Presently he discovers the prisoners' guards, whom he engages in combat so successfully that of them all only two escape death, and that only by falling at his feet for mercy.

Shew me then the prisoners! said Amadis: they led the way. Who lies here? said he, hearing a lamentable voice from a cell. A lady, said they, in great torment.

Needless to relate, he rescues the lady, who, in the approved fashion, tells him of her lineage, and is led from the prison. After returning to the upper court, Amadis is for a time held in the spell of the enchanter Arcalaus. Upon recovering himself, he puts on a suit of armor and goes to deliver Gandalin, his squire, who has meanwhile been imprisoned.

The men of Arcalaus seeing him thus armed, ran all ways; but he descended the steps, and through the wall where he had slain the jaylor, and so to the dungeon: a dreadful place it was for the captives; in length an hundred times as far as a man's spread arms can reach ; one only and a half of that span wide; dark, for neither light nor air could enter, and so full that it was crowded. ... but then the dwarf knew his [i. e. Gandalin's] voice, and answered, Here we are! Thereat greatly rejoicing, Amadis went to the lamp in the hall, and kindled torches and took them to the dungeon, and loosed Gandalin's chains, and bade him deliver his comrades. They came from the dungeon, an hundred and fifteen men in all, of whom thirty were knights, and they followed Amadis, exclaiming, O fortunate knight! ... Christ give thee thy reward! and, when they came to the sun-light and open sky, they fell upon their knees, and with lifted hands blest God who had given that knight strength to their deliverance.

I have quoted this incident from Amadis, not because I regard it as an immediate source of the cavescene in our play, but because it well illustrates the fact that Beaumont, in his use of an episode dealing with a cave and prisoners, is simply burlesquing a typical and recurrent feature of the romances of chivalry. It is a feature, moreover, which has no analogy, as has been pointed out, in the attributed source in Don Quixote. Here, as elsewhere, Beaumont

drew, not from Cervantes, but directly from the romances themselves.

f. Ralph's Fidelity to Susan before Pompiona. In Act 4, 11. 108-9, the Princess Pompiona is represented as trying to persuade Ralph to wear her favor in his shield. He refuses, because she 'trusts in Antichrist, and false traditions.' He says also:

Besides, I have a lady of my own

In merry England, for whose virtuous sake
I took these arms; and Susan is her name,

A cobbler's maid in Milk-street; whom I vow
Ne'er to forsake whilst life and Pestle last.

Leonhardt seems to think that Ralph's faithfulness to Susan is reflected from Don Quixote's staunch fidelity to Dulcinea before the imagined loveliness of Maritornes, who is a kitchen-wench at the inn (Bk. 3, chap. 3), and who is 'broad-faced, flat-pated, saddle-nosed, blind of an eye, and the other almost out.' The crazed old hidalgo receives this charmer as a goddess of love between his arms,' though he resists complete captivation through reflecting on Dulcinea, telling Maritornes that it is impossible to yield to her love, because, as he says, 'of the promised faith which I have given to the unmatchable Dulcinea of Toboso, the only lady of my most hidden thoughts; for did not this let me, do not hold me to be so senseless and mad a knight as to overslip so fortunate an occasion as this your bounty hath offered to me.'

Here, again, Leonhardt stretches a point in order to find in the play a derivation from the novel. Pompiona is always a princess of high degree, inhabiting a magnificent castle, and is so depicted. Maritornes is nothing but a vulgar, obscene kitchenwench, bent, when accosted by Don Quixote, upon a secret intrigue with a carrier at the inn, and is so

depicted. Pompiona can by no possibility have been suggested by Maritornes, while the fidelity of Ralph and the Don to their plighted lady-loves is a reflection from their common original, the romances, and in no sense argues a connection between the play and the novel.

The whole of Ralph's adventures at the court of Pompiona's father, the King of Moldavia, find an approximate analogy1, indeed, not in any portion of Don Quixote, but in a situation in Palmerin de Oliva which is thoroughly typical of the romances. The eighth chapter of the second book of that romance is entitled, 'How the Princesse Ardemia, enduring extreame Passions and torments in Love, made offer of her affections to Palmerin, which he refused: wherewith the Princesse (through extreme conceit of griefe and despaire) suddenly dyed." Ardemia is a companion of Alchidiana, daughter of the Sultan of Babylon, to whose court the fortunes of Palmerin have brought him. The amorous suits of this Princess are indeed much more insistent and long-winded than Pompiona's, and the result of their failure is much more violent, but there are a few resemblances which are of value as illustrating the satirical point in our scene.

In much the same manner as Pompiona urges Ralph to receive a 'favor,' Ardemia presents Palmerin with a diamond, saying:

O sweet Friend, and onely comfort of my Soule, let me intreat you to weare this as an argument of my love, thereby to know how well I esteeme you, assuring you that I am so devoted yours: as if you vouchsafe to grant me the favor and honor as to goe with me to the court of my Father, I never will have any other Husband but 1 An analogous situation is to be found, also, in the fidelity of Amadis to Oriana before the love-smitten Briolania, in Amadies of Gaul, Bk. 1, chaps. 40, 50. Other analogies might be cited by the score.

Munday's trans.

you, and there shall such account be made of you, as well beseems a Knight so noble and vertuous.

More relevant, however, to Ralph's adventure is the manner in which Palmerin receives Ardemia's advances. Just as Ralph refuses to wear the favor of Pompiona, because she trusts in Antichrist, Palmerin is repelled by the fact that Ardemia is a pagan :

Palmerin, amazed at this strange accident, because she was a Pagan, and contrary to him in faith, therefore made no answer, but... started from her sudainly, and being moved with displeasure, departed the Chamber.

And as Ralph calls his Susan to mind before Pompiona, so Palmerin fortifies himself, after having fled from Ardemia, by invoking his absent lady-love, saying:

Ah sweet Mistresse, succour now your Servant, for I rather desire a thousand deaths, then to violate the chaste honour of my Love, or to give that favour to this Lady which in only yours.

After Ardemia has died of grief because of Palmerin's refusal of her love, her companion Alchidiana, daughter of the Sultan, falls in love with the hero, and plies him with amorous suits, which also he evades (chap. 13). Just as Pompiona requires of Ralph his name and birth, Alchidiana thus addresses Palmerin:

I desire you Sir Knight by the reverence you beare our Gods, and the faith you owe to her, for whose loue you tooke the Enchanted Crowne from the Prince Maurice, to tell me your name, what your parents be, and of whence you are. For I sweare to you by the honour of a Princesse, that the guerdon you shall receive in so doing, is my heart, having once conquered those desires that long haue tormented me intending to make you Lord of myself, and all the possessions of the Soldane my Father, without any sinister meaning you may believe me.

Then just as Ralph responds: My name is Ralph,' &c., Palmerin replies to the inquiries of Alchidiana:

My name is Palmerin D'Oliva, and what my parents, the Queen of Tharsus within these three days will tell me more than hitherto I could understand by any, when you shall haue more knowledge of

my estate and Country also: but so farre as I yet can gather by mine own understanding, my Descent is from Persia.

Palmerin is here, it should be said, deceiving Alchidiana into believing him a Persian, since he does not wish to cause her immediate dissolution by disclosing to her that he is a Christian, and that his heart is already bound to a Christian lady.

The only conclusion to be derived from such a comparison as that just made is that Beaumont is merely burlesquing the general features of recurrent amours in the romances, whereby designing princesses attempt to lure the knights away from their chosen lady-loves. It may plausibly be surmised, though not confidently asserted, that he drew the idea of the scene at the Court of Moldavia from Palmerin de Oliva. He assuredly did not draw it from Don Quixote. There is no significant resemblance between Ralph's behavior towards Pompiona and the Don's behavior toward Maritornes at the inn.

g. Susan, the lady-love of Ralph. Leonhardt implies that Dulcinea del Toboso is the prototype of Susan. This, of course, is mere conjecture. It seems based simply on the fact that the two damsels belong to a humble station in life. Susan is a 'cobbler's maid in Milk-street,' while Dulcinea, it will be remembered, is a country-wench, and is chiefly commendable for her skill in the salting of pork. In each instance, it is a fitting issue of the mock-heroic purpose that a lowly maiden should be represented as the lady-love of the burlesque knight, and should be given a grotesque and incongruous elevation. In the absence of any definable line of connection between Susan and Dulcinea, there is no reason for presuming that Beaumont may not of his own accord have hit upon this very pertinent conception.