Epistle to Daiphantus, or the Passions of Love

From page of Epistle to Daiphantus via Shakepeare Documented

Source: ‘An. Sc.’ [Anthony Scoloker?], extract from Epistle to Daiphantus, or the Passions of Love (William Cotton, 1604)

Text:
[From the introductory section]

It should be like the Neuer-too-well read Arcadia, where the Prose and Verce, (Matter and Words) are like his Mistresses eyes one still excelling another and without Coriuall for to come home to the vulgars Element, like Friendly Shake-speares Tragedies, where the Commedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on Tip-toe: Faith it should please all, like Prince Hamlet.

[From the poem]

His breath, he thinkes the smoke; his tongue a cole,
Then calls for bottell-ale; to quench his thirst:
Runs to his Inke-pot, drinkes, then stops the hole,
And thus growes madder, then he was at first.
Tasso, he finds, by that of Hamlet, thinkes.
Tearmes him a mad-man; than of his Inkhorne drinks.

Calls Players fooles, the foole he iudgeth wisest,
Will learne them Action, out of Chaucers Pander:
Proues of their Poets bawdes euen in the highest,
Then drinkes a health; and sweares it is no slander.
Puts off his cloathes; his shirt he onely weares,
Much like mad-Hamlet; thus as Passion teares.

Comments: Daiphantus, or the Passions of Love is a poem, printed in 1604, expressed from the point of view of a courtier, Daiphantus, whose character commentators have seen as being similar to William Shakespeare‘s Hamlet. The poem is credited to ‘An. Sc’, sometimes identified as the printer Anthony Scoloker, though he died in 1593, or a relative of his. When Hamlet was first performed Richard Burbage almost certainly took the leading role. The reference to Hamlet wearing only his shirt indicates an actual piece of stage business witnessed by the author.

Links: Copy at Early English Books Online

Jack Drum’s Entertainment

Source: John Marston, Jack Drum’s Entertainment (The Tudor Facsimile Texts, 1912 [orig. pub. 1600])

Text:
SIR EDWARD FORTUNE:… Now by my troth and I had thought ont too,
I would haue had a play; Ifaith I would.
I saw the Children of Powles last night,
And troth they pleasde mee prettie, prettie well.
The Apes in time will do it handsomely.
PLANET. Ifaith, I like the Audience that frequenteth there
With much applause: A man shall not be choakte
With the stench of Garlicke; nor be pasted
To the barmy Iacket of a Beer-brewer.
BRABANT IUNIOR. Tis a good, gentle Audience, and I hope the Boyes
Will come one day into the Court of requests.
BRABANT SIGNIOR: I and they had good Playes, but they produce
Such mustie fopperies of antiquitie,
And do not sute the humourous ages backs
With cloathes in Fashion.

Comments: John Marston (1576-1634) was an English playwright and poet. His romantic comedy Jack Drum’s Entertainment was written c.1599-1600 and entered in the Stationer’s Register on 8 September 1600. It was first performed by the boy actors’ troupe Children of Paul’s (i.e. St Paul’s Cathedral), the subject of this passage from Act V of the play. Marston wrote regularly for the Children of Paul’s.

Links: Copy at the Internet Archive

The Diary of Baron Waldstein

Source: G.W. Groos (translated and annotated by), The Diary of Baron Waldstein: A Traveller in Elizabethan England (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981), p. 37

Text: Monday, 3 July [1600]
Went to see an English play. The theatre follows the ancient Roman plan: it is built of wood and is so designed that the spectators can get a comfortable view of everything that happens in any part of the building.

On the way back we crossed the bridge; it has very fine buildings on it, and fixed to one of them can still be seen the heads of a number of earls and other noblemen who have been executed for treason.

Comments: Zdeněk Brtnický z Valdštejna (1581-1623), or Baron Waldstein, was a Moravian artistocrat, who from 1597 to 1603 kept a diary (in Latin). In 1599 he went on a tour of Europe, and in 1600 visited England. His frustrating account of a visit to a London theatre, which names neither theatre nor play, could be describing the Globe (built the previous year), Swan or Rose, though it does at least establish its location as being south of the river. A second diary entry, for 2 August 1600, when he was still in London, merely notes “Went to see an English play”.

Coryat’s Crudities

Source: Thomas Coryat, Coryat’s crudities; reprinted from the edition of 1611. To which are now added, his letters from India, &c. and extracts relating to him, from various authors: being a more particular account of his travels (mostly on foot) in different parts of the globe, than any hitherto published. Together with his orations, character, death &c (London: W. Cater, 1776 [orig. edition pub. 1611]), vol. II, pp. 16-18

Text: I was at one of their Play-houses where I saw a Comedie acted. The house is very beggarly and base in comparison of our stately Play-houses in England: neyther can their Actors compare with vs for apparell, shewes and musick. Here I obserued certaine things that I neuer saw before. For I saw women acte, a thing that I neuer saw before, though I haue heard heard that it hath beene sometimes used in London, and they performed it with as good a grace, action, gesture, and whatsoeuer convenient for a Player, as euer I saw any masculine Actor. Also their noble and famous Cortezans came to this comedy, but so disguised, that a man cannot perceiue them. For they Wore double maskes upoon their fates, to the end they might not be scene: one reaching from the toppe of their forehead to their chinne and under their necks; another with twiskes of downy or woolly stufFe couering their noses. And as for their neckes round about, they were so couered and wrapped with cobweb lawne and other things, that no part of their skin could be discerned. Upon their heads they wore little blacke felt caps very like to those of the Clarissimoes that I will hereafter speak of. Also, each of them wore a black short Taffata cloake. They were so graced that they sate on high alone by themselues in the best roome of all the Play-house. If any man should be so resolute to unmaske one of them but in merriment onely to see their faces it is said that were he neuer so noble or worthy a personage, he would be cut in pieces before he should Come forth of the rooms, especially if he were a stranger. I saw some men also in the Play-house, disguised in the same manner with double visards, those were said to be the fauourites of the same Cortezans: they sit not here in galleries as we doe in London. For there is but one or two little galleries in the house, wherein the Cortezans only fit. But all the men doe sit beneath in the yard or court, euery man vpon his sevrall stoole, for the which hee payeth a gazet.

Comments: Thomas Coryat (c.1577-1617) was an English traveller and travel writer. His journeys across Europe and Asia were documented in two lively volumes, Coryat’s Crudities (1611) and Coryats Crambe (1611), which were immensely popular. This passage records a visit to a theatre in Venice. There were professional women actors in Italy from the sixteenth century, but women did not appear on stage in Britain (except possibly in medieval times) until 1660.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust

Diary of John Manningham

Source: John Bruce (ed.), Diary of John Manningham, of the Middle Temple, and of Bradbourne, Kent, barrister-at-law, 1602-1603 (Westminster: Printed by J.B. Nichols and sons, for the Camden Society, 1868), p. 18

Production: William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Middle Temple, London, 2 February 1602

Text: Feb. 2. At our feast wee had a play called “Twelue Night, or What you Will,” much like the Commedy of Errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called Inganni. A good practise in it to make the Steward beleeve his Lady widdowe was in love with him, by counterfeyting a letter as from his Lady in generall termes, telling him what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparaile, &c., and then when he came to practise making him beleeue they tooke him to be mad.

Comments: John Manningham (?-1622) was an English lawyer whose diary, covering the period January 1602 to April 1603 is a valuable documentary source for early Jacobean life in London. On 2 February 1602 he documents seeing a performance of Twelfth Night (probably not its first) at the hall within Middle Temple, where he was a student. February 2 is Candelmas.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust