The pageant of the world is marvellous, but the pageant of the world is vanity.
glories
Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams
And shadows soon decaying: on the stage
Of my mortality my youth hath acted
Some scenes of vanity —
To die and be quit of it all is their desire; the bell that tolls throughout the drama is death and disenchantment.
All life is but a wandering to find home,
When we’re gone, we’re there.
Ruin, weariness, death, perpetually death, stand grimly to confront the other presence of Elizabethan drama which is life: life compact of frigates, fir trees and ivory, of dolphins and the juice of July flowers, of the milk of unicorns and panthers’ breath, of ropes of pearl, brains of peacocks and Cretan wine. To this, life at its most reckless and abundant, they reply
Man is a tree that hath no top in cares,
No root in comforts; all his power to live
Is given to no end but t’ have power to grieve.
It is this echo flung back and back from the other side of the play which, if it has not the name, still has the effect of the presence of the Gods. So we ramble through the jungle, forest, and wilderness of Elizabethan drama. So we consort with Emperors and clowns, jewellers and unicorns, and laugh and exult and marvel at the splendour and humour and fantasy
