CRIMSON BOOKSHELF

In this his latest play, Masefield again gives us the other side of the Biblical narrative; this time, he tells, movingly and forcefully, the story of Ahab, and Jezebel, and the rebel John as it must really have been. And if "A King's Daughter" lacks, as it seems to me that it does, a little of the power of "Good Friday," it can in all probability be due only to the stronger appeal which that story makes to the Christian emotions. For the account he gives us is convincing; for the moment we forget that her name has come to be synonymous with "harlot," and feel for Jezebel somewhat the same tender sympathy that we give to Marie Antoinette.

There is much that is similar in the lives of the two royal unfortunates, if we accept Masefield's account. Each was queen in a strange land over an unfriendly people, each in actuality ruler; each was the largest of bitter hatred and disgusting contumely in life; each died a violent death at the hands of rebellious subjects. But there the parallel ends, for Queen Jezebel lacked in life friends or faithful servants, nor were there any to mourn her dead saving her tiring-women. A foreigner among foreigners, civilized among barbarians, of race and religion different from her own, a king's daughter overcome by dishonorable tricksters and dying a dishonorable death at their hands--to be this was tragedy enough for her.

And yet one feels that her sorrowing is not for such things as these, but because she has brought misfortune to the king her husband, whom she loved, and to her two sons. Hers is the tragedy of the too beautiful woman; there was no need for Masefield to interweave with hers the story of Helen and of Nireus to teach us that. And yet it was some recompense that men should say of her that she was beautiful and a king's daughter.

All this Masefield writes for us, in the austere numbers of "Samson Agonistes;" he is probably the only latter-day poet that can catch their authentic note. And the songs incorporated in the play show that he has not forgotten how to write lyrics as they should be written. It is a good play, almost a great play. And yet (shamefacedly I confess it) I prefer his earlier, and therefore presumably less mature work. For there is no one can write as he can of the sea, and of them that go down, to the sea in ships.