Appendix XIII | “The Second Maiden’s Tragedy”
This play was reprinted by the Malone Society in 1909.574 The writing of the original MS. in the British Museum is remarkably good. It is No. 807 in the Lansdowne Collection, and comes to us from the famous Warburton MSS. The play was licensed by Sir George Buck, October 31st, 1611, and acted by the King’s men. At the end is inscribed: “by Thomas Goffe,575 George Chapman, by Will Shakspear. A tragedy indeed!”
The last phrase is true. The first two names are erased; the third name has been added by a late seventeenth or eighteenth century hand.
The underplot, according to Boyle, is derived from Cervantes’ Curious Impertinent, and in Acts I. and II. passages “are literally taken from that novel.” There is an incident at the end of the play which reminds us of The Duke of Milan. The “Tyrant” removes the body of the heroine from her tomb, and sends for a painter to give colour to her face and lips. Govianus, her husband, comes in disguise to do the deed, and the Tyrant is killed by the poison which Govianus has put on the lips of the corpse.
Massinger may therefore have known the play, but I differ entirely from Boyle’s estimate. He thinks Massinger wrote Acts I. and II., Tourneur Acts III., IV., V. I see no trace of Massinger in Act I., except the reference in line 541 to a “cup of nectar.” The sudden repentance of the heroine’s father Helvetius, in Act II., 1, 253, reminds us of a trait of Massinger referred to above;576 but the style of the first two acts is too feeble and vague, and the metre too halting for him.577 I cannot suppose that at the age of twenty-seven Massinger could have taken part in writing a play where “A voice from within” the tomb says to the mourning husband, “I am not here!”578