Enter Gower. GOWER
To sing a song that old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come,
Assuming man’s infirmities
To glad your ear and please your eyes.
It hath been sung at festivals, 5
On ember eves and holy days,
And lords and ladies in their lives
Have read it for restoratives.
The purchase is to make men glorious,
Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius. 10
If you, born in these latter times
When wit’s more ripe, accept my rhymes,
And that to hear an old man sing
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might 15
Waste it for you like taper light.
This Antioch, then: Antiochus the Great
Built up this city for his chiefest seat,
The fairest in all Syria.
I tell you what mine authors say. 20
This king unto him took a peer,
Who died and left a female heir
So buxom, blithe, and full of face
As heaven had lent her all his grace;
With whom the father liking took 25
And her to incest did provoke.
Bad child, worse father! To entice his own
To evil should be done by none.
But custom what they did begin
Was with long use accounted no sin. 30
The beauty of this sinful dame
Made many princes thither frame
To seek her as a bedfellow,
In marriage pleasures playfellow;
Which to prevent he made a law 35
To keep her still, and men in awe,
That whoso asked her for his wife,
His riddle told not, lost his life.
So for her many a wight did die,
As yon grim looks do testify. 40
He indicates heads above the stage.
What now ensues, to the judgment of your eye
I give my cause, who best can justify. He exits. | Gower (acting as the chorus) steps out on stage and tells us he's come back from the dead to share an old-school story with us. Gower brags about how awesome the story is and tells us to kick back, relax, and enjoy the show.
Then Gower tells us that the King of Antioch—who is conveniently named Antiochus—has been having an incestuous affair with his own daughter. Gower says that the affair has been going on for so long that both dad and daughter think it's no big whoop. Now we're told the daughter (who doesn't even get her own name in this play) is so smokin' hot that princes have been traveling from all over the world for a chance to marry her. Antiochus isn't about to let that happen, so he's come up with a riddle that has to be solved by the man who gets to hook up with her. There's just one hitch—if a dude guesses wrong, his head gets lopped off and mounted on Antiochus's wall. |