… When in her chamber Mamillia, debating as to whether she will be true to her father or to her lover Pharicles, soliloquizes, "no misling mists of misery, no drenching showers of disasterous fortune, nor terrible tempests of adversity shall abate my love or wrack my fancy against the slippery rocks of inconstancy: yea if my lands will buy his ransom or my life purchase his freedom, he shall no longer lead his life in calamity," we are at once aware that Robert Greene, a graduate of Cambridge, has begun to write fiction in 1583 in the style of John Lyly. The most noteworthy euphuistic novels of Robert Greene's are Mamillia (1583), Gwydonius (1584), Arbasto (1584), Pandosto, the Triumph of Time (1588), Perimedes, the Blacksmith (1588), Alcida (1589), Menaphon Mourning Garment (1590), Never Too Late (1590), Philomela (1592), A Disputation Between a He Conny-Catcher and a She Conny-Catcher (1592), The Black Bookes Messenger, Laying Open the Life and Death of Ned Browne, One of the Most Notable Cutpurses, Crosbiters, and Conny-Catchers That Ever Lived in England (1592), and Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance (1596).

In Mamillia there is the slight autobiographic flavor of Greene's acquaintance with the slum-banditti of Europe. In Saragossa Pharicles fascinated by its underworld fell into the net spread by the wiles of a courtesan, Clarynda, dwelling therein. Mamillia, to whom he had pledged his love, at once in Padua puts on the apparel of disguise and runs like Shakespeare's Portia to the Saragossan courtroom to save the life of Pharicles who had been accused by Clarynda of being a public spy. Mamillia before the magistrate of Saragossa revealing her identity pleads his cause so well that she is rewarded by having a faithless wooer thrown into her arms for a husband. Pharicles, not at all ashamed of his previous conduct, asks that all his forepassed follies be forgiven and forgotten; and Mamillia quickly assures him that she has no ill things to remember at his hands.

In Arbasto: the Anatomie of Fortune (1584) we listen to Arbasto, once King of Denmark, but now a hermit residing in a cave near Sidon, who insists on relating how his life had been ruined by his love for Doralicia, daughter of Pelorus, King of France. During a truce in the war waged with France he had met Doralicia in the camp, where at the same time without his knowledge he was looked upon and loved by Myrania, the youngest daughter of Pelorus. At length Pelorus seized Arbasto and Egerio, his friend, and cast both of them into prison from which they escaped by the strategy of Myrania. At this time Arbasto influenced by the feeling of gratitude pledged himself to Myrania in spite of the fact that his heart belonged to Doralicia. Myrania, finding out his double dealing from the correspondence he had been carrying on with her elder sister, pines away and is on her death-bed when Arbasto comes to comfort her with hypocritical words which intimate that he will shortly make her his queen. In hellish fury Myrania started up in her bed gesticulating in a frenzy and, notwithstanding that she was kept down by her ladies, succeeded in articulating and hurling at the head of Arbasto the most hateful curses:

"O hapless Myrania, could not Medea's mishap have made thee beware? Could not Ariadne's ill luck have taught thee to take heed? Could not Phillis misfortune have feared thee from the like folly: but thou must like and love a straggling stranger? Ay me that repentance should ever come too late: for now I sigh and sorrow, but had I wist comes out of time; folly is sooner remembered than redressed, and time may be repented, but not recalled."

"But I see it is a practice in men to have as little care of their own oaths, as of their Ladies honors, imitating Jupiter, who never kept oath he sware to Juno: didst thou not false Arbasto protest with solemn vows, when thy life did hang in the balance, that thy love to Myrania should be always loyal, and hast thou not since sent and sued secretly to win the good will of Doralice? Didst thou not swear to take me to thy mate, and hast thou not since sought to contract with her a new match? Thou didst promise to be true unto me, but hast proved trusty unto her? What should I say, thou hast presented her with pleasant drinks, and poisoned me with bitter potions: the more is my penury, and the greater is thy perjury. But vile wretch, doest thou think this thy villany shall be unrevenged? No, no Egerio: I hope the gods have appointed thee to revenge my injuries: thou hast sworn it, and I fear not but thou wilt perform it. And that thou mayest know I exclaim not without cause, see here the Letters which have passed between this false traitour and Doralice"

…..

"Clear thyself traitorous Arbasto thou canst not, persuade me thou shalt not, forgive thee I will not, cease therefore to speak, for in none of these thou shalt speed. Egerio I saved thy life, then revenge my death, and so content I die, yet only discontent in this, that I cannot live to hate Arbasto so long as I have loved him."

And with that, turning upon her left side, with a gasping sigh she gave up the ghost….

Arbasto in the pangs of remorse did not move to meet the advances of reconciliation on the part of Doralicia. At length, being abandoned by his own people for having broken his promise, he left Denmark for a hermit's cave wherein he could sorrow for the mishap of Myrania and could rejoice over the misery of Doralicia. As Malory's maid of Astolat had looked at Launcelot and had loved him with the love that was her doom, so Robert Greene's Myrania had looked upon and loved Arbasto. They were both such tender-hearted maidens that they could not survive the shock of unrequited love. In Greene's early novels we have tender-hearted women such as Mamillia, Myrania, Bellaria, Isabel, and hard-hearted men such as Pharicles, Arbasto, Pandosto, and Francesco. In Pandosto (1588) Bellaria for her faithfulness to Pandosto is rewarded by seeing her husband cast their lawful babe into a boat to have the whistling winds for a lullaby and salt foam for sweet milk and by having him cast her into a prison to pass to a speedy death.

In Never Too Late (1590) in the city of Caerbranck, Brittaine, we see Francesco making love to Isabel, the daughter of Seigneur Fregoso. Isabel seems determined to have Francesco even though her father frowned upon the match because her suitor was not rich enough in lands. The lovers secretly eloped together on horseback to Dunecastrum where they were married. Her father pursued and caught them, accusing Francesco of not only stealing his daughter but some plate. Francesco was put into prison and Isabel kept under vigilance in the house of the Mayor. Francesco was at length freed from custody by the Mayor who had once been young himself and realized "youth would have his swin ." After the lovers had lived for five years in the country in the highest kind of connubial bliss, Fregoso forgave the couple and recalled them to his house in Caerbranck, in which for two years they continued to live in all happiness until Francesco was called on business to the city of Troynouant where he met the wicked woman, the siren Infida. Isabel, knowing very well what is keeping her husband in Troynouant, takes the gentlest measure that ever a woman took to reclaim her erring spouse. She writes the following letter filled with tenderest solicitude for Francesco rationally submitting for his perusal just what would make any reasonable husband break off from his inamorata.

ISABEL TO FRANCESCO

health.

If Penelope longed for her Ulysses, think Isabel wisheth for her Francesco, as loyal to thee as she was constant to the wily Greek, and no less desirous to see thee in Caerbranck, than she to enjoy his presence in Ithaca, watering my cheeks with as many tears, as she her face with plaints, yet my Francesco, hoping I have no such cause as she to increase her cares: for I have such resolution in thy constancy, that no Circes with all her enchantments, no Calipso with all her sorceries, no Syren with all their melodies could pervert thee from thinking on thine Isabel: I know Francesco so deeply hath the faithful promise and loyal vows made and interchanged between us taken place in thy thoughts, that no time how long soever, no distance of place howsoever different, may alter that impression. But why do I infer this needless insinuation to him, that no vanity can alienate from vertue: let me Francesco persuade thee with other circumstances. First my Sweet, think how thine Isabel lies alone, measuring the time with sighs, and thine absence with passions; counting the day dismal, and the night full of sorrows; being every way discontent, because she is not content with her Francesco. The onely comfort that I have in thine absence is thy child, who lies on his mother's knee, and smiles as wantonly as his father when he was a wooer. But when the boy says: "Mam, where is my dad, when will he come home?" Then the calm of my content turneth to a present storm of piercing sorrow, that I am forced sometime to say: "Unkind Francesco, that forgets his Isabel." I hope Francesco it is thine affaires, not my faults that procureth this long delay. For if I knew my follies did anyway offend thee, to rest thus long absent, I would punish myself with outward and inward penance. But, howsoever, I pray for thy health, and thy speedy return, and so Francesco farewell.

Thine more than her owne

ISABEL.

In perusing this letter the reader should note the reference to Isabel's little boy who is quoted as saying, "Mam, where is my dad, when will he come home?" For by it there is caught a glimpse of the sorrows of childhood which are to be emphasized from this time on in English fiction. Later, in Fielding, another small boy will cry out to an Amelia as he hears a knock at the door, "There is papa, mama; pray let me stay and see him before I go to bed"; but no papa enters, for the (Booth) is supping with the perfidious Miss Matthews. As Robert Greene continued to write he emphasized more and more the autobiographic as in Never Too Late (1590). As Francesco in Troynouant maltreated Isabel in far Caerbranck by being false to her with the siren Infida, so Greene in London at the time of the composition of this novel no doubt was thinking of his abandoned wife and child in far Norwich. Indeed, in Fielding's Amelia (1751), this Francesco passes into a Booth playing Amelia false with Miss Matthews; and Isabel is a forerunner of Amelia, who clings to her husband (Booth) in spite of her minute knowledge of the fascinating Miss Matthews. Isabel has the Mamillia-like quality of forgiveness in her nature so that, when her husband comes back to her after quarreling with Infida, she royally forgives him for all his transgressions with a smile, a tear, and a kiss.

Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance (1596), published after Greene's death and writ ten perhaps by Chettle, contains the simple story of an old miser, Gorinius, who had two sons, the elder of whom was Lucanio and the younger Roberto. When the old man felt death approaching he bequeathed his whole estate to Lucanio because he had executive ability and to Roberto he gave a groat so that by it the younger son could never contaminate himself with the accumulation of tainted wealth. A flauntingly gay young damsel Lamilia of the Elizabethan underworld appears. With the fickleness of her type she first aided Roberto in plundering Lucanio and then veered to the side of the elder brother to push Roberto hopelessly to the bottom of the quagmire. At this point in the story Roberto, robbed of everything, girl and brother, contemplates suicide. The novel is strongly autobiographic. In Never Too Late Francesco is referred to as a university scholar who teaches school amid the beauties of a rural district in order to support Isabel. In Groatsworth of Wit Roberto is such a fine scholar that he is advised by a player to turn his knowledge into money by writing dramas. One can read between the lines that this Roberto is Robert Greene; and, towards the end of the narrative, there is the pathetic reference to the gentle woman his wife who labored to recall him from the nips, foysters, coney-catchers, crossbiters, lifts, high lawyers, and all the rabble of that unclean generation of vipers. It would seem that Greene's wife was compelled to give her husband over to all lewdness. The perfect image of dropsy, the loathsome scourge of lust, without one groat was so sunk in the depths of heartless misery that he communicated his wife's sorrowful lines among his loose trulls that jested at her bootless laments. And at the close of the novel Robert Greene interrupts his own narrative in this manner, "Here (Gentlemen) break I off Roberto's speech; whose life in most parts agreeing with mine found one self-punishment as I have done. Hereafter suppose me the said Roberto … ," thus pronouncing it to be all autobiography.

Just as Christopher Marlowe humanized cruel, erring Tamburlaine as he stalks throughout tragedy an almost insane figure instinctively striking out at the uncontrollable circumstances which have balked and blighted him, so Robert Greene humanized the terrible Elizabethan underworld, of which he was a part, and into which, from the mouth of the murthering-piece of his own remorse, he shot ethical pellets in the form of pamphlet-fiction for the redemption of its inmates and himself. It is well to remember that Robert Greene enriched fiction with disguise of personality and embellished it with the romance of elopement for lovers; foreshadowed that sable land wherein would exist the sorrows of childhood; and emphasized autobiography….