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The Two Noble Kinsmen Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: The Two Noble Kinsmen The Two Noble Kinsmen he extant version of The Two Noble Waterson to Moseley in 1646. It was omitted from Kinsmen can be dated any time before the first folio of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays in Jonson’s apparent reference to it in 1647 but was later published in the second folio TBartholomew Fair, 1614. There might have been of 1679 (where it did not mention Shakespeare an original version as early as 1594 or even 1566. as co-author). This version seems to have derived entirely from the 1634 quarto and therefore has In this chapter, line numbers are given by act and no independent authority (Waith, 23). scene (according to Wells & Taylor, The Oxford Shakespeare). Performance Date Publication Date Both Waith and Potter review the play’s performance history. There is a vague reference in The Two Noble Kinsmenwas entered into the the Q1 title page of 1634 to the play’s performance Stationers’ Register on 8 April 1634 to John at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre in London, Waterson:1 but the date is unknown. This theatre had been hosting plays from 1576. Burbage took it over in [S.R. 1634] 8o Aprilis master John Waterson 1596 and it went over to the King’s Men in 1609. Entred for his Copy vnder the hands of Sir There is a reference in the prologue to “our losses”: Henry Herbert and master Aspley warden a (Two Noble Kinsmen, Prologue, 30–2). Tragi Comedy called the two noble kinsmen by John ffletcher and William Shakespeare. If this play do not keep, / A little dull time from us, we perceive / The Two Noble Kinsmen( TNK) was first published Our losses fall so thick, we must needs leave. in Quarto in that year. It is the only quarto to bear the name of Shakespeare alongside the name “Our losses” has been interpreted by some to of a co-author: mean the destruction of the Globe in 1613, but this is speculation. The phrase has also been [Q1. 1634] The Two Noble Kinsmen presented at taken to refer to financial losses, or to the death the Blackfriers by the Kings Maiesties servants of Shakespeare in 1616 and/or the death of John with great applause written by the memorable worthies of their time; Mr. Iohn Fletcher, and Fletcher in 1625; against this, it has been pointed Mr. William Shakespeare, Gent. Printed at out that the humorous tone of the prologue would London by Tho. [mas] Cotes for Iohn Waterson: seem to militate against a reference to the death of and are to be sold at the signe of the Crowne in the author(s). Pauls Church-yard. 1634 In 1614, Ben Jonson seems to refer to a character in this play: firstly the character Winwife chooses The play was not included in any of the Shakespeare the name ‘Palemon’ from ‘The Play’: Folios (F1 1623; F2 1632; F3 1663–4; F4 1685). The SR records that the play was transferred from © De Vere Society 1 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: The Two Noble Kinsmen Title page to the first quarto of The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1634. By permission of Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, shelfmark Arch. G e.33 (3), title page. Grace. Because I will bind both your 2000) identify the reference as alluding to The Endeavours to work together Two Noble Kinsmen, especially as the rivalry of friendly and jointly each to the Winwife and Quarlous for the love of Grace clearly others Fortune, and have my self parodies Palamon and Arcite, who compete for fitted with some Means, to make the love of Emilia in TNK. him that is forsaken, a part of The earliest reference to the play is on a amends. Quarlous. These Conditions are very courteous. fragment of paper, (Chambers, WS, II, 346) which Well, my Word is out of the suggests that it was considered for performance at Arcadia then, Argalus. court in 1619. The earliest definite reference to a Win-wife. And mine out of the Play, Palemon. performance, however, is Davenant’s in 1664. (Bartholomew Fair, 4.3.63–8) Attribution There are further references to the character of Palemon in 5.2. Two recent editors of the play Because Two Nobel Kinsmen was omitted from (E.A. Horsman, 1960, and Suzanne Gossett, Shakespeare’s First Folio (and subsequent) and © De Vere Society 2 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: The Two Noble Kinsmen not published until 1634, it has remained an Speght’s (1598) but there is no indication which ‘apocryphal’ play. Some have claimed that edition was used. An error at 4.2.104 (presumably Shakespeare had no hand in it and that the by Fletcher, as it occurs in the section attributed to ascription was a publisher’s lure. Brian Vickers him) seems to preserve a misprint from the 1598 has reviewed the tests for co-authorship in edition (Waith, 178). The author(s) also appear considerable detail and gives thorough support for to know Giovanni Boccaccio, Teseide, perhaps in assigning the various parts of the play as follows Le Maçon’s French translation of 1545 but not (Vickers, 414; as reported also by Waith, 22): available in English until 1620, for some of the speeches and details concerning Arcyte’s death. Shakespeare Fletcher The author(s) made use of Plutarch’s ‘Life of Act 1 Scenes 1–4 Prologue Theseus’ (available in North’s Plutarch, 1579) and Act 2 Scene 1 Act 2 Scenes 2–6 possibly John Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes, included Act 3 Scenes 1–2 Act 3 Scenes 3–6 Act 4 Scene 3 Act 4 Scenes 1 & 2 in Stow’s and Speght’s editions of Chaucer. Potter Act 5 Scene 1; Sc 3 & 4 Act 5 Scene 2; epilogue sees the influence in Act 1 of Euripides’Suppliants Total lines: 1,089 Total lines: 1,458 (possibly through Seneca’s version, available in English in Newton’s edition, 1581). Waith believes There is a suggestion that 5.1.1–33 were composed it likely that Ovid’s Metamorphoses were also in by Fletcher. Potter, followed by Shaheen, thinks mind at 1.1.78–9, in the reference to the “scythe- that the original play was written by Shakespeare tusked boar” and at 1.2.85–7, in the reference to and later revised by Fletcher. Phoebus’ anger at his horses. There are two other references to dramatic John Fletcher entertainment on the same subject: (a) a play called Palamon and Arcyte, probably John Fletcher’s earliest known involvement with translated by Richard Edwards from a Latin the theatre dates to c. 1606 when he wrote for version, was performed at Christ Church, the Children of the Queen’s Revels. He is now Oxford, in 1566 before the Queen; this play believed to have co-authored (or revised) Henry was not published but there are accounts of it VIII (see article) and there is a record that he co- by three observers, which are discussed below under Oxfordian Dating. Durand states that it authored with Shakespeare a lost play Cardenio. 3 He is also said to have composed The Woman’s was different from Two Noble Kinsmen. Prize or The Tamer Tamed, as a sequel to The (b) Henslowe’s Diary records four performances Taming of the Shrew. Fletcher is known mainly for of Palamon and Arsett by the Admiral’s Men in his collaboration with Francis Beaumont, but he 1594. 2 also worked with other playwrights. Other possible allusions occurred in Samuel Daniel’s play The Queen’s Arcadia, which features Sources a character called Palamon. This play was performed at Christ Church, Oxford in 1605 and Unfortunately for modern scholarship, Geoffrey published in 1606. The second possible allusion Bullough did not consider this play in his occurs in Barnabe Barnes’ Four Bookes of Offices Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (1606): (1957–74), but the sources have been reviewed by Waith, Potter and Gillespie. The principal source [War] is the noble corrector of all prodigal for TNK was acknowledged in the play’s prologue: states, a skillful bloodletter against all dangerous obstructions and pleurasies of peace. Chaucer (of all admir’d) the Story gives, This seems to echo Arcite’s prayer to Mars in 5.1: There constant to Eternity it lives. (Two Noble Kinsmen Prologue, 13–14) Oh great corrector of enormous times; Shaker of o’er-rank states; thou grand decider Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales containing Of dusty and old titles, that heal’st with blood The Knight’s Talewas available in a number of The earth when it is sick and cur’st the world editions: Thynnes’ (1532), Stow’s (1561) and O’th’ pleurisy of people Two Noble Kinsmen 5.1.62–6 © De Vere Society 3 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: The Two Noble Kinsmen According to Shaheen, TNK has a much lower from Latin. There is no further data about this density of biblical allusions than other plays. The Latin play. Edwards was later associated with reference at 1.1.158–9 “And his army full of bread Oxford, for both had poems published in The and sloth” seems to echo Ezekiel, 16.49: “Pride, Paradies of Dainty Devices (1576). Edwards was fulness of bread and abundance of idleness” in the also named alongside Oxford as deserving of wording of the 1560 Geneva Bible. Other versions praise for Comedy and Interlude in The Arte of read “fulness of meate”. English Poetrie (by George Puttenham?) in 1589. Chiljan adduces a number of reasons for her Orthodox Dates argument: at 5.4.44, Palamon says in disbelief: “Can that be / When, Venus, I have said, is false?” Most commentators accept a date c.
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