or, again: 

              Shall I believe a dream? 
    Which is a vapour borne along the stream
    Of fancy. (V. iii.)

The last in this somewhat dreary catalogue is Glapthorne’s Argalus and Parthenia, published in 1639 and acted probably the previous year.  It is founded on the episode related in Books I and III of the Arcadia,[307] and possibly on Quarles’ poem already noticed.  The story is briefly as follows.  Demagoras, finding his suit to Parthenia rejected in favour of Argalus, robs her of her beauty by means of a poisonous herb, an outrage for which he is slain by his rival.  After a while Parthenia regains her beauty through the care and skill of the queen of Corinth, and returns to her lover.  During the marriage festivities the king sends for Argalus to act as champion against a knight who has carried off his daughter, and Argalus, obeying the summons, finds himself opposed to his friend Amphialus.  They fight, and Argalus is slain.  Parthenia then appears disguised as a warrior in armour, challenges Amphialus, and suffers a like fate.  With this inconsequent and unmotived tragedy is interwoven a slight and incongruous underplot of rustic buffoonery.  As a whole Glapthorne’s play is of inconsiderable merit.  Here and there, however, we come upon a passage which might make us hope better things of the author.[308] Of Argalus it is said that

    His gracions merit challenges a wife,
    Faire as Parthenia, did she staine the East,
    When the bright morne hangs day upon her cheeks
    In chaines of liquid pearle. (I. i.)

Demagoras is a glorious warrior who would compel love as he has done fame.  Though Parthenia reminds him that

Mars did not wooe the Queen of Love in Armes,

his fierce soul yet dwells on deeds of force: 

                   I’ll bring on

Well-manag’d troops of Souldiers to the fight,
Draw big battaliaes, like a moving field
Of standing Corne, blown one way by the wind
Against the frighted enemy; (ib.)

and, remembering former conquests: 

                         This brave resolve

Vanquish’d my steele wing’d Goddesse, and ingag’d
Peneian Daphne, who did fly the Sun,
Give up to willing ravishment, her boughes
T’ invest my awfull front. (ib.)

Parthenia, healed from the poison, returns

                   her right

Beauty new shining like the Queen of night,
Appearing fresher after she did shroud
Her gawdy forehead in a pitchy cloud: 
Love triumphs in her eyes; (III, end.)

and the pastoral poetess Sapho promises an ‘epithalamy’ for the bridal pair,

Till I sing day from Tethis armes, and fire
With ayry raptures the whole morning quire,
Till the small birds their Silvan notes display
And sing with us, ‘Joy to Parthenia!’ (ib.)