The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice

Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Othello

thello was composed some time between Performance Date 1584 and 1604, after the publication of the French translation of Cinthio’s The earliest performance of the play is usually OHecatommithi and before it was performed at taken as that mentioned in the Revels Accounts court. where “The Moor of Venis” by “Shaxberd” was Publication Dates recorded as being played “in the Banketinge house att Whit Hall on Hallowmas” (1 November) The play was entered into the Stationers’ Register 1604, in the presence of the King and his wife. on 6th October 1621: Hamilton has suspected the reference in the Revels Accounts to be a forgery, but most scholars [SR] 6o Octubris 1621. Thomas Walkley. accept it as authentic.1 Entred for his copie vnder the handes of Sir It is possible that Henslowe’s Diary records an George Buck, and Master Swinhoe warden, the earlier performance. On 14th December 1594, Tragedie of Othello, the moore of Venice. vjd. Henslowe entered into his diary “the mawe”, a play which has not otherwise been identified, Othello was published in quarto (Q1) in 1622 and but might refer to an earlier performance of The attributed to Shakespeare: Mawe/Moor of Venice. (This is discussed below, under Oxfordian dating.) [Q1] The tragœdy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. As it hath beene diuerse times acted at the Globe, and at the Black-Friers, by his Maiesties Sources seruants. Written by William Shakespeare. London: printed by N. O. [Nicholas Okes] for Thomas Walkley, and are to be sold at his shop, The main source is an Italian novella, one of the at the Eagle and Child, in Brittans Bursse, 1622. stories (decade 3, story 7) from the Hecatommithi, by Giraldi Cinthio (1565). From this source, Othello was included among the tragedies of the Shakespeare took the plot (the Moor’s jealousy, First Folio of 1623, occupying the ninth position the handkerchief trick, the Ensign’s wickedness, after King Lear and before Antony & Cleopatra, the tragic death of the protagonists); the setting where it has the head title and running title (Venice and Cyprus) and the main characters: ‘The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice’. Disdemona (the only named character), a Moorish Chambers believes that Q1 and F1 are both captain (Capitano Moro), an ensign (alfieri) and a good copies and derive from the same original. captain (capo di squadra). The many close linguistic Honigmann however notes that Q1 and F1 differ parallels with the Italian source are evidence in hundreds of readings and that F1 is longer by that Shakespeare had a very good knowledge about 160 lines. He takes both to have authorial of the Italian language. No English translation authority (1997: 2). A second quarto (Q2) appeared until 1753, but a French translation by appeared in 1630 and a third quarto, published Gabriel Chappys was published in 1583/4. Neill 1655, was a reprint of Q2. asserts that Shakespeare almost certainly read it

Title page to the first quarto of Othello, 1622 By permission of Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, shelfmark Arch. G d.43 (7), title page. in the original Italian. Honigmann argues that used Sir Lewis Lewkenor’s The Commonwealth Shakespeare knew both the Italian text (e.g. and Government of Venice (1599). This work “acerb” 1.3.350, “ocular proof” 3.3.363) and the was a translation of a Latin treatise by Cardinal French translation (e.g. “heart-pierced” 1.3.220, Gasparo Contarini called De magistratibus et “take out the work” 3.3.300).2 Cinthio’s collection republicâ Venetorum. Lewkenor’s Commonwealth of 100 tales had been inspired by Boccaccio’s is generally considered to be the source of the Decameron and was partly translated by William dramatist’s knowledge of Venetian institutions, Painter in his Palace of Pleasure (1566–70) and in such as the Doge’s functions, the Government Barnaby Riche’s Farewell to Militarie Profession Boards, and the rulers of the city, but this is by (1581). Cinthio’s Hecatommithi also provided no means certain. Honigmann believes that only the main plot for Measure for Measure. Thus, the one reference (“officers of the night” 1.1.184) in year 1584 may be taken as the earliest time for a Othello is derived from Lewkenor, so the 1599 first version of Othello, assuming that the French Commonwealth text is not an essential source.3 derivations were part of the original. There is no earlier description of Venetian It has also been suggested that Shakespeare institutions in English, so direct experience may

© De Vere Society 2 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Othello have been the only source. for details of the Turkish naval movements, but Since Shakespeare used words such as “cisterns” this suggestion has been passed over by most and “fountains”, Bullough suggests that he had commentators, e.g. Honigmann.4 The political “almost certainly” consulted the 1600 translation situation of the European States still threatened by John Pory of John Leo Africanus’s work, A by the Turks in those years may have led the Geographical History of Africa, with descriptions dramatist to reflect on the Venetian loss of Cyprus of cisterns and fountains in Fez. This debt does and its relevance to the history of the Republic. not seem very important: in almost every Italian He may have wished to include the theme and to piazza (square), there has been a fountain. In the expand it into a detailed description. middle of the ‘campielli’ in Venice there have always been cisterns (cisterne) to collect rain water. Orthodox Dates The Italian word is the same. Another source for Shakespeare may have There is very little evidence to identify a date for been Pliny’s Natural History for the references the play. Chambers accepts Malone’s conjecture in Othello’s speech (1.3.128–169) to the of 1604 (i.e. that the play was new when a Anthropophagi and to African deserts. A further performance at court was recorded, and says that reference to the flow of water from the Black Sea it is “consonant with stylistic evidence”. Ridley through the Bosphorus may have been inspired seems to accept 1604 without further argument. by this work: Wells & Taylor agree with 1603–4, citing some close verbal similarities with Hamlet which they Like to the Pontic sea, date to 1601): Iago says: “I’ll pour this pestilence Whose icy current and compulsive course into his ear” (2.3.347), which recalls the murder Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontic and the Hellespont, of Hamlet’s father. Lodovico’s closing comment Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, in Othello, “Look on the tragic loading of this Shall ne’er look back (3.3.456–61) bed” (5.ii.373) echoes “looke upon this tragicke spectacle” at the end of Q1 Hamlet (1603). Hamlet, This striking image is thematically linked dying, says: “Report me and my cause aright/ To to Othello’s role as a Venetian Captain. The the unsatisfied” (5.2.291–2), which corresponds dramatist may have derived the idea from to Othello’s final disheartened wish: “When you Philemon Holland’s 1601 translation of Pliny, shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me but he could have read Pliny in the original Latin, as I am” (5.2.350–1). Both characters, though as he had read Virgil’s Aeneid for The Rape of admitting their faults, claim their uprightness, Lucrece in 1594. It is also possible that the author loyalty and honour. Wells & Taylor date Hamlet picked up this piece of information from Venetian to 1601 and Othello a few years later. Wiggins merchants who had sailed in the Sea of Marmaris limits this play to 1601–4, preferring the latest (Propontis) towards Constantinople. date. He believes that Knolle’s History of the Turks Direct influence of the Aeneid can be found (1603) was a major source. in Othello’s speech (1.3.128–169) where he Some commentators have accepted an earlier recalls how Desdemona fell in love with him and date c. 1601–04, most notably recent editors shed tears at the narration of his past dangerous Norman Sanders (New Cambridge Shakespeare) adventures by land and sea, of his deeds of courage and Honigmann (Arden 3 edition) who both and sorrowful misfortunes. In the same way give the range 1601–1604. J. Rees argued for an was Dido deeply affected and moved to tears by earlier date after he examined a leaf from Edward Aeneas’s pitiful story of his perilous voyage from Pudsey’s Booke (a manuscript commonplace book Troy in flames to the African coast, of the Greeks’ in the Bodleian Library). On one sheet is written: cruelties and of the Trojan defeat. Dangerous to tell where a soldier lyes etc. yf I In Cinthio, there is nothing about a Turkish shold say he lodge theer I bed ther. Shee yt is attack on Cyprus or Rhodes, which had taken free of her toung ys as frank of her lippes. An ey place historically in 1570–1573. Wells & Taylor yt offeres parle to provocaco. have argued that Shakespeare may have used Richard Knolles’s History of the Turks (1603) Rees observes the close connection between this

© De Vere Society 3 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Othello entry and two passages from Othello: at 2.3.21–2: External Evidence Iago What an eye she has! Methinks it sounds a parley to provocation. Henslowe’s Diary, on 14th December 1594, records a play which has not been identified. and with a second passage at 3.4.1: The title he wrote is “the mawe”. The word Moor was spelt in different ways: ‘more’, ‘maure’ and Des Do you know sirra where the lieutenant ‘moore’. Henslowe’s spelling probably reflects his Cassio lies ? own pronunciation. Other examples from the Clo I dare not say he lies anywhere. diary show idiosyncratic orthography: “Troyeles Des Why man ? Clo He is a soldier, and for one to say a and Creasse daye”, “The Jewe of malltuse”, soldier lies is stabbing. “warlamchester”. A study of entries shows that Des Go to, where lodges he ? the spelling became less strange as the theatre manager became more familiar with play titles. Rees notes that this sheet, conventionally marked At least, Henslowe, as we shall see, was referring as fo. 84, should rightfully be next to fo. 42, which to “a black”. is dated 1600. Rees concludes that the play had The play The Mawe is marked ‘ne’, which has already been performed by 1600 and composed at often been read as ‘new’. It could have been the an earlier date.5 first time that the play had been performed in Henslowe’s theatre, or it may have been a revised Oxfordian Dates play – therefore new to Henslowe and to his audience. Other plays in his diary are marked Oxfordians believe that the play was written before ‘ne’ – it has been suggested that the abbreviation 1604 and that it refers to events in Oxford’s life stands for ‘ Newington ’. But the long list of plays after his stay in Venice (1575) when he doubted starting on 3rd June 1594 and including The his wife’s fidelity (1575–81). Clark presses for Mawe, bears a heading which gives the name of 1583, which she links to Alençon and events in the theatre where the plays were performed: Antwerp at this time. Holland argues for c. 1588, which is accepted as the most likely Oxfordian ... begininge at newinton my Lord Admeralle men and my Lorde chamberlen men date. As ffolowethe 1594

Internal Evidence Thus it would have been pointless to designate the theatre by ‘ne’ next to the titles of some plays. Since Hamlet was already known by 1589 (as Henslowe had recorded two other performances Nashe wrote in his Preface to Greene’s Menaphon), of The Mawe by 28th January 1595. Othello might have been composed in the late The element corroborating the present 1580s – a date which fits Oxfordian chronology interpretation of The Mawe is given in the and which is corroborated by the likely allusion to ‘playhouse inventories’, printed by Malone in 1780 the defeat of the Spanish Armada: “The desperate from a manuscript he found at Dulwich College tempest hath so banged the Turks” (2.2.21), an . This manuscript, now lost, contained (he tells arbitrary addition of the dramatist which does not us [289]) “an exact inventory of the wardrobe, find correspondence in history. The play contains playbooks, properties etc., belonging to the Lord no any further internal evidence to corroborate Admiral’s servants”. The first lists, dated 10th any date. However, the many detailed historical March 1598, have the following entry: allusions are of such accuracy and exactness that they are worth mentioning as evidence of the Item: j mawe gowne of calleco for the queen dramatist’s direct experience of Venice. Moreover, the linguistic features of the text reflect, to the Calico is cotton cloth imported from the East and utmost degree of perfection, the influence not the word “mawe” can be interpreted as ‘brown’. only of the Italian language but also of Venetian Throughout the inventories the word ‘brown’ is Italian. never used to indicate colour. Then there are the following entries:

Item: the Mores lymes overwhelmingly favour the Italian version” Item: Mores cotte (2006: 22). Honigmann (1997) includes an appendix on Cinthio (368–70) and reprints a These may be considered one of Henslowe’s translation of the source material (370–87). variant spelling of ‘moor’. Line numbers in this section are taken from However, it is possible that Henslowe’s ‘mawe’ the Arden 3 edition, edited by Honigmann. may refer not to Othello, but to another black man Honigmann’s edition favours the Q text, where the Oxford Complete Works uses the F – for example the protagonist of a play written text (on the basis that F “seems to represent by Thomas Dekker and others: The Spanish Shakespeare’s second thoughts” (W&T, 819). Moor’s Tragedy. But this, as Bullough tells us, Neill (2006: 237n) suggests “acerb is clearly “was commissioned for the Admiral’s men in preferable”, a “characteristically Shakespearean 1598/99 and the Arden edition confirms that coinage” which follows the Italian text. In Henslowe records making a payment for this play this treatment, Neill suggests not that the in February 1600. Also, in this case, his spelling substitution of “bitter” in the F text was is “more” (1997: 30n).6 Shakespeare’s second thought, but rather that “the F reading probably indicates some editorial sophistication of Shakespeare’s text, or even an Conclusion unconscious substitution (perhaps prompted by the echo of Revelations in the phrasing of the Othello was composed some time between 1584 sentence) on the part of a scribe or compositor and 1604, after the publication of the French who found the original difficult” (237n). For translation of Cinthio’s Hecatommithi and before further general discussion, see Naseeb Shaheen, it was performed at court. Henslowe’s diary “Shakespeare’s knowledge of Italian”, SS, 47 (1994), 161–9. strongly suggests a performance of the play on 14 3. Honigmann discusses Lewkenor in detail (1997: December 1594. 5–8), referring “officers of the night” to a From an Oxfordian viewpoint, Oxford’s idea of marginal gloss in Lewkenor, (96). deriving this play from Cinthio came to him some 4. Wells & Taylor observe that the derivation time after his Italian journey, in connection with from Knolles, “published no earlier than 30 the estrangement from his wife. A first edition of September 1603”, suggests a dating for the play Othello may have been written between 1584 and “some time between that date and the summer 1589, perhaps after the death of his wife Anne of 1604” (819). 5. In full, Rees concludes that, given (as he asserts) (née Cecil) in June 1588 had provoked remorse that fo. 84 “should rightfully be next door to over his mistreatment of her. 42 in the Notebook” then “the Othello extracts It is likely that the dramatist modified his therefore pre-date the 1622 Quarto by some tragedy during the two-year break from 1592– twenty years” (1992: 331). 94, when theatres were closed because of the 6. An account-book of Sir Thomas Egerton plague. The Mawe recorded by Henslowe may be apparently indicates that Burbage received the revised play, first performed after the plague £10 for a performance of Othello in 1602 at (14th December 1594), which would account for Bridgewater House, Harefield, Middlesex. It is usually thought that John Payne Collier Henslowe’s marking it ‘new’. forged the sheet (numbered EL123) with this particular reference (Chambers, WS, II, 388 Notes and Helen Hackett, Shakespeare and Elizabeth, 2009: 51–2). G. P. Jones, however, appears to 1. Most recently, Michael Neill has considered accept the reference in “A Burbage Ballad and the dating of the play. Neill notes that the John Payne Collier,” RES 40 (1989: 393–397). authenticity of the reference has been challenged by Hamilton, who remains the most recent Acknowledgement: Details of the entry detractor, but that “Shaxberd” is “nevertheless about “the mawe” from Henslowe’s diary, 14th accepted by the majority of modern scholars, December 1594, are taken by the contributor including Sanders and Honigmann” (2006: 399n). from a manuscript in the collection at Dulwich 2. Neill argues on the basis that, despite Chappys’ College and are reproduced here with the kind translation in 1584, “verbal parallels permission of the College Governors.

Other Works Cited

Bullough, G., Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, vol. VII, London: Routledge, 1973 Chambers, E. K., William Shakespeare: a study of facts and problems, 2 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930 Clark, E. T., Hidden Allusions in Shakespeare’s Plays, New York: William Farquhar Payson, 1931 rptd 1974 Da Mosto, A., I Dogi di Venezia nella vita pubblica e privata, 1977 Finlay, R., Politics in Renaissance Venice, London: Benn, 1980 Hamilton, Charles, In Search of Shakespeare, A Reconnaissance Into the Poet’s Life and Handwriting, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985 Hill, G., A History of Cyprus, 4 vols, Cambridge: CUP, 1949 Holland, H. H., Shakespeare, Oxford and Elizabethan times, 1933 Honigmann, E. A. J. (ed.), Othello, London: Arden Shakespeare, 1997 Jeffery, Violet, M., “Shakespeare’s Venice”, Modern Language Review, Jan. 1932: 24–35 Jorgensen Paul A., Shakespeare’s Military World, Berkeley: UCP, 1956 Lane, F. C., Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance, Johns Hopkins UP, 1966 Maranini, G., La Costituzione di Venezia, Firenze 1974 Neill, M. (ed.), Othello, Oxford: OUP, 2006 Parks, G. P. (ed.), The History of Italy, [a new edition of W. Thomas’ 1549 book], New York: Cornell UP, 1963 Rees, J., “Shakespeare and Edward Pudsey’s Booke, 1600”, Notes and Queries, September 1992: 330–1 Ridley, M. R. (ed.), Othello, London: Methuen Arden Shakespeare, 1958 Sanders, N. (ed.), Othello, Cambridge: CUP, The New Cambridge Shakespeare, 1984 Wells, S. & Taylor, G. The Oxford Shakespeare, Oxford: OUP, 1986 —, William Shakespeare: a textual companion, Oxford: OUP, 1987 Wiggins, Martin (ed.) British Drama 1533–1642: A Catalogue, Volume V: 1603–1608. Oxford, OUP, 2015