Twelfth Night, Or What You Will

Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Twelfth Night Twelfth Night, or what you will welth Night can be dated between 1581, the Commedy of Errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, publication of Barnabe Riche’s Farewell to but most like and neere to that in Italian Militarie Profession, and 1602, when it was called Inganni a good practise in it to make Tdescribed in performance by John Manningham. the Steward beleeve his Lady widdowe was in love with him, by counterfeyting a letter as from his Lady in generall termes, telling him Publication Date what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparaile, &c., and Twelfth Night was entered in the Stationers’ then when he came to practise making him Register on 8 November 1623 as one of eighteen beleeue they tooke him to be mad. plays not previously published: The diary is in the British Museum and Arlidge Mr Blounte Isaak Jaggard. Entered for presents a photocopy of it. Although Race made their Copie vnder the hands of Mr Doctor suggestions that the nineteenth-century writer, Worral and Mr Cole – warden, Mr William John Payne Collier, may have tampered with Shakspeers Comedyes Histories, and some entries in Manningham’s handwritten diary, Tragedyes soe manie of the said Copies as the Arden editors, Lothian & Craik, offer four are not formerly entered to other men. vizt. Comedyes. The Tempest. The two gentlemen reasons for finding this particular entry genuine: of Verona. Measure for Measure. The Comedy 1. This passage is consistent in lay-out and of Errors. As you Like it. All’s well that ends presentation with other entries in the well. Twelft night. The winters tale. Histories. diary; The thirde parte of Henry the sixt. Henry the 2. The mistake that Olivia is in mourning eight. Coriolanus. Timon of Athens. Julius for a lost husband rather than a brother Caesar. Tragedies. Mackbeth. Anthonie & is easier to make when watching the Cleopatra. Cymbeline. play; 3. The statement that Gl’Inganni was the It occupies the thirteenth position in the F1 source is not made elsewhere by Collier comedies, coming after All’s Well that Ends Well (who stated Riche as the main source); and before The Winter’s Tale. 4. Collier printed “inscribing his apparell” rather than correctly reading “in smiling, Performance Dates his apparraile”. The notebook of John Manningham, a student All editors have accepted the entry as genuine. of law at the Middle Temple, gives a detailed The King’s Men revived the play at Court, under description of a performance there in 1602 of “a its present title on 6 April 1616, and probably on play called Twelue night or what you will”. 2 February 1623 as Malvolio. Feb. 2 At our feast wee had a play called Twelue Night, or what you will, much like the © De Vere Society 1 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Twelfth Night Sources does the Riverside edition. Halliday has the slightly earlier dating of 1600. Leslie Hotson proposed Bullough confirms John Manningham’s entry that that the play was written for performance on the the ultimate source of the play’s story is the Italian twelfth night of Christmas, 6 January 1601, in his play Gl’Ingannati (‘The Deceived Ones’), written full-length study, The First Night of Twelfth Night. and performed in Siena in 1531, first published Arlidge argues that the play was commissioned in Venice in 1537 and often reprinted. It was for performance on 2 February 1602. Wiggins translated into French as Le sacrificeby Charles dates this play to 1601. Estienne in 1543, republished as Les Abuséz Cairncross makes the unusual proposal of in 1549. Most orthodox scholars accept that 1592. Shakespeare read the original in Italian. Helen Kaufman argues that two other Italian plays, both Internal Orthodox Evidence by Nicolò Secchi, Gl’Inganni (‘The Deceived’) (composed c. 1547, published in Florence, 1562) Orthodox commentators have found a few topical and L’interesse (‘Interest’ composed c. 1547, allusions to support their 1600–02 dating. Two published in Venice 1581), were probably used references to “the Sophy” (the Shah of Persia) by the dramatist; in these a woman, dressed as (2.5.174; 3.4.271) are generally accepted as a man, helps another man woo another woman. references to the journey of Sir Anthony Shurley Bullough identifies only one major source in to the Persian court; it was first known about English: the prose story of ‘Of Apolonius and in the summer of 1598, and two accounts of Silla’ in Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession, his travels (he became a roving ambassador for published in 1581. While ultimately adapted from the Shah) were subsequently published, the first Bandello’s 1554 Italian play, Barnaby Riche’s in September 1600, the second late in 1601. At narrative is derived from Belleforest’s 1579 French 3.2.26. Warren and Wells see an allusion (“like translation. In writing Twelfth Night Shakespeare an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard”) to the Arctic evidently did use Riche’s story, for both include voyage of William Barentz, an account of which details absent from all previous versions. Firstly, was mentioned in the Stationers’ Register in 1598. the dramatist used four words found in Riche, Further possible allusions from the text (coisterell, garragascoynes, pavion and galliarde) concern Will Kemp, a former member of the which are not used elsewhere in the canon; Lord Chamberlain’s Men, who in summer 1601 secondly, the references to dancing in 1.3 seem returned from a continental tour during which to draw on Riche’s dedicatory epistle; thirdly, he had met Sir Anthony Shirley in Rome. The the punishment of Malvolio seems to draw on Clown’s comment: “I might say ‘element’, but the another of Riche’s stories (‘Of two brethren and word is overworn” (3.1.57–8) is taken to be an their wives’). There was also a Latin version, allusion to the triple use of ‘out of [one’s] element’, Laelia, which was produced at Queens’ College, as a catch-phrase, in Dekker’s Satiromastix, Cambridge, possibly as early as 1546–7 (the performed in the second half of 1601 by the Lord college accounts show the purchase of costumes Chamberlain’s Men and the Children of Paul’s. for the play) and again in 1595 when the Earl of The sung dialogue between Sir Toby and the Essex stayed at the college (Moore Smith, xxvi– Clown (2.3.100–8) is closely based on the song xxviii). ‘Farewel dear loue since thou wilt need be gon’, first published in Robert Jones’s The First Book of Orthodox Date Songes and Ayres in 1600. Hood Phillips argues that a celebrated case which went before the Star Chamber in 1602, Chambers dates the play 1599–1600, immediately between Sir Posthumous Hoby and William Eure, preceding As You Like It (as does the Signet editor). involved night-time disturbances and probably Most commentators date it 1600–02: Alexander, inspired the scene between Sir Toby Belch and Lothian & Craik, Warren & Wells and Donno, his friends. Finally, commentators generally agree propose the middle of 1601, Mahood suggests the that Maria’s comic image of Malvolio’s newly end of 1601; Wells and Taylor suggest 1601–2, as adopted physiognomy – “he does smile his face © De Vere Society 2 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Twelfth Night into more lines than is in the new map with the upon “the oaths of judgement and reason” (3.2.13) augmentation of the Indies” (3.2.74–5) – alludes and his knowledge of the distinction between to Edward Wright’s ‘A Chart of the World on “battery” and “assault” as well as the right to Mercator’s Projection’, published in Hakluyt’s strike first in self-defence to prevent a threatened Voyages in 1599 and again, with minor corrections, attack (4.1.32–5): in 1600; the map has radiating rhumb lines, suggesting the wrinkles around Malvolio’s eyes. A I’ll go another way to work with him. I’ll have different interpretation is offered under ‘Internal an action of battery against him, if there be Oxfordian Evidence’, below. any law in Illyria. Though I struck him first, yet it’s no matter for that. Mahood, however, observes that playwrights often revise their script in rehearsal, and adds: Secondly, Arlidge notes some references which he calls ‘inn-jokes’. John Shurley, who made the other changes in a play may be made years later and without the playwright’s knowledge. journey to Persia cited above and was Treasurer to Shakespeare’s fellow actors presumably saw the Middle Temple in 1602, is twice the object of no harm in adding the odd topical joke to his ridicule, firstly at 2.5.173–4: plays from time to time. Fabian I will not give my part of Thus if the topical allusions are no more than few, this sport for a pension it is possible that they were added at a later stage of thousands to be paid from to an existing text. the Sophy. The second reference occurs at 3.4.271–2: External Orthodox Evidence Sir Toby They say he has been a fencer Manningham’s reference to the Middle Temple to the Sophy. performance is the only reliable evidence for the Sir Andrew Pox on’t. I’ll not meddle with existence of the play by 1602. The Arden editors him. assert there is “no reason to believe that this was the first production of the play”. They adduce the Thirdly, Arlidge links Shakespeare with one of the following arguments: law students, Thomas Green, who completed his studies at the Middle temple in 1602 and moved a) Manningham did not mention that the to Stratford was where he linked to Shakespeare play was new; through legal actions concerning the Welcombe b) the manuscript shows the word mid, Enclosure (Chambers, WS, ii, 141–152).

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