Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
Not long after his departure, the queen, "who had never conceived before"
(which varies both from Greene and Shakspeare), produces a daughter, which
the king resolves to get rid of by turning it adrift at sea in "a little
boat." He so informs the queen, and she in great grief provides the outfit
for the infant voyager:
"A purse of rare jewels she placed next her skin,
And fasten'd it likewise securely within;
A chain round her neck, and a mantle of gold,
Because she her infant no more should behold."
It is revealed to the king in a dream that his wife is innocent, but she
soon dies of a broken-heart. Meanwhile, the prince, on his return to his
own dominions, marries, and has a son. The infant princess is driven on
shore in his kingdom, and is saved by an old shepherd, and brought up by
him and his wife as their own child, they carefully concealing the riches
they had found in the "little boat."
"This child grew up, endued with grace,
A modest behaviour, a sweet comely face;
And being arrived at the age of fifteen,
For beauty and wisdom few like _her_ were seen."
"Her" is misprinted _him_ in the original, and the whole, as may be
expected, is not a first-rate specimen of typography. The son of the prince
sees and falls in love with the supposed shepherd's daughter, and, to avoid
the anger of the prince his father, he secretly sails away with her and the
old shepherd. By a storm they are driven on the coast of Bohemia:
"A violent storm on the sea did arise,
Drove them to Bohemia; they are took for spies;
Their ship was seized, and they to prison sent:
To confine them a while the king's fully bent."
Here we arrive at an incident which is found in Greene, but which
Shakspeare had the judgment to avoid, making the termination of his drama
as wonderful for its art, as delightful for its poetry. Greene and my
ballad represent the king of Bohemia falling in love with his own daughter,
whom he did not recognise. She effectually resisted his entreaties, and he
resolves "to hang or burn" the whole party; but the old shepherd, to save
himself, reveals that she is not his daughter, and produces "the mantle of
gold" in which he had found her:
"He likewise produced the mantle of gold.
The king was amazed the sight to behold;
Though long time the shepherd had used the same,
The king knew it marked with his own name."
This discovery leads directly to the unwinding of the plot: the young
prince makes himself known, and his father being sent for, the lovers are
{3} "married in triumph" in Bohemia, and the old shepherd is made "a lord
of the court."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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