of the gold seekers, from Volpone to Sir Politic, thinks of himself as rising in both the social and the hierarchical scale by his efforts. (p. 19)

I wou'd, but cannot kill: I must enjoy her:
I must, and what I must be sure I will.
What's Royalty but pow'r to please my self?
And if I dare not, then am I the Slave,
And my own Slaves the Sovreigns: -- 'tis resolv'd.
Weak Princes flatter when they want the power
To curb their People: tender Plants must bend:
But when a Government is grown to strength,
Like some Old oak, rough with its armed Bark,
I yields not to the tug, but only nods,
And turns to sullen State. (II i, 46)

At their second confrontation, the Emperor tells Sebastian:

Sure our two Souls have somewhere been acquainted,
In former beings; or, struck out together,
One spark to Africk flew, and one to Portugal.
Expect a quick deliverance; [Turning to Almeyda] here's a third,
Of kindred Soul to both... (II i, 55)

Love is for human hearts, and not for thine,
Where the brute Beast extinguishes the Man.
Muley-Moluch: Such, if I were, yet rugged Lions love,
And grapple, and compel their savage Dames. (II i, 56)

Well, then, I love, --
And 'tis below my greatness to disown it:
Love thee implacably, yet hate thee too;
Wou'd hunt thee bare-foot, in the mid-day Sun,
Through the parch'd Deserts, and the scorching Sands,
T'enjoy thy Love, and once enjoy'd to kill thee. (II i, 56-57)

'Tis a false Courage, when thou threat'nest me;
Thou canst not stir a hand to touch my Life:
Do not I see thee tremble while thou speak'st?
Lay by the Lion's Hide, vain Conqueror,
And take the Distaff; for thy Soul's my Slave.
Muley-Moluch: Confusion! How thou view'st my very Heart!
I cou'd as soon
Stop a Spring-Tide blown in, with my bare hand,
As this impetuous Love... (II i, 57)

At their next confrontation, Almeyda remarks that the Emperor "breaks upon our Walks,/ And like a midnight Wolf, invades the Fold." (III i, 67) When given the test of pity, he fails even more abysmally than before. When Almeyda kneels to him and pleads for Sebastian's life, Muley-Moluch responds:

A secret pleasure trickles through my Veins:
It works about the inlets of my Soul!
To feel thy touch; and pity tempts the pass;
But the tough mettle of my heart resists;
'Tis warmed with the soft fire, not melted down.
Almeyda: A flood of scalding Tears will make it run,
Spare him; Oh spare; can you pretend to love,
And have no pity? Love and that are twins.
Muley Moluch: Still kneel, and still embrace: 'tis double pleasure,
So to be hugged, and see Sebastian die. (III i, 71)

By his next appearance, the Emperor has been still further degraded both on the scale of Soul and on that of political power. Benducar is in complete control. He titillates Muley-Moluch with images of the delights of the plotted rape:

Oh, there's a joy, to melt in her embrace,
Dissolve in pleasures;
And make the gods curse Immortality,
That so they could not dye. (IV i, 88)

A kind of weight hangs heavy at my Heart;
My flagging Soul flees under her own pitch;
Like Fowl in air too damp, and lugs along,
As if she were a body in a body,
And not a mounting substance made of Fire. (IV i, 88-89)

The irony of Benducar's political manipulation of the Emperor in this scene is very similar to the irony Kernan noted in Volpone.  The Emperor's efforts to maintain his regal dignity result in his debasement and eventual slaughter.

Emperor: I'll had my People;
Then think of dalliance when the danger's o'er
My warlike Spirits work now another way;
And my Soul's tun'd to Trumpets.
Benducar: You debase your self,
To think of mixing with th' ignoble Herd.
Let such perform the servile Work of War,
Such who have no Almeyda to enjoy.
What shall the People know their God-like Prince
Skulk'd in a nightly Skirmish? Stole a Conquest,
Headed a Rabble, ad profan'd his Person,
Shoulder'd with Filth, born in a tide of Ordure,
And stifled with their offensive Sweat?
Emperor: I am off again: I  will not prostitute
The Regal Dignity so far, to head 'em.
Benducar: There spoke a King. (IV i, 89-90)

The process of degradation is completed in the rebellion. All we see of Muly-Moluch is his "head upon a spear" in the hand of Benducar's Slave. Mustapha addresses the now inanimate Emperor:

Here is a sight for you; the Emperour is come upon his
head to visit you. [Bowing] Most Noble Emperour, now I
hope you will not hit us in the teeth, that we have pull'd
you down, for we can tell you to your face, that we have
exalted you. (IV iii, 101)

Simultaneous with this downward, Mohammedan movement in the Chain of Being is an upward, Christian movement. First we will consider the borderline case of Dorax and then Sebastian himself.

Benducar described Dorax in the opening scene:

That gloomy outside, like a rusty Chest,
Contains the shining Treasure of a Soul,
Resolv'd and brave: he has the Soldiers' hearts,
And time shall make him ours. (I i, 30)

And wou'd his Creature, nay, his Friend betray him?
Why then, no Bond is left on human kind:
Distrusts, debates, immortal strifes ensure;
Children may murder Parents, Wives their Husbands;
All must be Rapine, Wars, and Desolation,
When trust and gratitude no longer bind. (II i, 53)

The pleading of Almeyda that fails to move Muley-Moluch to pity moves Dorax:

I find I'm but a half-strain'd Villain yet;
But mungril-mischievous; for my Blood boyled
To view this brutal act; and my stern Soul
Tug'd at my arm, to draw in her defence.
Down thou rebelling Christian in my heart... (III i, 72-73)

In the mob scene of act IV, one can see the contrast between the Christian perspective of Almeyda and the disillusioned perspective of Dorax. Almeyda turns to the crowd and asks for pity, asks them to act like men, tries to bring out their better nature:

As you are Men, compassionate my wrongs,
And, as good men, Protect me. (IV iii, 102)

Away, ye scum,
That still rise upmost when the Nation boyls:
Ye mungrill work of Heav'n, with humane shapes,
Not to be damn'd or sav'd, but breath and perish,
That have but just enough of sense, to know
The masters voice, when rated, to to depart. (IV iii, 105)

In the reconciliation scene (IV iii), Dorax is likened to Lucifer, in the sense that he is a fallen angel and his sin is pride. His is a pride of Honor and perfectionism. He tells Sebastian: "I sav'd thee out of honourable malice ...!" (109). When Sebastian insults him, Dorax responds: "All my long Avarice of honour lost,/ Heap'd up in Youth, and hoarded up for Age..." (109) A noble abstraction is likened to a material object and hence debased. Both Sebastian and Dorax talk of debasement.

Sebastian: The wrong, if done, debas'd me down to thee. (p. 109)

Sebastian: I knew you both; and (durst I say) as Heaven
Foreknew among the shining Angell host,
Who would stand firm, who fall. (p. 111)

Dorax: ... I was the man you nam'd [Alonzo];
Till rage and pride debas'd me into Dorax;
And lost, like Lucifer, my name above. (p. 111)

Oh, stop this headlong Torrent of your goodness:
It comes too fast upon a feeble Soul,
Half drown'd in tears, before... (p. 112)

By the end of act IV, Don Sebastian has reached a conclusion that would have sufficed in Dryden's previous dramas: the dissidents have been reconciled, the heroic lovers are united, a new Christian order has been established. But the play does not stop there: act V deals primarily with the rise of Sebastian and Almeyda in the Chain of Being.

Sebastian and Almeyda have many of the characteristics of Dryden's previous heroes and heroines, including a greatness of Soul or Mind and a scorn of death. The previous heroes were at the top of the heroic scale, and, in their rough heroic way, worked out a sort of virtue which was the highest example of virtue in the play. But in the context of Don Sebastian, Sebastian and Almeyda are not perfect, though elevated above the rest of the characters of the play. They are still far from the top of the scale. The difference is that Sebastian is measured on a different scale than the previous heroes. Previous heroes defined the top foe the scale by their own actions. By the light of reason, they worked out their own crude definitions. The scale by which Sebastian judges himself is the scale of revealed religion -- Christianity. The previous heroes were Deists of sorts, arriving at conceptions of God and morality, unaided by scripture and dogma. Sebastian's God and morality are those of revealed religion, and the scale of human dignity against which he measures himself is a Christian scale, roughly corresponding to the Great Chain of Being, containing within it the categories of the heroic hierarchy, but extending beyond it downwards to more carefully define the limits of villainy, and, in an upward direction, to define the ultimate Exemplar as God.

Sebastian and Almeyda are imperfect Christians. Almeyda is not yet firm in her faith and, like Dorax, has difficulty both forgiving and believing. She explodes a the then generous Muley-Moluch:

... I am a Christian;
'Tis true, unpractis'd in my new Belief.
Wrongs I resent, nor pardon yet with ease:
Those Fruits come late, and are of slow increase
In haughty Hearts, like mine... (II i, 57)

My Father's, Mother's, Brothers' death, I pardon:
That's somewhat sure; a mighty Sum of Mother,
Of innocent and kindred blood Strook off. (III i, 71)

Sebastian tries to teach Almeyda about the Christian religion: that thou shalt not commit suicide. Almeyda argues against revealed religion, in favor of Deism.

Sebastian: Nor has a Christian privilege to dye.
Alas thou art too young in thy new Faith;
Brutus and Cato might discharge their Souls,
And give 'em Furlo's for another World:
But we, like Centy's, are oblig'd to stand
In starless Nights, and wait the pointed hour.
Almeyda: If shunning ill be good, then Death is good
To those, who cannot shun it but by Death:
Divines but peep on undiscover'd Worlds,
And draw the distant Landscape as they please:
But who has e'er returned from those bright Regions,
To tell their Manners, and relate their Laws?
I'll venture landing on that happy shoar
With an unsullyed Body and white Mind:
If I have err'd, some kind Inhabitant
Will pity a stray'd Soul, and take me home. (II i, 58-9)

Thy Vows are mine; nor will I quit my claim:
The ties of Minds are but imperfect bonds,
Unless the Bodies join to seal the Contract. (II i,59) ²⁶

In dang'rous days, when Riches are a Crime,
The wise betimes make oer their Estates:
Make O'er thy Honour, by a deed of trust,
And give me seizure of the mighty wealth. (II i, 59)

My Love, he [Alvarez] knows not
Thou art a Christian, that produc'd his fear;
Lest thou shou'd'st sooth my Soul with charms so strong,
That Heav'n might prove too weak.

No, thou shalt not plead
With that fair mouth, against the Cause of Love. (II i, 61)

Almeyda reluctantly consents:

I go, with Love and Fortune, two blind Guides,
To lead my way; half loth and half consenting.
If, as my Soul forebodes, some dire event
Pursue this Union, or some Crime unknown,
Forgive me, Heav'n, and all ye Blest above,
Excuse the frailty of unbounded Love. (II i, 61)

Sebastian considers his father a Hero, an Exemplar. He finds it nigh impossible to believe any blemish on his name. Alvarez establishes that father's human frailty and imperfection, an imperfection closely related to Sebastian's own momentary debasement:

Alvarez: Were kings e're known in this degenerate AGe,
So passionately fond of noble Acts,
Where Interest shar'd not more than half with honour?
Sebastian: Base, groveling Soul, who now'st not honours worth?
But weigh'st it out in mercenary Scales;
The Secret Pleasure of a generous Act
Is the great minds great bribe.

Show me that King, and I'le believe the Phoenix.
But knock at your own breast, and ask your Soul
If those fair fatal eyes, edg'd not with your Sword,
More than your Father's charge, and all your vows?
If so; and so your silence grants it is,
Know King, your Father had, like you, a Soul;
And Love is your Inheritance from him.
Almeyda's Mother too had eyes, like her,
And not less charming, and were charm'd no less
Than yours are now with her, and hers with you. (V i, 120-121)

In All for Love, the strength of the ties of honor, duty, and friendship gives significance to Antony's decisions in favor of Love. Similarly, the strength of Sebastian and Almeyda's bond of Love gives significance to their independently arrived at decisions in favor of Religion.

Sebastian: A Sceptre's but a plaything and a Globe
A bigger bounding Stone. He who can leave Almeyda, may renounce the rest with ease.
Dorax: O Truly great!
A Soul fixed high, and capable of Heav'n. (V i, 127)

A hero who considered himself as unlimited, who would dare match souls with any man or god, was limited by the fact that there was no higher Exemplar than himself, no higher heroism toward which to aspire. Sebastian recognizes himself as imperfect, his father as imperfect, and aspires to Heaven. In this sense, Sebastian's heroism goes up to and beyond the heroism of Dryden's previous heroes.

Though, in a sense, an extension of the previous formulations of heroism, this anchorite heroism of Sebastian's is at the same time quite different from the blustering, active heroism of Almanzor: the hero has been both refined and transformed. The active heroism of the early plays was dependent on youth: old age seemed to weaken the strength of Soul as well as body. Antony is plagued by the question of in what sense he can still be a Hero after fortune has abandoned him. Sebastian is free of those doubts. When Muley-Moluch asks: "What shall I do to conquer thee?" Sebastian replies: "Impossible! Souls know no Conquerors." (I i, 38). In Don Sebastian, neither time nor fortune weakens the Soul: old Alvarez is still a faithful companion-Hero and the superheroism of a religious anchorite does not require the youthful physical vigor of an Almanzor.

Dryden chose as an epigraph for Don Sebastian lines 610-611 Book IX of the Aeneid: "-- Nec tarda senectus/ Debilitat vires  animi, mutatque vigorem." Dryden's own translation of this reads:

Ev'n time that changes all, yet changes us in vain:
The Body, not the Mind: Nor can controul
Th 'Immortal Vigour, or abate the Soul. ²⁷

Dryden's earlier eccentric Hero, especially Almanzor, asserted himself and his virtue: the Great Soul was characterized by extremity in speech, in action, in self-assurance. Sebastian at times sounds and acts like Almanzor; but with Sebastian's acceptance of revealed religion and the extended religious scale of being, there is a shift of center, a shift of emphasis: in this extended scale, man is in the middle, not at the extremity, and in order for him to rise above pagan heroism, it is necessary for him to recognize his own limitations, his frailty and fallibility. The result is an ideal of conduct directly opposed to the ideal of Almanzor: an ideal of balance rather than of eccentricity. In other words, the result of this extension of heroism is a Augustan idea, an ideal which Dryden outlines in his dedication to Philip, Earl of Leicester, whom he calls a "second Atticus":

Ambitious Meteors! how willing they are to set themselves upon the Wing; and taking every occasion of drawing upward to the Sun: Not considering that they have no more time allow'd them for their mounting than the short revolution of a day; and that when the light goes from them, they are of a necessity to fall.  How much happier is he, (and who he is I need not say, for there is but one Phoenix in an Age,) who centring on himself, remains immovable, and smiles at the madness of the dance about him. He possesses the midst, which is the portion of safety and content: He will not be higher, because he needs it not; but by prudence of that choice, he puts it out of Fortunes power to throw hi down. (p. 17)

For stiffness of Opinion is the effect of Pride, and not of Philosophy: 'Tis a miserable Presumption of that knowledge which human Nature is too narrow to contain. And the ruggedness of a Stoick is only a silly affectation of being a God: To wind himself up by Pulleys, to an insensibility of suffering; and at the same time to give the lye to his own Experience, by saying he suffers not what he knows he feels. True, Philosophy is certainly of a more pliant Nature, and more accommodated to human use; Homo sum, humani a me nihil alienum puto. A wise man will never attempt an impossibility; and such it is to strain himself beyond the nature of his Being; either to become a Deity, by being above suffering, or to debase himself into a Stock or Stone, by pretending not to feel it. To find in our selves the Weakness and Imperfections of our wretched Kind, is surely the most reasonable step we can make toward the Compassion of our fellow Creatures. (p. 18)

Concomitant with the religious scale of values in Don Sebastian is the scale of language. There are two ways a character's use of language indicates debasement: 1) debased characters use language to deceive and conceal, as a tool to be bent and twisted to bring about their own selfish ends. 2) debased characters use metaphors that debase the concepts with which they deal.

As usual, Dryden's heroes find it almost impossible to lie. At their best, they say what they have to say directly, with a shocking bluntness.  At their worst, they expand the thought with elevated and abstract images frequently connected with things divine. (Any major divergence from this sort of imagery by a hero, as when Sebastian persuades Almeyda to a hasty marriage, probably indicates a momentary debasement.)

Sebastian: My Liberty;
For were ev'n Paradise it self my Prison,
Still I shou'd long to leap the Crystal walls. (II i, 55)

Sebastian: Mark her Majestick Fabrick; She's a Temple
Sacred by birth, and built by Hands Divine;
Her Soul's the Deity that lodges there
Nor is the Pile unworthy of the God. (II i, 55)

Spat's History of the Royal Society seems to reflect the same sort of moralistic view of language as underlies Don Sebastian:

They [the Ornaments of speaking] were at first, no doubt, an admirable Instrument in the hands of Wise Men, when they were onely employ'd to describe Goodnesse, Honesty, Obedience, in larger, fairer and more moving Images; to represent Truth, cloth'd with Bodies; and to bring Kowledg back again to our very senses, from whence it was at first deriv'd to our understandings. But now they are generally chang'd to worse uses: They make the Fancy disgust the best things, if they come sound and unadorn'd; they are in open defiance against Reason, professing not to hold much correspondence with that, but with its Slaves, the Passions; they give the mind a motion too changeable and bewitching to consist with right practice. Who can behold without indignation how many mist and uncertainties these specious Tropes and Figures have brought on our knowledge?... of all the Studies of men, nothing maybe sooner obtain'd than this vicious abundance of Phrase, this trick of Metaphors, this volubility of Tongue, which makes so great a noise in the World. But I spend words in vain, for the evil is now so inveterate that it is hard to know whom to blame, or where to begin to reform. We all value one another so much upon this beautiful deceit, and labour so long after it in the years of our education, that we cannot but ever after think kinder of it than it deserves. And indeed, in most other parts of Learning, I look on it to be a thing almost utterly desperate in its cure, and I think it maybe plac'd amongst those general mischiefs, such as the dissension of Christian Princes, the want of practice in Religion, and the like, which have been so long spoken against that men are become insensible about them, every one shifting off the fault from himself to others, and so they are only made bare common places of complaint. (Spingarn, II, 116-117)

Mufti: ... though your Tyrant is a lawful Emperor, yet your lawful Emperor is but a Tyrant. (IV iii, 98)

Mufti: That your Emperor is a Tyrant is most manifest; for you
were born to be Turks, but he has play'd the Turk
with you; and is taking your Religion away. (IV iii, 98)

Mufti: ... by all the nearest and dearest Tyes of these
three P's Self-Preservation, our property, and our
Prophet. Now answer me with an unanimous chearful Cry,
and follow me, who am your Leader, to a glorious
Deliverance.
All Cry: A Mufti, A Mufti, [and are following him off the Stage] (IV iii, 99)

The three-level hierarchy of Granada produced a monotony of characterization. (Try to distinguish Selin from Abenamar or Abdalla from Abdelmelech). The continuum of the Chain of Being makes possible an almost unlimited variety of characters and the accompanying scale of imagery makes it possible to differentiate subtle shifts in character while at the same time maintaining an underlying hierarchic unity. Dryden seems well justified in his pride in the structure of Don Sebastian:

This is not a Play that ws huddled up in haste; and to shew it was not, I will own, that beside the general Moral of it, which is given in the four last lines, there is also another Moral couch'd under every one of the principal Parts and Characters, which a judicious Critic will observe, though I point not to it in this Preface. (p. 24)

It had been easie for me to have given my Audience a better course of Comedy, I mean a more diverting, than that of Antonio and Morayma. But I dare appeal, even to my Enemies, if I or any man cou'd have invented one which had been more of a piece, and more depending, on the serious part of the design. (p. 25)

---

Footnotes:

While she is mine, I have not yet lost all;
But, in her Arms, shall have a gentle fall:
Blest in my Love, althogh in war o'recome,
I fly, like Anthony from Actium,
To meet a better Cleopatra here. (Granada, 1, V i, 73) (return to text)

Ventidius: My Emperor; the Man I love next Heaven:
If I said more, I think 'twere scarce a Sin;
Y'are all that's good and good-like. (I i, 198) (return to text)

Morayma: If you release my ahnd, the fault's not mine;
You shou'd have made me seal as well as sign. (III ii, 85) (return to text)

Other Critical Works Consulted (not already mentioned in Footnotes)

1. Bredvold, Louis I., The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden, (Univ. of Michigan, 1934).
2. Dobree, Bonamy, Restoration Tragedy, (Oxford, 1929).
3. Doubrovsky, Serge, Corneille et la Dialectique du Heros, (Paris, 1963).
4. King, Bruce Alvin, Dryden's Major Plays, (Edinburgh and London, 1966).
5. ed. Loftis, John, Restoration Drama: Modern Essays in Criticism, (New York, 1966).
6. Moore, Frank Harper, The Nobler Pleasure, (Chapel Hill, N.c., 1963).
7. Nicoll, Allardyce, British Drama, (London, 1925).
8. Nicoll, Allardyce, History of English Drama, (Cambridge, England, 1952) I.
9. Parker, A.A., An Approach to the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age, (London 1957).
10. Pendlebury, B.J., Dryden's Heroic Plays: a Study of the Origins, (London, 1923)
11. ed. Schilling, Bernard, Dryden: Twentieth Century Views, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1965).
12. Sherwood, Margaret, Dryden's Dramatic Theory and Practice, (Boston, 1898).
13. Van Doren, Mark, John Dryden: a Study of his Poetry (New York, 1946).

Book reviews by Richard Seltzer

Published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. 617-469-2269 seltzer@samizdat.com

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