Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	child_n	father_n	name_n	1,034	5	5.8015	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58024	The tragedies of the last age consider'd and examin'd by the practice of the ancients and by the common sense of all ages in a letter to Fleetwood Shepheard, Esq. / by Thomas Rymer, of Grays-Inn, Esq.	Rymer, Thomas, 1641-1713.	1678 (1678)	Wing R2430; ESTC R2180	47,703	161

is common to all people and can never carry him from what is Natural Many are apt to mistake use for nature but a Poet is not to be an Historiographer but a Philosopher he is not to take Nature at the second hand soyl'd and deform'd as it passes in the customes of the unthinking vulgar The a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phedra in Euripides told us truly that it is not Natural to do evil when we know good Therefore vice can never please unless it be painted and dress'd up in the colours and disguise of vertue and should any man knowingly and with open eyes prefer what is evil he must be reckon'd the b majus est monstro nefas Nam monstra fato moribus seelera imputes Sen. greatest of Monsters and in no wise be lookt on as any image of what is Natural or what is suitable with humane kind What is there of the Heroe of Man or of Nature in these Kings of our Poets framing And for Evadners part did Hell ever give reception to such a Monster or Cerberus ever wag his tayl at an impudence so sacred On the Wedding night the Bridegroom is cajol'd by her in no better terms than Evad. A mayden-head Amintor at my years Alas Amintor thinkest thou I forbear To sleep with thee because I have put on A Mayden strictness look upon these cheeks And thou shalt find the hot and rising blood Unapt for such a vow no in this heart There dwells as much desire and as much will To put that wish't act in practice as ever yet Was known to woman and they have been shown Both but it was the folly of thy youth To think this beauty to what land so e're It shall be call'd shall stoop to any second I do enjoy the best and in that height Have sworn to stand or dye Soon after she tells him Alas I must have one To Father Children and to bear the name Of husband to me that my sin may be More honourable Hitherto she is bashful after this the Scene is to be wrought up and the next Scene presents her impudence triumphant but I shall trace her duty towards her husband no farther Had Evadne been the injur'd bodies sister and had marry'd Amintor out of revenge or had their been any foundation from circumstances for this sort of carriage the Character then might have been contriv'd plausible enough but both the Kings behaviour and hers uncircumstanc'd as we have them are every way so harsh and against Nature that every thing said by them strikes like a dagger to the souls of any reasonable audience Whatever persons enter upon the Stage the Poetry would be gross enough if the audience could not by the manners distinguish in what Country the Scene lay whether in England Italy or Turky more gross would it be if the manners would not discover which were men and which the women Now Nature knows nothing in the manners which so properly and particularly distinguishes woman as doth her modesty consonant therefore to our principles and Poetical is what some writers of Natural History have reported that women when drowned swim with their faces downwards though men on the contrary Tragedy cannot represent a woman without modesty as natural and essential to her If a woman has got any accidental historical impudence if documented in the School of Nanna or Heloisa she is furnish'd with some stock of acquired impudence she is no longer to stalk in Tragedy on her high shoes but must rub off and pack down with the Carriers into the Provence of Comedy there to be kickt about and expos'd to laughter There are degrees of modesty Evadne and every person feign'd ought to be represented with more modesty then Phedra or Semiramis because the History makes it credible that these had less of modesty then Naturally is inherent to the Sex yet ought these also to show more of modesty then is ordinarily seen in men that the Characters might still be distinguish'd But of all the Kings murder is attended with those circumstances with such a knot of absurdity and injustice that I don't well know where to begin to unravel it This King indeed is born a Monster a Monster of great hopes and what might we not have expected from him yet certainly the Poet cuts him off e're ripe for punishment And by such unproper means that to remove one guilty person he makes an hundred and commits the deadly sins to punish a venial one If Amintors falshood and its fatal consequences are to be noted what occasion have we for a King in this Tragedy cannot Corydon deceive his Amarillis for such is Aspatia but the King must know of it the King must be murder'd for 't To vex this false man a Groom might have done the job and have been the Poets Cuckold-maker to all intents and purposes every jot as well If it be said that the King was accessary to the falshood I question whether in Poetry a King can be an accessary to a crime if the King commanded Amintor Amintor should have begg'd the Kings pardon should have suffer'd all the racks and tortures a Tyrant could inflict and from Perillus's Bull should have still bellowed out that eternal truth that his Promise was to be kept that he is true to Apatia that he dies for his Mistress then would his memory have been precious and sweet to after-ages and the Midsummer-Maydens would have offer'd their Garlands all at his grave And thus the King might kill Amintor but Amintor could not pretend that the King or Fortune had made him false nec nisi miserum fortuna Sinonem Finxit vanum etiam mendacemque improba finget Therefore I say the King was not to blame or however not so far as in any wise to render his life obnoxious But if the Poet intended to make an example of this King and that the King right or wrong must be kill'd Amintor only felt the highest provocations and he alone should have been drawn out for the wicked instrument for Melantius had no reason to be angry at any but at his Sister Evadne nor could she have any pretence to exercise her hands unless it were against her self If I mistake not in Poetry no woman is to kill a man except her quality gives her the advantage above him nor is a Servant to kill the Master nor a Private Man much less a Subject to kill a King nor on the contrary Poetical decency will not suffer death to be dealt to each other by such persons whom the Laws of Duel allow not to enter the lifts together There may be circumstances that alter the case as when there is a sufficient ground of partiality in an Audience either upon the account of Religion as Rinaldo or Riccardo in Tisso might kill Soliman or any other Turkish King or great Sultan or else in favour of our Country for then a private English Heroe might overcome a King of some Rival Nation