verdict of the oracle is as follows: "Suspicion is no proof: jealousy is an unequal judge: Bellaria is chaste: Egistus blameless: Franion a true subject: Pandosto treacherous: his babe an innocent; and the King shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found." The innocence of Bellaria being established, Pandosto, ashamed of his suspicions, entreats her forgiveness and promises to reconcile himself with Egistus and Franion. Then news is suddenly brought of the death of the prince Garinter; Bellaria dies of the shock caused by these mournful tidings and the King falls into a swoon. Recovering after the space of three days, he then attempts suicide but is restrained by his nobles. Full of contrition, he erects "a rich and famous sepulchre" for his wife and son, and causes an epitaph to be engraved upon the tomb which shall declare the innocence of Bellaria and invoke curses upon himself.

We next follow the adventures of the princess Fawnia. The boat in which she is cast adrift is borne by favourable winds to the coast of Sicily and is there found by a poor shepherd called Porrus, who tenderly carries Fawnia, "wrapped in a mantle of scarlet richly embroidered with gold, and having a chain about her neck," to his wife Mopsa. Fawnia is brought up in the shepherd's cottage and believes that Porrus and Mopsa are her parents. Sixteen years pass and Fawnia develops into a shepherdess so fair that "she seemed to be the goddess Flora herself for beauty." One day she presides as mistress of the feast at a meeting of all the farmers' daughters in Sicily and is there seen by Dorastus, the son of Egistus, who is returning from a hunting expedition. Dorastus straightway falls in love with her and the love is requited. To further his love-suit, Dorastus disguises himself as a shepherd, and, realising that his father will never consent to his marriage with a shepherdess, he devises a plan of carrying her off to Italy. With the help of his servant Capnio, he furnishes a ship and embarks with Fawnia. Meanwhile Porrus, uneasy in his mind at the course of affairs, determines to make matters known to the king Egistus, and sets off for the palace, bearing with him the scarlet mantle and gold chain which he had found upon Fawnia when he first discovered her as an infant. On the way he encounters Capnio, who, realising

Porrus's purpose, forcibly carries him off to the boat in which Dorastus and Fawnia are contriving their escape. After three days of tempest the fugitives reach "the coast of Bohemia," and, disembarking, make their way to the court of Pandosto, to whom they declare that they are Trapolonians on their way from Padua to Trapolonia. Pandosto, suspecting that Dorastus has stolen Fawnia from her parents, commits him to prison, and then, becoming enamoured of Fawnia's beauty, vainly endeavours to win her love.

Meanwhile tidings reach Egistus that his son has fled with Fawnia to the court of Pandosto, and he sends certain of his nobles in pursuit. Pandosto, hearing their story, and learning that Fawnia is only a shepherd's daughter, gives order that Dorastus shall be set free, and that Fawnia and Porrus shall be put to death. Thereupon Porrus, in self-defence, tells all that he knows of Fawnia and displays the scarlet mantle and gold chain. Her true origin is at once recognised, and the people of Bohemia celebrate the discovery of the long-lost daughter with shows and bonfires. Dorastus and Fawnia are married, Porrus is knighted, but Pandosto, reflecting first of all on his insensate jealousy, and then upon his unnatural love for his daughter Fawnia, ends his life by suicide.

Sabie's

It will at once be recognised that at many points, and es- [Francis pecially in the later stages of the story, Shakespeare has de- Fisherman's parted very widely from the romance of Greene. But before Tale] considering his points of departure in detail, let us turn our thoughts to yet another version of the story which appeared in Elizabethan England between the publication of Pandosto and the dramatisation of the story by Shakespeare. In the year 1595 the Lichfield schoolmaster, Francis Sabie, published a poem written chiefly in blank verse and entitled The Fisherman's Tale: Of the famous Actes, Life and loue of Cassander a Grecian Knight. The poem is in two parts, and the second part bears the separate title, Flora's Fortune, the second parte and finishing of the Fisherman's Tale. It is fairly certain that Sabie's poem is, to a certain extent at any rate, based upon Greene's romance, but it differs from it in so many important respects that a summary of its contents may with advantage be given here:

Palemon, King of Greece, has married Julina, the daughter

b

of Tuiston, King of Germany. During his absence, Eristo, one of his nobles and a man of advanced age, makes designs upon Julina's honour, and being scornfully repulsed, spreads a rumour abroad that Julina has committed adultery with a certain lord, Alpinor. He secures the imprisonment of Alpinor and suborns the gaoler Pandion to murder him in prison. The murder is carried out and the report spread that Alpinor has committed suicide. Meanwhile Palemon, believing in the guilt of his wife, casts her into prison; while in prison she gives birth to the princess Flora, who is cast adrift upon the sea. The trial of Julina follows, in which she pleads her innocence; this is confirmed by the oracular message brought by two of Palemon's nobles from the oracle of the goddess Themis. reads thus:

Let reason rule in Princes, and not rage,
What greater vice than lust in senile age:
Julina chast, Alpinor guiltlesse was:
Calingo false, Eristo treacherous,

Pandion wicked, and if Destinie

Helpe not, Palemon issulesse shall die.

It

Julina's honour is thus cleared, but she dies of a broken heart. Eristo and his accomplices are straightway put to death. Meanwhile the boat in which lies the infant Flora is driven about by the waves, until

At length in Humber streames it forced was,
Which mildly runs by sweet Arcadian downes;
Long saild it here, and at the length it staid
Among bul-rushes on the reedy banks.

Here it is discovered by the shepherd Thirsis, who carries the child and the accompanying gold home to his cottage and his wife Mepsa. Flora grows up in the cottage, and, reaching marriageable years, has many suitors, all of whom she rejects. But one day she is seen by Cassander," Menalchus sonne, a famous Grecian Earle," who straightway falls in love with her. This Cassander has already done deeds of prowess at the Court of Philip of Macedon and among "the barbarous Getes"; after leaving the Getes [the Getæ or Goths] he has come to "Boheme land" and has joined the Emperor Mathias in his wars against the Sultan Amurah, who has captured Mathias' daughter, Lucina, and intends to make her his paramour. Thanks to the help

of Cassander, Mathias routs the Turkish forces and re-captures his daughter, whom he offers to Cassander in marriage. Cassander, however, politely declines the offer and returns to Arcadia.

The story of the wooing of Flora by Cassander follows. Disguised as a shepherd, he wins her love, but is repulsed by the shepherd Thirsis. Then, adopting a new disguise-that of a crippled beggar-he comes to Flora and announces his plan of carrying her off from Arcadia to Greece in a boat. The plot succeeds, but the lovers are pursued by Thirsis; whereupon Cassander forcibly lifts him into the boat and carries him off with them. A storm arises, the boat is wrecked and the lovers separated; Flora and Thirsis are cast ashore on "Delos land, Apollos isle," while Cassander is thrown upon another island, where he is forced to earn his living as a fisherman.

Flora and Thirsis make their way to "wise Apollo's church" and the heroine utters her prayer to the god. In answer to her prayer a voice pronounces the following words in tones of thunder :

Take what you see, Arcadians, shun delay;

And where this ship sets you on land, there stay.

The words, "Take what you see," refer to a scroll which falls at the suppliants' feet and which bears upon it these words :

Old Thirsis, wise Apollo pittieth thee,

One of his prophets henceforth thou shalt be:
Live Flora with thy Sire, end not thy dayes;
Cassander lives, not drowned is he in seas.

Thirsis and Flora are then brought in a ship to Greece, where Dryano, the son of the Eristo who had brought the false charge against Julina, falls in love with Flora and seeks to make her his mistress. She repels his suit, whereupon he flings her and Thirsis into prison on a charge of treason and both are condemned to death by Palemon. Thirsis, in self-defence, declares that he is not the father of Flora, and, in Palemon's hearing, tells how he had discovered her and produces the articles of dress found on her. Reconciliation follows; Dryano is put to death, Palemon is full of joy at the discovery of his daughter, and, to complete the happiness, Cassander appears at Palemon's court. The poem ends with the marriage of hero and heroine,

[Possible

sources of the story.]

[The oracle motive.]

The above summary of The Fisherman's Tale will serve to show that Sabie modified Greene's version of the story quite as drastically as Shakespeare. The names and localities are changed, new characters and incidents are added; as in The Winter's Tale, the repellent incident of a father making love to his daughter is removed, and no cloud of tragedy, such as that produced by Pandosto's self-inflicted death, is allowed to obscure the serenity of the closing scene. It is possible that Shakespeare was acquainted with Sabie's version of the story, but, if so, he went his own way. In spite of noteworthy deviations from Pandosto, the indebtedness of Shakespeare to Greene is unmistakable, whereas the attempt to prove indebtedness to Sabie is beset with grave difficulties.

The question which arises next is whether Greene's story is a pure invention on his part, or whether he had access to still older materials. More than one attempt has been made to discover the supposed source of Pandosto, but none of them has placed the matter beyond dispute. J. Caro, in an article contributed to the second volume of Englische Studien (1878), and entitled "Die historischen Elemente in Shakespeare's 'Sturm' und 'Wintermärchen,'" endeavours to show that the story of Pandosto's jealousy and cruelty towards Bellaria is founded upon an actual incident in the fourteenth century annals of Poland. The story is that Ziemowit, Duke of Masovia, had married a lady at the Court of King Charles of Bohemia; but, giving ear to the rumours of her adultery, he had imprisoned her in one of his castles and finally put her to death. While in prison, his wife had given birth to a son, who was brought up by a poor woman in the neighbourhood of the castle and eventually restored to his father. The story adds that Ziemowit, repenting of his cruelty towards his wife, put to a violent death the man who had spread the slander of her adultery. The resemblance of this historic incident to the opening scenes of Pandosto and The Fisherman's Tale is fairly obvious, and Caro's theory is that the story may have been brought to England by oral tradition, probably at the time of Richard II.'s marriage to Anne of Bohemia.

But neither this episode of Polish-Bohemian history, nor M. Jusserand's attempt to discover a source for Pandosto in the