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Horace had been known long before, but not until Drant's translation of the Ars Poetica into English in 1567 is its influence seen to be definite and extensive in England. One of the earliest published evidences of this influence is George Whetstone's Dedication to Promos and Cassandra . The passage is short, but contains two very important points in the creed of classicism.
It was from Whetstone, a contemporary English writer, that Shakespeare derived the outline of Cinthio's "rare history" of Promos and Cassandra, one of that numerous class of Italian stories, like Boccaccio's Tancred of Salerno, in which the mere energy of southern passion has everything its own way, and which, though they may repel many a northern reader by a certain crudity in their colouring, seem to have been full of fascination for the Elizabethan age.
When we speak of the drama that existed before the coming of Marlowe, and that vanished at his advent, we think usually of the rhyming plays written wholly or mainly in ballad verse of fourteen syllables of the Kings Darius and Cambyses, the Promos and Cassandra of Whetstone, or the Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes of George Peele.
Chump wantonly sought to prevent him. Each was burdened with serious matter; but they might have struck hands here, had not this petty accidental opposition interposed. "Makes me feel confident..." Wilfrid resumed. "And Pole's promos, Mr. Wilfrud; ye're forgettin' that." "Confident, ma'am." "He was the first to be soft." "I say, ma'am, for his sake " "An' it's for his sake.
But the main interest in Measure for Measure is not, as in Promos and Cassandra, in the relation of Isabella and Angelo, but rather in the relation of Claudio and Isabella.
Cintio had taken it for the subject of a romance. Whetstone had made out of Cintio's narrative the rude play of Promos and Cassandra; and Shakspeare had borrowed from Whetstone the plot of the noble tragicomedy of Measure for Measure. As Kirke was not the first so he was not the last, to whom this excess of wickedness was popularly imputed.
His play, Promos and Cassandra, translated from Cinthio's Hecatomithi, was used by Shakespeare in Measure for Measure. Philosopher, theologian and mathematician, s. of a joiner at Lancaster, where he was b., ed. at Camb., where he had a brilliant career.
Measure for Measure is full of expressions drawn from a profound experience of these casuistries, and that ethical interest becomes predominant in it: it is no longer Promos and Cassandra, but Measure for Measure, its new name expressly suggesting the subject of poetical justice.
Chump wantonly sought to prevent him. Each was burdened with serious matter; but they might have struck hands here, had not this petty accidental opposition interposed. "Makes me feel confident..." Wilfrid resumed. "And Pole's promos, Mr. Wilfrud; ye're forgettin' that." "Confident, ma'am." "He was the firrst to be soft." "I say, ma'am, for his sake " "An' it's for his sake.
Lyly drew examples, anecdotes, and fables which he used as Gascoigne suggested, not only from Heywood, but from the Similia and Adagia, of Erasmus, and from the Emblems of Alciati. So far the moral example is counseled or practised only as a recognized device of rhetoric. It is not transferred to poetic until George Whetstone's Dedication to his Promos and Cassandra.
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