Mustapha (1609 play)

The Tragedy of Mustapha is a play by Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, first printed in 1609.

Quotes

• I first am nature's subject, then my prince's;
  I will not serve to innocency's ruine.
  Whose heaven is earth, let them beleeve in princes,
  My God is not the God of subtile murther.
  • Act II, scene i

• Oh wearisome Condition of Humanity!
  Borne under one Law, to another, bound:
  Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
  Created sicke, commanded to be sound:
  What meaneth Nature by these diverse Lawes?
  Passion and Reason, self-division cause:
  Is it the marke, or Majestie of Power
  To make offences that it may forgive?
  Nature herselfe, doth her owne selfe defloure,
  To hate those errors she herselfe doth give.
  For how should man thinke that he may not doe
  If Nature did not faile, and punish too?
  Tyrant to others, to her selfe unjust,
  Onely commands things difficult and hard.
  Forbids us all things, which it knowes we lust,
  Makes easie paines, impossible reward.
  If Nature did not take delight in blood,
  She would have made more easie wayes to good.
  We that are bound by vowes, and by Promotion,
  With pompe of holy Sacrifice and rites,
  To teach beliefe in good and still devotion
  To preach of Heavens wonders, and delights:
  Yet when each of us, in his owne heart lookes,
  He finds the God there, farre unlike his Bookes.
  • Act V, scene iv: "Chorus Sacerdotum"; reprinted in Certain Learned and Eloquent Workes (1633); quoted by Charles Blount in Great is Diana of the Ephesians (1680); line 4 quoted by Christopher Hitchens in Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)

External links

• The Tragedy of Mustapha (London: Printed [by John Windet] for Nathaniel Butter, 1609)