Troilus and Cressida

Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Troilus and Cressida

The Tragedie of Troylus and Creſsida.

his play can be dated any time between [Qa, 1609] THE HISTORIE OF TROYLUS Arthur Hall’s translation of the first ten / and Cresseida / As it was acted by the Kings books of Homer’s Iliad in 1581 and its Maiesties servants at the Globe / Written by Tpublication in the Quarto of 1609. William Shakespeare [Qb, 1609] THE / Famous Historie of / Troylus and Cresseid./ Excellently expressing the Publication beginning / of their loves, with the conceited wooing of Pandarus Prince of Litia / Written by The process of publication is full of surprises, William Shakespeare / LONDON / Imprinted which have not been explained satisfactorily. The by G. Eld for R. Bonian and H. Walley, and play was entered conditionally into the Stationers’ / are to be sold at the spred Eagle in Paules / Church-yeard, over against the / great North- Register in February 1603: doore. / 1609 [SR, 1603] 7 februarii. Master Robertes. Entred for his copie in full Court holden this day, to Secondly, the Preface to Qb contains the print when he hath gotten sufficient authority following address to the reader (omitted from Qa for yt. The booke of Troilus and Cresseda as yt and from the First Folio) in which it asserts that is acted by my lord Chamberlins Men. vjd. the play had not been publicly performed:

It is not clear who would have provided A neuer writer, to an euer / reader. Newes. “sufficient authority” and there is no evidence that it was published in 1603. A play of the same Eternall reader, you have heere a new play, never stal’d with the Stage, never clapper-clawd with name was registered in January 1609 by different the palmes of the vulger, and yet passing full of the publishers, Richard Bonian and Henry Walley, palme comicall; for it is a birth of your braine, that and it was printed by George Eld: never undertooke any thing commicall, vainely: And were but the vaine names of commedies [SR, 1609] 28 Januarii. Richard Bonion henry changde for the titles of Commodities, or of Playes Walleys. Entred for their Copy vnder thandes of for Pleas; you should see all those grand censors, mr Segar deputy to Sr geo Bucke and mr ward. that now stile them such vanities, flock to them Lownes a booke called The History of Troylus for the maine grace of their gravities: especially and Cressida. this authors Commedies, that are so fram’d to the life, that they serve for the most common It is always assumed that this refers to the same Commentaries, of all the actions of our lives, play mentioned in the SR in 1603, but it is possible shewing such a dexteritie, and power of witte, that that these entries refer to different plays or that the most displeased with Playes, are pleasd with his an original version in 1603 was revised by 1609. Commedies. And all such dull and heavy-witted There are only fifteen copies of the first quarto: worldlings, as were never capable of the witte of a Commedie, comming by report of them to his three are known as Qa, the rest are known as Qb, representations, have found that witte there, that with two main differences. Firstly, Qb bears a they never found in them-selves, and have parted different title page: better wittied then they came: feeling an edge of

Title page to the first quarto of Troilus and Cressida, 1609. By permission of Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, shelfmark Arch. G d.43 (6), title page.

witte set upon them, more then ever they dreamd this the lesse, for not being sullied, with the smoaky they had braine to grinde it on. So much and such breath of the multitude; but thanke fortune for savored salt of witte is in his Commedies, that they the scape it hath made amongst you. Since by the seeme (for their height of pleasure) to be borne in grand possessors wills I beleeve you should have that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all prayd for them rather then beene prayd. And so I there is none more witty then this: And had I time leave all such to bee prayd for (for the states of their I would comment upon it, though I know it needs wits healths) that will not praise it. Vale. not, (for so much as will make you thinke your testerne well bestowd) but for so much worth, as Alexander (among others) suggests that the play even poore I know to be stuft in it. It deserves such a was for a private audience at one of the Inns of labour, as well as the best Commedy in or Terence Court because of the claim that it had not been Plautus. And beleeve this, That when hee is gone, and his Commedies out of sale, you will scramble played publicly. He dismisses the idea of a royal for them, and set up a new English Inquisition. performance as “the whole tone of the piece makes Take this for a warning, and at the perrill of your this impossible.” (195) pleasures losse and Judgements, refuse not, nor like

The genre of the play remains obscure. The Of course, the play might have been performed title pages of the quartos refer to it as a history first privately and then publicly; the members of but the Preface to Qb refers to it as a comedy; a company would have performed it at a courtly in the First Folio, where it is placed between the or aristocratic venue and then transferred it to Histories and the Tragedies, it is called a tragedy. a public theatre such as the Globe, rather than The play was omitted from the Catalogue to the staging the play just once. First Folio (1623) but was included at the end of the Histories. The second and third page were Sources numbered 79 and 80 (although they would have been 235 and 236 in the sequence of Histories). Bullough cites various medieval versions of the The next play, Coriolanus, is numbered 1–30 romantic story of Troilus and Cressida (it is not according to the pattern of separate numbering in found in the ancient sources): each section. In F1, the title page and the running title give ‘The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida’ (a) Chaucer in his longest poem Troilus and despite the protagonists’ separate survival at the Criseyde (8,000 lines) provided most of the end: details of the romantic plot along courtly, chivalric lines and of the characters of Troilus [F1 Title Page] The Tragedie of Troylus and and Pandarus. Further details seem to derive Cressida. from Robert Henryson, The Testament of Cresseid, which continued Cressida’s story and F1 seems to follow Q in general, but without the was included in the edition by Thynne in 1532 (and in later publications, e.g. by John Stow in preface of Qb and with an additional prologue; 1561 and by Thomas Speght in 1598). there are also many verbal differences. It has been suggested that the differences arise from use of the (b) Lydgate’s Troy Book, a lengthy poem author’s foul papers (Chambers) or from a prompt written c. 1420 by a monk at the request of book (Wells & Taylor). Henry V, who wished to explore and develop notions of chivalry. This poem was published by Performance Date Richard Pynson in 1513 as The hystorye sege and dystruccyon of Troye. It supplied the dramatist with details on the Trojan War in general and There is no record of any actual performance on Cressida’s character. before the Restoration period, when the play was produced in 1668. (c) Caxton’s translation of Lefèvre’s Recuyell of The Stationers’ Register claims that the play had the Historyes of Troye (c. 1475) may have been been acted before February 1602/3 by the Lord used for the scenes of military action. Chamberlain’s Men. Qa states that “it was acted by the King’s Majesty’s servants at the Globe”. Qb, Bullough also states that the dramatist might however, states that the play was new and “never have used any of the numerous translations of stal’d with the Stage, never clapper-clawd with the Homer’s Iliad for information about the Trojan palmes of the vulger” which is usually taken to mean War. Various Latin translations were published that it ‘had never been acted before’ but might after 1474; French translations date from 1520 just have meant that it ‘had never been acted in a by Samxon and from 1545 by Salel. The earliest public theatre’. Opinions are divided as to where English translation was by Arthur Hall (London, the author originally intended to produce the 1581) and confined to only the first ten books play: Peter Alexander and Gary Taylor proposed (covering the events in Troilus and Cressida). the Inns of Court as the first venue, while Ernst George Chapman’s Seaven Books of the Iliades Honigmann considered a Cambridge college (1598) omits some action in both the Iliad and the because of the reference in the Parnassus plays play, e.g. Menelaus’ challenge to Paris. Bullough, (described below). Robert Kimbrough argues however, sees no precise debt to Chapman and for performance in the public theatre (as stated accepts that details used in the play had been in Qa). Hotine argues for a first performance at covered in previous publications. the newly opened Blackfriars Theatre in 1608. Ulysses’ famous speeech on degree begins:

The specialty of rule hath been neglected, impressed by the story. Although these references And look how many Grecian tents do stand are in plays usually dated before Troilus and Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions Cressida, it is possible that Shakespeare had . . . (1.3. 78–137) already composed it earlier in his career. This passage, according to Bullough, influenced Chapman, who made various changes in his Orthodox Date wording of Book III of The Iliad for his 1611 complete translation. There are frequent echoes of Chambers, following most earlier commentators, Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book XIII), especially in accepted a date of 1602. Most commentators link details of the quarrel between Ulysses and Achilles. the date of the play to just before the first entry in Both the original Latin text and Golding’s 1567 the Stationers’ Register, or to apparent allusions in translation seem to have been consulted. The plays of the period, in which the dramatists seem dramatist also used Virgil’s Aeneid .1 to be attacking one another. Some commentators There were various dramatic versions of the place it slightly earlier in 1601. Bevington believes Trojan War in the Elizabethan Period. On 27 it possible that Jonson’s Poetaster in 1601 was an December 1584, a lost play called The History answer to his unfavorable portrayal as Ajax in of Agamemnon and Ulisses was performed by the Troilus. Chambers accepts that the play might Earl of Oxford’s Boys at court. The Admiral’s be as early as 1599 due to the possible allusion in Men played Troye at the Rose Theatre in 1596 Marston’s Histriomastix. Wiggins dates this play and a lost play called Troyeles & creasse daye, to 1602. was commissioned from Dekker and Chettle, Troilus and Cressida is not mentioned by Meres who received various payments in April 1599. in 1598, and although it has occasionally been Dekker and Chettle’s play is not extant but suggested that the unidentified play from Meres’s there is a fragment of an outline plot which list, Love’s Labour’s Won, may have been an dates c. 1598–1602. It has been suggested that alternative title for Troilus & Cressida, there is little Shakespeare was commissioned to write a rival to support this title in the text. Before Chambers, piece. The fragmentary outline plot of Dekker some commentators proposed an earlier date. and Chettle’s play was published by W. W. Greg Godshalk has argued that most suggestions for in Dramatic Documents in Elizabethan Playhouses dating the play are simply conjectures. (1931) and reproduced by Bullough, vol. VI, 220–1. Bullough inclines towards the idea that Internal Orthodox Evidence Shakespeare “conceived his play as a ‘realistic’ answer to the unsophisticated mixture of epic and Palmer notes (19) that “stylistic considerations, didactic sentiment likely to have characterised the notoriously subjective and unreliable, have piece by Dekker and Chettle.” suggested both early and late dating for Troilus.” Shaheen discusses the many Biblical references Wells and Taylor find plausible evidence to place in the play, e.g. at 2.3.144 “He that disciplin’d Troilus and Cressida in 1602, after Hamlet. thine arms to fight.” This seems to follow the There are a few allusions in the play which Geneva Bible’s translation of Psalms 144.1 suggest a date 1601–2: some see, in the Prologue “Which teacheth mine hands to fight.” 24–25, a reference to the armed prologue of There are many allusions in Shakespeare’s own Jonson’s Poetaster, c. 1601. There is a reference to works to the Troilus story, including: Much Ado “ten shares” at 2.3.223, which has been taken by 5.2.31, Merchant of Venice 5.1.4, As You Like it, some to refer to the ten shareholders of the Globe 4.1.97, Taming of the Shrew 4.1.153, Merry Wives, (from 1599 onwards). At 3.3.224, the statement, 1.3.83 and Henry V 2.1.56. Perhaps the clearest “The fool slides ore the Ice that you should brake” reference occurs when Feste says in Twelfth Night is sometimes taken to refer to the story of the fool at 3.1.5: and the ice in Armin’s Nest of Ninnies (1600). A slightly earlier date, c. 1599, has been I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to proposed due to the possible allusion in Marston’s bring a Cressida to this Troilus. Histriomastix (c. 1599), where Troilus talks to Shakespeare certainly seems to have been Cressida of “thy knight,” who “shakes his furious

© De Vere Society 4 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Troilus and Cressida speare” and then appears to parody the exchange “Shakespeare’s colleagues were no strangers [to the of gifts between Troilus and Cressida at 4.4.71. Cambridge audience] and were probably recent Most commentators see this as an allusion to visitors, so they might well have put on their Dekker and Chettle’s play. newest play . . . as a ‘try-out,’ before launching it George Saintsbury argued for an even earlier at the Globe” (44). Honigmann’s assumption that date on the grounds of poor composition: the play was recently composed is plausible, but not absolutely established. However, Palmer finds It is extremely difficult not to believe that no allusion in the Parnassus plays to Troilus. [Troilus and Cressida] is much older than the Various commentators have seen parallels earlier date would show. Some of the blank between the Earl of Essex (out of favour 1599– verse, no doubt, is fairly mature; but the author 1601) and the character of Achilles, especially as may have furbished this up, and much of it is not mature at all. Instead of transcending his Chapman had dedicated his partial translation of materials, as Shakespeare almost invariably Homer in 1598 to Essex as the “most honoured does, he has here failed almost entirely to bring now living instance of the Achillean virtues”. The out their possibilities; has not availed himself parallels are not as strong, perhaps, as between of Chaucer’s beautiful romance so fully as he Essex, after his fall in 1599, and Coriolanus. might; and has dramatised the common Troy- Hotine argued for composition in 1608, on the books with a loose yet heavy hand utterly grounds that the play does not contain any battle unsuggestive of his maturer craftsmanship. If scenes but criticises war and that it would have it were not for certain speeches and touches chiefly in the part of Ulysses, and in the parts of been more topical during the peace negotiations the hero and heroine, it might be called the least in 1608. This view has not been widely accepted. Shakespearean of all the plays. Oxfordian Dating This argument for early composition, based on the play’s ungainly structure, might appear to be The usual dating from an Oxfordian perspective is supported by the difficulty in assigning a genre to given by Clark. She argues that, in 1584, Oxford’s the work. Boys played an early version of Troilus as The History of Agamemnon and Ulisses. She continues External Orthodox Evidence by suggesting that this play had been written by Oxford himself, early in his career and for a limited Some possible allusions seem to support a date audience, making use of favorite texts such as the of composition 1601–2. The Prologue seems to Geneva Bible and Golding’s translation of the refer to an armed prologue, and this is taken Metamorphoses. She thinks that the work was then to be a reference to Jonson’s Poetaster, c. 1601. revised at the time of translation by Chapman, Honigmann, following a suggestion by Chambers, who knew and respected Oxford. Finally she has argued that the second part of The Retvrne argues that Oxford’s manuscript became available from Pernassus (a Cambridge University play, c. in 1609, five years after he died, when his widow 1601) alludes to both Poetaster and Troilus and sold their house in Hackney.2 Cressida. The character Will Kemp says: Conclusion Why heres our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, I and Ben Ionson too. O that Ben Ionson The play can be dated any time between Arthur is a pestilent fellow, he brought vp Horace giuing Hall’s translation of Homer in 1581 and the the Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath 3 giuen him a purge that made him bewray his publication of the Quarto in 1609. credit Return from Parnassus, 1769–1773

The allusion is often taken to refer to Shakespeare’s Ajax (in Troilus 1.2) as a satire on Jonson. If the Cambridge playwrights were familiar with Troilus and Cressida, Honigmann contends,

Notes Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1985. 38–54 Hotine, Margaret, “Troylus and Cressida: Historical 1 Charles and Michelle Martindale Shakespeare Arguments for a 1608 date”, The Bard,1.4, and the Uses of Antiquity (London, Routledge, London, 1977, 153–161 1990) review the use of various sources and Kimbrough, Robert, Shakespeare’s ‘Troilus and conclude that only Caxton’s is absolutely Cressida’ and Its Setting, Cambridge MA:, established. Jonathan Bate, Shakespeare and Harvard UP, 1964 Ovid (Oxford, Clarendon, 1993) refers only Muir, Kenneth (ed.), Troilus and Cressida, Oxford: briefly to Shakespeare’s use of the Roman OUP, 1982 poet in this play. A. D. Nuttall (‘Action at a Palmer, Kenneth (ed.), Troilus and Cressida, London: distance: Shakespeare and the Greeks’ pp 209– Methuen Arden, 1982 224 in Shakespeare and the Classics eds Charles Saintsbury, George, “Shakespeare: The Classical Martindale and A. B. Taylor, Cambridge, Plays”, The Cambridge History of English and CUP, 2004) wonders at how Shakespeare can American Literature: The Drama to 1642, Part have used Greek sources, especially Iliad III, so One. vol. V, ch.VIII § 15 (1907–21) accurately. Shaheen, Naseeb Biblical References in Shakespeare’s 2 In his biography of Oxford (Monstrous Adversary, Plays, Newark: UDP, 1999 2003), Alan Nelson refers to the performance Walker, Alice (ed.), Troilus and Cressida, Cambridge: by “the children of Therle of Oxforde” on St CUP, 1952 John’s Day, 27 December 1584 (247); his Wells, Stanley, & Gary Taylor, William Shakespeare: purchase of a copy of the Geneva Bible, now The Complete Works,Oxford: OUP, 1986 held by the Folger Library in Washington (53); Wells, Stanley, & Gary Taylor, William Shakespeare: A and his widow’s sale of King’s Place, Hackney Textual Companion, Oxford: OUP, 1987 (431–3). Wiggins, Martin (ed.) British Drama 1533–1642: A 3. Godshalk reviews the proposals regarding the Catalogue, Volume IV: 1598–1602. Oxford, relationship between the different versions OUP, 2014 and similarly concludes that vital information is simply lacking “many of the accounts of its [i.e. the play’s] origins are not supported by the essential data that we now possess.”

Other Works Cited

Alexander, Peter, Shakespeare’s Life and Art, London: James Nisbet, 1939 Bevington, David (ed.), Troilus and Cressida, London: Arden 3, 1998 Bullough, Geoffrey, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, vol. VI (Other ‘Classical’ Plays), London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966 Chambers, E. K., The Elizabethan Stage,4 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923 Chambers, E. K., William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930 Clark, Eva Turner, Hidden Allusions in Shakespeare’s Plays, New York: Kennikat, rptd 1974 Crewe, Jonathan (ed.), Troilus and Cressida, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000 Dawson, Anthony (ed.), Troilus and Cressida, Cambridge: CUP, 2003 Godshalk, W. L. “The Texts of Troilus and Cressida”, Early Modern Literary Studies, 1.2 (1995): 2.1– 54 Honigmann, Ernest A. J., “The Date and Revision of Troilus and Cressida,”, Textual Criticism and Literary Interpretation, ed. J. J. McGann,