Alba, the Month’s Minde of a Melancholy Lover

Source: Extract from Robert Tofte, ‘Alba, the Month’s Minde of a Melancholy Lover’ (1598, third part, stanzas 81-84), reprinted in Rev. Alexander B. Grossart, Alba. The Month’s Minde of a Melancholy Lover, by Robert Tofte, Gentleman (1880), p. 105

Production: William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, London (?), 1590s

Text: LOVES LABOUR LOST, I once did see a Play
Ycleped so, so called to my pain.
Which I to hear to my small Joy did stay,
Giving attendance on my forward dame:
My misgiving mind presaging to me Ill,
Yet was I drawn to see it ‘gainst my Will.

This Play no Play, but Plague was unto me,
For there I lost the Love I liked most:
And what to others seemde a Jest to be,
I, that (in earnest) found unto my cost,
To every one (save me) twas Comicall,
Whilst Tragick like to me it did befall.

Each Actor played in cunning wise his part,
But chiefly Those entrapt in Cupids snare;
Yet all was fained, ’twas not from the hart,
They seemed to grieve, but yet they felt no care:
‘Twas I that Griefe (indeed) did bear in breast,
The others did but make a show in Jest.

Yet neither faining theirs, nor my meere Truth,
Could make her once so much as for to smile:
Whilst she (despite of pitie milde and ruth)
Did sit as skorning of my Woes the while.
Thus did she see fit to see LOVE lose his LOVE,
Like hardend Rock that force nor power can move.

Comments: Robert Tofte (c.1562-1620) was an English poet and translator. His long 1598 poem ‘Alba, The Months Minde of a Melancholy Lover’ contains the first reference in print to William Shakespeare‘s play Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Links: Copy at Internet Archive

Travels in England During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth

Source: Sir Robert Naunton, Travels in England During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth by Paul Hentzner. With Fragmenta Regalia; Or, Observations on Queen Elizabeth’s Times and Favourites (London: Cassell, 1892). Originally published in 1612 as Itinerarium Germaniae, Galliae, Angliae, Italiae, cum Indice Locorum, Rerum atque Verborum.

Text: Without the city are some theatres, where English actors represent almost every day tragedies and comedies to a very numerous audiences; these are concluded with excellent music, variety of dances, and the excessive applause of those that are present.

Not far from one of these theatres, which are all built of wood, lies the royal barge, close to the river. It has two splendid cabins, beautifully ornamented with glass windows, painting, and gilding; it is kept upon dry ground, and sheltered from the weather.

There is still another place, built in the form of a theatre, which serves for the baiting of bulls and bears; they are fastened behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs, but not without great risk to the dogs, from the horns of the one and the teeth of the other; and it sometimes happens that they are killed upon the spot; fresh ones are immediately supplied in the places of those that are wounded or tired. To this entertainment there often follows that of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five or six men, standing circularly with whips, which they exercise upon him without any mercy, as he cannot escape from them because of his chain; he defends himself with all his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his reach and are not active enough to get out of it, and tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them. At these spectacles, and everywhere else, the English are constantly smoking tobacco; and in this manner—they have pipes on purpose made of clay, into the farther end of which they put the herb, so dry that it may be rubbed into powder, and putting fire to it, they draw the smoke into their mouths, which they puff out again through their nostrils like funnels, along with it plenty of phlegm and defluxion from the head. In these theatres, fruits, such as apples, pears, and nuts, according to the season, are carried about to be sold, as well as ale and wine.

Comments: Paul Hentzner (1558-1823) was a German lawyer and tutor to a Silesian nobleman, Christoph Rehdiger, whom he accompanied of a tour of Switzerland, France and England, 1596-1599. His account of his travels was published in Latin in 1612. His sight of the London theatres dates from September 1598.

Links: Copy at Project Gutenberg

Thomas Platter’s Travels in England

Source: Thomas Platter, diary entry for 21 September 1599, translated by Clare Williams, in Thomas Platter’s Travels in England (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937), German original reproduced in E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), vol. II, p. 322

Production: William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, London, 21 September 1599

Text: On September 21st after lunch, about two o’clock, I and my party crossed the water, and there in the house with the thatched roof witnessed an excellent performance of the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius Caesar, with a cast of some fifteen people; when the play was over they danced very marvellously and gracefully together as is their wont, two dressed as men and two as women.

On another occasion not far from our inn, in the suburb at Bishopsgate, if I remember, also after lunch, I beheld a play in which they presented diverse nations and an Englishman struggling together for a maiden; he overcame them all except the German who won the girl in a tussle, and then sat down by her side, when he and his servant drank themselves tipsy, so that they were both fuddled and the servant proceeded to hurl his shoe at his master’s head, whereupon they both fell asleep; meanwhile the Englishman stole into the tent and absconded with the German’s prize, thus in his turn outwitting the German; in conclusion they danced very charmingly in English and Irish fashion. Thus daily at two in the afternoon, London has sometimes three plays running in different places, competing with each other, and those which play best obtain most spectators.

The playhouses are so constructed that they play on a raised platform, so that everyone has a good view. There are different galleries and places, however, where the seating is better and more comfortable and therefore more expensive. For whoever cares to stand below only pays one English penny, but if he wishes to sit he enters by another door, and pays another penny, while if he desires to sit in the most comfortable seats which are cushioned, where he not only sees everything well, but can also be seen, then he pays yet another English penny at another door. And during the performance food and drink are carried round the audience, so that for what one cares to pay one may also have refreshment.

The actors are most expensively costumed for it is the English usage for eminent Lords or Knights at their decease to bequeath and leave almost the best of their clothes to their serving men, which it is unseemly for the latter to wear, so that they offer them for sale for a small sum of money to the actors.

How much time then they may merrily spend daily at the play everyone knows who has ever seen them play or act.

Comments: Thomas Platter (c.1574-1628) was a Swiss physician and traveller. A diary that he kept on a visit to England over September-October 1599 includes a visit to the newly-opened Globe theatre in London. The Julius Caesar play that he saw on 21 September 1599 is very likely to be that written by Shakespeare.

Links: English text at The Norton Anthology of English Literature

Longleat manuscript

Source: Henricus Peacham (Henry Peacham), illustration of scene from William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, ‘The Longleat manuscript’ (1595), Longleat library

Comments: Henry Peacham (1578-16??) was an English poet and artist. He is believed to be the artist behind this illustration of a scene from Titus Andronicus, which is part of the ‘Longleat manuscript’ (held in the library of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat, signed ‘Henricus Peacham’ and usually dated 1595). The text beneath the illustration is a stage direction, ‘Enter Tamora pleadinge for her sonnes going to execution’ (which does not feature in any printed text version), followed by lines from Acts 1 and 5 of Shakespeare’s play. Some have argued that the illustration shows a German play of the same story and dates from the 1620s. The scene shows Tamora pleading to Titus for the life of her son, Alarbus, with Aaron standing far right.