“cry amain,
Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain,”
we think of Iliad, XXII, 390–393, where Achilles commands the Myrmidons
to go singing the pæan
“Glory have we won, we have slain great Hector!”
The sumptuous armour stripped by Hector from a nameless man, recalls his
winning of the arms of Achilles from Patroclus. But, in fact, this
passage is also borrowed, with the murder of Hector, from Caxton, except
as regards the pæan.
It may be worth noting that Chapman’s first instalment of his translation
of the Iliad, containing Books I, II, and VII–XI, appeared in 1598, and
thence the author could adapt the passages from Iliad, Book VII. In or
about 1598–9 occurred, in _Histriomastix_, by Marston and others, a
burlesque speech in which Troilus, addressing Cressida, speaks of “thy
knight,” who “_Shakes_ his furious _Speare_,” while in April 1599,
Henslowe’s account-book contains entries of money paid to Dekker and
Chettle for a play on Troilus and Cressida, for the Earl of Nottingham’s
Company. {297a} Of this play no more is known, nor can we be sure that
Chapman’s seven Books of the Iliad (I, II, VII–XI) of 1598 attracted the
attention of playwrights, from Shakespeare to Chettle and Dekker, to
Trojan affairs. The coincidences at least are curious. If “_Shakes_ his
furious _Speare_” in _Histriomastix_ refers to Shakespeare in connection
with Cressida, while, in 1599, Dekker and Chettle were doing a _Troilus
and Cressida_ for a company not Shakespeare’s, then there were _two
Troilus and Cressida_ in the field. A licence to print a _Troilus and
Cressida_ was obtained in 1602–3, but the quarto of our play, the
Shakespearean play, is of 1609, “as it is acted by my Lord Chamberlain’s
men,” that is, by Shakespeare’s Company. Now Dekker and Chettle wrote,
apparently, for Lord Nottingham’s Company. One quarto of 1609 declares,
in a Preface, that the play has “never been staled with the stage”;
another edition of the same year, from the same publishers, has not the
Preface, but declares that the piece “was acted by the King’s Majesty’s
servants _at the Globe_.” {298a} The author of the Preface (Ben Jonson,
Mr. Greenwood thinks, {298b}) speaks only of a single author, who has
written other admirable comedies. “When he is gone, and his comedies out
of sale, you will scramble for them, and set up a new English
Inquisition.” Why? The whole affair is a puzzle. But if the author of
the Preface is right about the single author of _Troilus and Cressida_,
and if Shakespeare is alluded to in connection with Cressida, in
_Histriomastix_ (1599), then it appears to me that Shakespeare, in
1598–9, after Chapman’s portion of the Iliad appeared, was author of one
_Troilus and Cressida_, extant in 1602–3 (when its publication was barred
till the publisher “got authority”), while Chettle and Dekker, in April
1599, were busy with another _Troilus and Cressida_, as why should they
not be? In an age so lax about copyright, if their play was of their own
original making, are we to suppose that there was copyright in the names
of the leading persons of the piece, Troilus and Cressida?
[Picture: London in the year 1610, showing the Globe Theatre in the
Foreground]
Perhaps not: but meanwhile Mr. Greenwood cites Judge Stotsenburg’s
opinion {298c} that Henslowe’s entries of April 1599 “refute the
Shakespearean claim to the authorship of _Troilus and Cressida_,” which
exhibits “the collaboration of two men,” as “leading commentators” hold
that it does. But the learned Judge mentions as a conceivable
alternative that “there were two plays on the subject with the same
name,” and, really, it looks as if there were! The Judge does not agree
“with Webb and other gifted writers that Bacon wrote this play.” So far
the Court is quite with him. He goes on however, “It was, in my opinion,
based on the foregoing facts, originally the production of Dekker and
Chettle, added to and philosophically dressed by Francis Bacon.” But,
according to Mr. Greenwood, “it is admitted not only that the different
writing of two authors is apparent in the Folio play, but also that
‘Shakespeare’ must have had at least some share in a play of _Troilus and
Cressida_ as early as the very year 1599, in the spring of which Dekker
and Chettle are found engaged in writing their play of that name,” on the
evidence of _Histriomastix_. {299a} How that evidence proves that “a
play of _Troilus and Cressida_ had been _published_ as by ‘Shakespeare’
about 1599,” I know not. Perhaps “published” means “acted”? “And it is
not unreasonable to suppose that this play” (“published as by
Shakespeare”) “was the one to which Henslowe alludes”—as being written in
April 1599, by Dekker and Chettle.
If so, the play must show the hands of three, not two, men, Dekker,
Chettle, and “Shakespeare,” the Great Unknown, or Bacon. He collaborates
with Dekker and Chettle, in a play for Lord Nottingham’s men (according
to Sir Sidney Lee), {300a} but it is, later at least, played by
Shakespeare’s company; and perhaps Bacon gets none of the £4 paid {300b}
to Dekker and Chettle. Henslowe does not record his sale of the Dekker
and Chettle play to Shakespeare’s or to any company or purchaser.
Without an entry of the careful Henslowe recording his receipts for the
sale of the Dekker and Chettle play to any purchaser, it is not easy to
see how Shakespeare’s company procured the manuscript, and thus enabled
him to refashion it. Perhaps no reader will fail to recognise his hand
in the beautiful blank verse of many passages. I am not familiar enough
with the works of Dekker and Chettle to assign to them the less desirable
passages. Thersites is beastly: a Yahoo of Swift’s might poison with
such phrases as his the name and nature of love, loyalty, and military
courage. But whatsoever Shakespeare did, he did thoroughly, and if he
were weary, if man delighted him not, nor woman either, he may have
written the whole piece, in which love perishes for the whim of “a
daughter of the game,” and the knightly Hector is butchered to sate the
vanity of his cowardly Achilles. If Shakespeare read the books
translated by Chapman, he must have read them in the same spirit as
Keats, and was likely to find that the poetry of the Achæan could not be
combined with the Ionian, Athenian, and Roman perversions, as he knew
them in the mediæval books of Troy, in the English of Lydgate and Caxton.
The chivalrous example of Chaucer he did not follow. Probably Will
looked on the play as one of his failures. The Editor, if we can speak
of an Editor, of the Folio clearly thrust the play in late, so confusedly
that it is not paged, and is not mentioned in the table of the contents.
“The Grand Possessors” of the play referred to in the Preface to one of
the two quartos of 1609 we may suppose to be Shakespeare’s Company. In
this case the owners would not permit the publication of the play if they
could prevent it. The title provokes Mr. Greenwood to say, “Why these
worthies should be so styled is not apparent; indeed the supposition
seems not a little ridiculous.” {301a} Of course, if the players were
the possessors, “grand” is merely a jeer, by a person advertising a
successful piracy. And in regard to Tieck’s conjecture that James I is
alluded to as “the grand possessor, for whom the play was expressly
written,” {301b} the autocratic James was very capable of protecting
himself against larcenous publishers.
APPENDIX II
CHETTLE’S SUPPOSED ALLUSION TO WILL SHAKSPERE
IN discussing contemporary allusions to William Shakspere or Shakespeare
(or however you spell the name), I have not relied on Chettle’s remarks
(in _Kind-Hart’s Dreame_, 1592) concerning Greene’s _Groatsworth of Wit_.
Chettle speaks of it, saying, “in which a letter, written to divers
play-makers, is offensively by one or two of them taken.” It appears
that by “one or two” Chettle means _two_. “With _neither_ of them that
take offence was I acquainted” (at the time when he edited the
_Groatsworth_), “and with one of them I care not if I never be.” We do
not know who “the Gentlemen his Quondam acquaintance,” addressed by
Greene, were. They are usually supposed to have been Marlowe, Peele, and
Lodge, or Nash. We do not know which of the two who take offence is the
man with whom Chettle did not care to be acquainted. Of “the other,”
according to Chettle, “myself have seen his demeanour no less civil than
he is excellent in the quality he professes” (that is, “in his
profession,” as we say), “besides divers of worship have reported his
uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty; and his facetious grace
in writing that approves his art.”
Speaking from his own observation, Chettle avers that the person of whom
he speaks is civil in his demeanour, and (_apparently_) that he is
“excellent in the quality he professes”—in his profession. Speaking on
the evidence of “divers of worship,” the same man is said to possess
“facetious grace in writing.” Had his writings been then published,
Chettle, a bookish man, would have read them and formed his own opinion.
Works of Lodge, Peele, and Marlowe had been published. Writing is _not_
“the quality he professes,” is not the “profession” of the man to whom
Chettle refers. On the other hand, the profession of Greene’s “Quondam
acquaintance” _was_ writing, “they spend their wits in making Plays.”
Thus the man who wrote, but whose profession was not that of writing,
does not, so far, appear to have been one of those addressed by Greene.
It seems undeniable that Greene addresses gentlemen who are “playmakers,”
who “spend their wits in making Plays,” and who are _not_ actors; for
Greene’s purpose is to warn them against the rich, ungrateful actors. If
Greene’s friends, at the moment when he wrote, were, or if any one of
them then was, by profession an actor, Greene’s warning to him against
actors, directed to an actor, is not, to me, intelligible. But Mr.
Greenwood writes, “As I have shown, George Peele was one of the
playwrights addressed by Greene, and Peele was a successful player as
well as playwright, and might quite truly have been alluded to both as
having ‘facetious grace in writing,’ and being ‘excellent in the quality
he professed,’ that is, as a professional actor.” {304a}
I confess that I did not know that George Peele, M.A., of Oxford, had
ever been a player, and a successful player. But one may ask,—in 1592
did George Peele “profess the quality” of an actor; was he then a
professional actor, and only an occasional playwright? If so, I am not
apt to believe that Greene seriously advised him not to put faith in the
members of his own profession. From them, as a successful member of
their profession (a profession which, as Greene complains, “exploited”
dramatic authors), Peele stood in no danger. Thus I do not see how
Chettle’s professional actor, reported to have facetious grace in
writing, can be identified with Peele. The identification seems to me
impossible. Peele and Marlowe, in 1592, were literary gentlemen; Lodge,
in 1592, was filibustering, though a literary man; he had not yet become
a physician. In 1592, none of the three had any profession but that of
literature, so far as I am aware. The man who had a special profession,
and also wrote, was not one of these three; nor was he Tom Nash, a mere
literary gentleman, pamphleteer and playwright.
I do not know the name of any one of the three to whom Greene addressed
the _Groatsworth_, though the atheistic writer of tragedies seems meant,
and disgracefully meant, for Marlowe. I only know that Chettle is
expressing his regrets for Greene’s language to some one whom he
applauded as to his exercise of his profession; and who, according to
“divers of worship,” had also “facetious grace in writing.” “Myself have
seen him no less civil than he is excellent in the quality he professes”;
whether or not this means that Chettle has _seen_ his excellence in his
profession, I cannot tell for certain; but Chettle’s remark is, at least,
contrasted with what he gives merely from report—“the facetious grace in
writing” of the man in question. _His_ writing is not part of his
profession, so he is not, in 1592 (I conceive), Lodge, Peele, Marlowe, or
Nash.
Who, then, is this mysterious personage? Malone, Dyce, Steevens,
Collier, Halliwell-Phillipps, Knight, Sir Sidney Lee, Messrs. Gosse and
Garnett, and Mr. J. C. Collins say that he is Will Shakspere. But Mr.
Fleay and Mr. Castle, whose “mind” is “legal,” have pointed out that this
weird being cannot be Shake-scene (or Shakspere, if Greene meant
Shakspere), attacked by Greene. For Chettle says that in the
_Groatsworth of Wit_ “a letter, written to divers play-makers, is
offensively by one or two of them taken.” The mysterious one is,
therefore, one of the playwrights addressed by Greene. Consequently all
the followers of Malone, who wrote before Messrs. Fleay and Castle, are
mistaken; and what Mr. Greenwood has to say about Sir Sidney Lee, J. C.
Collins, and Dr. Garnett, and Mr. Gosse, in the way of moral reprobation,
may be read by the curious in his pages. {305a}
Meanwhile, if we take Chettle to have been a strict grammarian, by his
words—“a letter, written to divers play-makers, is offensively by one or
two of them taken,” Will is excluded; the letter was most assuredly not
written to _him_. But I, whose mind is not legal, am not certain that
Chettle does not mean that the letter, written to divers play-makers, was
by one or two makers of plays offensively taken.
This opinion seems the less improbable, as the person to whom Chettle is
most apologetic excels in a quality or profession, which is contrasted
with, and is not identical with, “his facetious grace in writing”—a
_parergon_, or “ bye-work,” in his case. Whoever this person was, he
certainly was not Marlowe, Peele, Lodge, or Nash. We must look for some
other person who had a profession, and also was reported to have
facetious grace in writing.
If Chettle is to be held tight to grammar, Greene referred to some one
unknown, some one who wrote for the stage, but had another profession.
If Chettle is not to be thus tautly construed, I confess that to myself
he seems to have had Shakspere, even Will, in his mind. For Will in 1592
had “a quality which he professed,” that of an actor; and also (I
conceive) was reported to have “ facetious grace in writing.” But other
gentlemen may have combined these attributes; wherefore I lay no stress
on the statements of Chettle, as if they referred to our Will Shakspere.