Complecated sentence !

to me, it says that someone is "crying out against" (that might mean criticisizng) "tragedies and comedies" (meaning plays, probably, but could be literature in general), "not without cause" (meaning the people crying out have valid reasons for doing so), "observing rules neither of honest civility nor skillful poetry" (but they're crying out impolitely, dishonestly, and expressing themselves poorly).

but it's hard to be sure what the sentence means, without more context, like a preceding paragraph, or some idea of who the writer was talking about.

Without context it is hard to figure the exact meaning. We don't know what specifically it was crying out against.

My rough translation is...
Because of something previously mentioned, the literature was written against it. Written crudely and harshly but perhaps with cause.

Without knowing the cause that they were crying out against, it is impossible to give a better meaning to "observing rules neither of honest civility nor skilful poetry." It is possible that the emotions of the literature caused the harshness. It is also possible that the society it refers to is primative and doesn't understand the rules nor have any desire to understand them because of the offense. Because this is a book about prose it may be a comment on how and why prose took the place of poetry in theatrical pieces. Lack of 'skilful poetry' could refer to poetry that is bad or to no poetry at all, meaning prose.

I see it differently -- like this:

"Our tragedies and comedies <are> not without cause cried out against, <because they> observ<e> ing rules neither of honest civility nor skilful poetry."

That is, people criticize our modern tragedies and comedies (plays) because they do not conform to the forms of civil behavior or the structure of poetic composition that are the hallmarks of classic theater. And by classic, I am inclined to think Greek or Roman, at the latest Shakespeare.

wy, your interpretation makes more sense, because otherwise the "not without cause" phrase is odd, but without more context there's no certainty. also, your meaning would be more clearly indicated if one additional word such as "for" or "as" preceded the word "observing." as it stands, you've pointed out that the antecedent of the phrase beginning with "observing" is ambiguous. i interpreted it as referring to critics of plays, whereas you interpret it as the plays themselves.

This is more to the point, Wy. This passage comes from an essay, "Defense of Poesy" by Sir Philip Sidney (Elizabethan times). The complete sentence reads:



The reference to Gorboduc (being a play) helps those who weren't as smart as Wy understand that "honest civility" and "skilful poetry" refer to tragedies and comedies and not the critics. The "of those that I have seen" phrase helps, too.

http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Sidney/DefenseOfPoesy/DefenseOfPoesy1.html