RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GENT FACULTEIT DER LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE ACADEMIEJAAR 1971-1972 AN EDITION OF SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER’S THE TRAGEDIE OF CRŒSUS (1607 ISSUE) WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY RUDOLF WILLOCKX PROMOTOR: PROEFSCHRIFT VOORGELEGD TOT HET BEHALEN VAN DE GRAAD VAN PROF. DR. W. SCHRICKX LICENTIAAT IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE, GROEP GERMAANSE FILOLOGIE RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GENT FACULTEIT DER LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE ACADEMIEJAAR 1971-1972 AN EDITION OF SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER’S THE TRAGEDIE OF CRŒSUS (1607 ISSUE) WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY RUDOLF WILLOCKX PROMOTOR: PROEFSCHRIFT VOORGELEGD TOT HET BEHALEN VAN DE GRAAD VAN PROF. DR. W. SCHRICKX LICENTIAAT IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE, GROEP GERMAANSE FILOLOGIE TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Acknowledgements........................................................................................................1 List of Abbreviations......................................................................................................3 Biography of Sir William Alexander.............................................................................7 The Works of Sir William Alexander...........................................................................17 Synopsis of the Play.....................................................................................................21 Critical Introduction.....................................................................................................31 Sources of the Play.......................................................................................................47 The Text.......................................................................................................................65 Editorial Practice..........................................................................................................71 TEXT EDITION To the Author of the Monarchicke Tragedies..............................................................73 The Argument..............................................................................................................75 The Scene in Sardis......................................................................................................79 The Tragedie of Crœsus...............................................................................................81 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................227 APPENDIX A..........................................................................................................233 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere thanks to my promoter, Professor Dr. W. Schrickx, who by his interesting lectures on English Literature and on the Elizabethan period in particular stimulated my interest in this field. His knowledge of Elizabethan drama has been of great help to me in preparing this edition of The Tragedie of Cr œ sus. My very special thanks go to Mr P. S. MacAuly, M.A., B. Lit., who helped me in every way in his power and who read through my manuscript before I typed it. I am greatly indebted to the valuable suggestions and remarks he made in the course of this one-year work. Ghent, May 1972. 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Arber E. Arber, ed., A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London: 1554-1640 A.D., (London, 1875–94), (5 vols), Cunliffe John W. Cunliffe, The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, (Archon Books, Hamden, Connecticut, 1965, first published 1893), Enc. Am. Encyclop æ dia Americana, (New York, 1965), (30 vols.), Enc. Brit. Encyclop æ dia Britannica, (Chicago, London, Toronto, 1967), (23 vols.), Everyman’s Everyman’s Encyclop æ dia, 5th ed., (London, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, Enc. 1967), (12 vols.), Greg W. W. Greg, A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration, (London, 1939-51), (4 vols.), Herodotus The History of Herodotus, translated by G.. Rawlinson, in Great Books of the Western World, vol. 6, (Published by the Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Chicago, London, Toronto, 1952), K. & Ch. L. E. Kastner and H. G. Charlton, The Poetical Works of Sir William Alexander, Earl of Sterling, vol. I, (Scottish Text Society, 1921-29), (2 vols.), Langbaine Langbaine, G.., An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, (facsimile edition, Burt Franklin, New York, n. d.), (originally published Oxford, 1693), MacGrail Thomas H. MacGrail, Sir William Alexander, First Earl of Sterling, A Biographical Study, (Edinburgh, London, 1940), 4 N.E.D. A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society, eds. J. A. H. Murray, H. Bradley, W. A. Craigie, C. T. Onions, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1888-1928), (12 vols.), Pauly A. Pauly’s Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. G. Wissowa, (Stuttgart, from 1894 onwards), Schelling F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama 1558-1642, vol. II, (New York, Russell & Russell, 1959), (2 vols.) Sh. Lex. A. Schmidt, Shakespeare Lexicon, 6th ed., revised and enlarged by Gregor Sarrazin, (Walter De Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1971), (2 vols.), Tilley M. P. Tilley, A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, n.d.), Xenophon The Education of Cyrus, Translated from the Greek of Xenophon by H. G. Dakyns, (London, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, n.d. – Everyman’s Classical), 7 BIOGRAPHY OF SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER This summary of Thomas H. MacGrail’s Sir William Alexander, First Earl of Sterling, A Biographical Study, is a joint effort by Yo Massa, who edited The Tragedie of Darius, Gerd Van Vosselen, editor of The Tragedie of Julius C æ sar, and myself. Information about the earliest period in the life of Sir William Alexander, later Earl of Stirling, is very scanty: even the year in which he was born has not been recorded. Several biographers have tried to settle this matter, but the results of their guesswork differ widely. The only certainty is that Alexander was born at the village of Menstry in the parish of Logie, Clackmannanshire, Scotland. Older writers accepted 1580 as the year in which he was born, basing themselves on the inscription on the engraved portrait by Marshall, which was prefixed to some copies of the 1637 edition of his Recreations with the Muses. Rogers, however, has pointed out that the portrait was not made especially for that occasion, and the phrase “Ætatis suae LVII” is therefore of no significance1. Without any particular reason Rogers then fixes upon 1567-1568 as the date of birth, but MacGrail maintains that Alexander was born not earlier than 1577, basing his evidence on a letter Alexander sent to Vaughan, in which he alludes to the coincidence of their “Horoscope”. (Vaughan was born in 1577). Alexander probably received his education at the University of Glasgow, but whether or not he went to Leyden to complete it remains an open question. He certainly went to France, Italy and Spain, which he referred to in his sonnet-cycle Aurora, and on his return his interest in literature was aroused by Alexander Hume, who became his intimate friend. Early in 1601 Alexander married Janet, a daughter of Sir William Erskine of Balgonie, by whom he had eleven children: William, Anthony, Henry, John, Charles, Robert, Ludovick, James, Jean, Margaret and Elizabeth. It is not known how Alexander met James VI of Scotland; he was certainly not with the king when he went to London in 1603. Between 1608-09 Alexander was knighted, and 1 Rogers, Memorials of the Earl of Stirling and the House of Alexander, (Edinburgh, Paterson, 1877), 2 vols., I, p. 32. 8 after he had been made a gentleman of the Privy Chamber his political career sped rapidly upwards. There is, however, no ground for the assumption that he was a tutor to prince Henry. After his activities as a tax-collector and a mining-engineer, Alexander was created Master of Requests of Scotland in 1614, and in 1615 he was admitted a member of the Privy Council of Scotland. In 1616, when the bulk of his poetic and dramatic works had appeared, he was moreover connected with a scheme for the formation of a great National Academy, but with the death of James the project was abandoned. From June to September 1621 he attended sessions of Parliament as one of the Lords of the Articles, and although he is usually regarded as a sycophant of James I and Charles I, he seems to have shown his independence on several occasions. In order to solve the economic problems of his native country, and no doubt because he wanted to achieve immortal fame, he hit on a plan of establishing colonies in America, inspired by the enterprises of Hawkins, Drake and Raleigh. His idea of colonising was further stimulated by his meeting with Captain John Mason, who had become governor of Newfoundland and in 1621 published A Briefe Discourse of the New-found-land. Alexander requested from James a grant of the land, and on 29 September 1621 he was appointed hereditary lieutenant of the Nova Scotia colony, which occupied a territory of about 60,000 square miles and included Nova Scotia itself, New Brunswick, Gaspé and the islands Cape Breton and Prince Edward. The very same territory was, however, claimed by France on the basis of a settlement by Jacques Cartier in 1541 under a patent given by François I to François de la Roche, and this was the origin of many a dispute between France and England. That claim did not quench Alexander’s enthusiasm, and in March 1622 he organised his first expedition. Owing to bad