[7] One play should be mentioned here as standing in some ways between the classical and popular plays. _Promus and Cassandra_, by George Whetstone, published 1578, cannot be placed in any of our four classes, for there is no evidence that it was ever acted. Like _Tancred and Gismunda_, it was based on an Italian _novella_, also the source of _Measure for Measure_, and it follows Latin comedy rather than tragedy. In its division into five acts, its frequent soliloquies, its attempted observance of decorum (especially vaunted in the preface), and in its serious purpose and moral sentiments, the play shows a pedantic clinging to classicism. In the main, however, it belongs with _Damon and Pithias_ and _Appius and Virginia_, and seems to have been intended for performance by children. It is a mixture of tragedy, comedy, farce, and songs; and this abundance of incongruous material seems to have led to its division into two plays, as Whetstone says, for the purpose of decorum. Here, as elsewhere in the period, the experiment of putting new material into old dramatic structures burst the bottles. Clowns, parasites, tyrants, prostitutes, hangmen, Egyptians, and girls in boys' clothing make up a pageant which is a sort of tragicomedy but which the learned author called by the more popular title, "a history." [8] _Ariodante and Genevra_ (_Orlando Furioso_), _Ajax and Ulysses_, _Agamemnon and Ulysses_, _Cæsar and Pompey_, _Cloridon and Radimanta_ _Duke of Milan_, _Effigenia_ (_Iphigenia_), _Four Sons of Fabius_, _Mutius Scævola_, _Quintus Fabius_, _Perseus and Andromeda_, _Sarpedon_, _Scipio Africanus_, _Timoclea at the Siege of Thebes_, _Telemo_, _Twelve Labors of Hercules_. Some titles suggesting medieval romance are: _Knight of the Burning Bush_, _Red Knight_, _Paris and Vienna_, _Solitary Knight_. CHAPTER IV MARLOWE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES