Our {83} tragedies and comedies, not without cause, are cried out
against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor skilful
poetry. Excepting Gorboduc (again I say of those that I have seen),
which notwithstanding, as it is full of stately speeches, and well-
sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his style, and as
full of notable morality, which it does most delightfully teach, and
so obtain the very end of poesy; yet, in truth, it is very
defectuous in the circumstances, which grieves me, because it might
not remain as an exact model of all tragedies. For it is faulty
both in place and time, the two necessary companions of all corporal
actions. For where the stage should always represent but one place;
and the uttermost time presupposed in it should be, both by
Aristotle's precept, and common reason, but one day; there is both
many days and many places inartificially imagined.
But if it be so in Gorboduc, how much more in all the rest? where
you shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other, and so
many other under kingdoms, that the player, when he comes in, must
ever begin with telling where he is, {84} or else the tale will not
be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walk to gather
flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and
by, we hear news of shipwreck in the same place, then we are to
blame if we accept it not for a rock.
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