Published in 1592 but probably written and first performed in the late 1580s a play called Jeronimo was certainly performed at the Rose theatre in 1592 Generally attributed to Thomas Kyd 155894 though there is no contemporary mention of Kyds authorship of the play until 1612 ID: 721395
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Slide1
The Spanish Tragedy
EN302: European TheatreSlide2Slide3
Published
in 1592 but probably written and first performed in the late 1580s; a play called
Jeronimo
was certainly performed at the Rose theatre in 1592
Generally attributed to Thomas Kyd (1558-94), though there is no contemporary mention of Kyd’s authorship of the play until 1612
Kyd was imprisoned and tortured for possession of heretical papers (which he claimed belonged to his room-mate Christopher Marlowe); he died shortly after his release.
He may have written the first (now lost) play version of
Hamlet
.Slide4
It was a highly
influential
play:
Printed at least 10 times between 1592 and
1613;
Spawned a sequel,
The First Part of
Jeronimo
, in 1592 (printed 1605
);
Performed a near-record 29 times between 1592 and 1597, according to the accounts of the Rose theatre owner Philip
Henslowe;
1602 additions (possibly by Jonson, possibly even Shakespeare) – in which
Hieronimo
really does go
mad;
Easily the most widely-quoted play in subsequent Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.Slide5
It set the mould for subsequent revenge tragedies, including:
shady murders,
ghosts seeking justice,
a corrupt
court,
a revenger seeking
confirmation,
extended plotting
,
disguise
,
real
and feigned madness,
multiple
bloody deaths,
a spectacular
climax;
meta-theatrical elements.Slide6
T
he
Elizabethan stage
The Spanish Tragedy
was written at a key moment in European theatre history, when the communal and religious drama of the Middle Ages was giving way to a new commercial theatre industry.
Michael Bristol:
‘
Theatre occupies a marginal space as well as a marginal time. This is pragmatically true of the earliest Elizabethan playhouses, which were situated outside the formal jurisdiction of the city authorities, although they remained de facto an integral part of the city’s economic activity.’
(1983: 648)Slide7Slide8
Cutaway of the Rose by William Dudley,
http://shalt.dmu.ac.uk/locations/rose-1587-1604.html
See also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EApTZ1QuoHs
Slide9
The Classical World
A semi-classical setting?
ANDREA
.
When I was slain, my soul descended straight
To pass the flowing stream of Acheron;
But churlish Charon, only boatman there,
Said that my rites of burial not performed,
I might not sit amongst his passengers. (1.1.18-21)
Frequent bursts of Latin, most notably as
Hieronimo
grieves over Horatio’s body.
Numerous allusions to Seneca…Slide10
Seneca (c
. 4 BC
– 65 AD)
Recent translations of Seneca into English (e.g. 1581)
Seneca’s
Thyestes
begins with a
prologue in which a Fury brings the ghost of Tantalus back to the mortal world to observe the events of the play (though here the Fury is punishing rather than appeasing the dead mortal
).
The Spanish Tragedy
also features direct quotations (in Latin) from Seneca’s
Agamemnon
,
Oedipus
and
Troades
.Slide11
Seneca (c
. 4 BC
– 65 AD)
‘
Enter
Hieronimo
with a book in his hand
’(3.13.1
s.d.
) –
the Bible,
or Seneca
?
“
Vindicta
mihi
!” (3.13.1)“Vengeance is mine; I will repay,
saith
the Lord
.” (
Romans
12:19
,
King James Bible
, 1611
)
“
Per
scelus
semper
tutum
est
sceleribus
iter
.”
(3.13.6)
[“The
safest way for crime is always through
crime.”]
This
is borrowed from a line spoken by Clytemnestra in Seneca’s
Agamemnon
(l. 115).Slide12
Revenge
Like a verbal chime throughout the play: around 60 individual uses!
REVENGE
.
Then know, Andrea, that thou art arrived
Where thou shalt see the author of thy death,
Don Balthazar, the prince of
Portingale
,
Deprived of life by Bel-imperia.
Here sit we down to see the mystery,
And serve for Chorus in this tragedy. (1.1.86-91
)
BEL-IMPERIA
.
But how can love find harbour in my breast
Till I revenge the death of my beloved?
Yes, second love shall further my revenge.
I'll love Horatio, my Andrea's friend,
The more to spite the prince that wrought his end. (1.4.64-8)Slide13
Revenge
BALTHASAR
.
Glad, that I know on whom to be revenged;
Sad, that she'll fly me, if I take revenge.
Yet must I take revenge, or die myself,
For love resisted grows impatient. (
2.1.114-17)
HEIRONIMO
.
To know the author were some ease of grief,
For in revenge my heart would find relief. (
2.5.40-1)
HEIRONIMO
.
Behoves thee then,
Hieronimo
, to be revenged!
The plot is laid of dire revenge.
On, then,
Hieronimo
, pursue revenge,
For nothing wants but acting of revenge. (4.3.27-30)Slide14
How did Don Andrea die?
Andrea himself is oblique:
“…
in the late conflict with
Portingale
My valour drew me into danger's mouth,
Till life to death made passage through my wounds
.”
(1.1.15-17
)
The underworld
judges
are unable
to
agree on his fate.
We hear two competing accounts of his death (and might remember that Andrea’s reactions to each will be visible to the audience
)…Slide15
GENERAL.
In
all this turmoil, three long hours and more,
The victory to neither part inclined,
Till Don Andrea, with his brave
lanciers
,
In their main battle made so great a breach
That, half dismayed, the multitude retired;
But
Bathazar
, the
Portingales
' young prince,
Brought rescue, and encouraged them to stay.
Here-hence the fight was eagerly renewed,
And in that conflict was Andrea slain –
Brave man at arms, but weak to Balthazar. (1.2.63-72)
HORATIO.
When both our armies were enjoined in fight,
Your worthy chevalier amidst the
thick’st
,
For glorious cause still aiming at the fairest,
Was at the last by young Don Balthazar
Encountered hand to hand. Their fight was long,
Their hearts were great, their clamours menacing,
Their strength alike, their strokes both dangerous.
But wrathful Nemesis, that wicked power, Envying at Andrea's praise and worth, Cut short his life to end his praise and worth. She, she herself, disguised in armour's mask(As Pallas was before proud Pergamus), Brought in a fresh supply of halberdiers, Which paunched his horse and dinged him to the ground. Then young Don Balthazar with ruthless rage, Taking advantage of his foe's distress, Did finish what his halberdiers begun, And left not, till Andrea's life was done. (1.4.9-26)
How did Don Andrea die?Slide16
Legal justice?
Hieronimo
is ‘Knight Marshal’, an officer in the royal household with judicial functions
HIERONIMO
.
Thus must we toil in other men's extremes,
That know not how to remedy our own,
And do them justice, when unjustly we,
For all our wrongs, can compass no redress. (3.6.1-4)
HIERONIMO
.
I will go plain me to my lord the King,
And cry aloud for justice through the court,
Wearing the flints with these my withered feet,
And either purchase justice by entreats
Or tire them all with my revenging threats. (3.7.69-73)Slide17
Legal justice?
VICEROY
.
They
reck
no laws that meditate revenge. (1.3.48)
Compare Francis Bacon’s famous essay ‘Of
Revenge
’, published some years later:
“Revenge
is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong,
putteth
the law out of office
.” (‘Of Revenge’,
1625)Slide18
Legal justice?
ISABELLA
.
Tell me no more! O monstrous homicides!
Since neither piety nor pity moves
The king to justice or compassion,
I will revenge myself upon this place,
Where thus they murdered my beloved son.
She
cuts down the arbour.
(4.2.1-5)Slide19
Machiavellianism
English revenge tragedy is frequently set in a corrupt court in which legal justice has become impossible; often in Spain or Italy.
Lorenzo
lies to and manipulates not just his enemies but also his
allies.
He is
an early example of what will become a recognisable stage type: the
Machiavel
.
(It’s
notable that
he frequently
speaks in Italian despite his supposedly Spanish
identity.)
LORENZO
.
Thus must we work that will avoid distrust;
Thus must we practise to prevent mishap;
And thus one ill another must expulse. (3.3.105-7)Slide20
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527
)
Italian philosopher whose works, especially
The Prince
(1513), had been translated into English and read widely.
In 1552, for example,
the scholar Roger
Ascham condemned those who ‘with consciences confirmed with
Machiavelle’s
doctrine … think, say or do whatsoever may serve best for profit or pleasure’ (
A Report and Discourse
);
Marlowe’s
The Jew of Malta
has ‘
Machevill
’ deliver a prologue in which he declares ‘religion but a childish toy’ (l. 14) and asserts the primacy of ‘might’ over law (l. 20). Slide21
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527
)
“…those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word. […] But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler […]
A
prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to faith, friendship, humanity, and religion.”
(
F
rom
Machiavelli,
The Prince
, Chapter 18: ‘Concerning The Way In Which Princes Should Keep Faith’)Slide22
Divine justice?
This seems to be at work in the sub-plots. As he is being bound to the stake in preparation for his execution, the innocent Alexandro says:
ALEXANDRO
.
My guiltless death will be avenged on thee,
On thee,
Villuppo
, that hath
maliced
thus,
Or for thy
meed
hast falsely me accused. (3.1.51-3)
J
ust
in time, the scheming
Villuppo
is exposed by the entrance of the Ambassador.
But which god, if any, is in control here?Slide23
Divine justice?
HIERONIMO.
Down by the dale that flows with purple gore
Standeth
a fiery tower; there sits a judge
Upon a seat of steel and molten brass,
And 'twixt his teeth he holds a firebrand,
That leads onto the lake where hell doth stand.
Away,
Hieronimo
, to him be gone!
He'll do thee justice for Horatio's death. (3.12.7-13
)
HIERONIMO.
Vindicta
mihi
!
Ay, heaven will be revenged of every ill,
Nor will they suffer murder unrepaid.
Then stay,
Hieronimo
, attend their will,
For mortal men may not appoint their time. (3.13.1-5; note move from singular to plural)Slide24
Divine justice?
HIERONIMO
.
O sacred heavens, if this unhallowed deed,
If this inhuman and barbarous attempt,
If this incomparable murder thus
Of mine, but now no more my son,
Shall unrevealed and unrevenged pass,
How should we term your dealings to be just,
If you unjustly deal with those that in your justice trust? (
3.2.5-11)
HIERONIMO
.
Why then, I see that heaven applies our drift,
And all the saints do sit soliciting
For vengeance on those cursed murderers. (4.1.32-4)Slide25
Human agency?
Does Revenge
drive
,
or merely
embody
,
human actions
?
REVENGE
.
Be still, Andrea; ere we go from hence
I'll turn their friendship into fell despite,
Their love to mortal hate, their day to night,
Their hope into despair, their peace to war,
Their joys to pain, their bliss to misery. (1.5.5-9)
REVENGE
.
Content thyself, Andrea; though I sleep,
Yet is my mood soliciting their souls.
Sufficeth
thee that poor
Hieronimo
Cannot forget his son Horatio.
Nor dies Revenge, although he sleep awhile,
For in unquiet, quietness is feigned,
And
slumb'ring is a common worldly wile. (3.15.19-25)Slide26
Human agency?
It is a mortal sign (Bel-imperia’s letter, written in her own blood), and not a supernatural one (though it has the appearance of one), which announces Lorenzo and Balthazar’s guilt.
The play’s speeches emphasise
Hieronimo’s
moments of
decision-making:
HIERONIMO.
This way, or that way? Soft and fair, not so;
For if I hang or kill myself, let's know
Who will revenge Horatio's murder then?
No, no! Fie, no! Pardon me, I'll none of that.
He
flings away the dagger and halter.
(3.12.16-20)
Hieronimo
describes himself at the end in
metatheatrical
terms, both ‘Author and actor in this tragedy’ (4.4.147
).Slide27
We might return to the title page to think about this question more fully: why is this moment in particular depicted?
Video clip, starting
at 2.30:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PdwrQdcs1YSlide28
Until this moment, the play has been intensely patterned (think about the visual and verbal contrasts set up between Horatio and Lorenzo, for example, or the parallels between the Spanish and Portuguese courts); the presence of Revenge may suggest that we are in a pre-ordained, fatalistic universe.
At this moment, though,
Hieronimo
enters the stage looking for an interlocutor, but encounters a drawn-out moment of
anagnorisis
in soliloquy.Slide29
In the satirical play the
Return from Parnassus
(1606), we see this speech enacted by a fictional version of the actor Richard Burbage and a student:
BURBAGE.
I think your voice would serve for
Hieronimo
; observe me how I act it, and then imitate me.
STUDIOSO.
Who calls
Hieronimo
from his naked bed? And &c.
BURBAGE.
You will do well after a while.Slide30
The 1602 additions to
The Spanish Tragedy
themselves commemorate this moment, as
Hieronimo
asks a painter to depict it
:
HIERONIMO.
Well, sir, paint me a
youth,
run through and through with villains' swords, hanging upon this tree. … Then, sir, after some violent noise, bring me forth in my shirt, and my gown under mine arm, with my torch in my hand, and my sword reared up thus; and with these words:
What noise is
this? Who
calls
Hieronimo
?
May it be done?
PAINTER.
Yea, sir.
(
Fourth Addition, ll. 131-45)Slide31
Human agency?
Hieronimo
was clearly the ‘break-out’ character:
the
1602 additions
are
dominated by long
speeches for
him.
Hieronimo’s
speeches are by far the most frequently quoted and parodied ones. See, for example,
Ben Jonson’s
Every Man in his Humour
(1601
):
MATHEO.
Indeed, here are a number of fine speeches in this book: ‘O eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears!’; there's a conceit, ‘fountains fraught with tears’! ‘O life, no life, but lively form of death!’
Is't not excellent? ‘O world, no world, but mass of public wrongs’ – O, God’s me! – ‘Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds’.
Is't
not excellent?
Is't
not simply the best that ever you heard? Ha, how do you like it?
BOBADILLA.
’Tis
good.
In many ways,
Hieronimo
literally takes control of the play, becoming his own ‘author’, and even takes on a life beyond it.Slide32
‘Where words prevail not…?’
HIERONIMO.
But wherefore waste I mine unfruitful words,
When naught but blood will satisfy my woes? (3.7.67-8
)
Hieronimo
singularly fails to communicate the facts of Horatio’s murder to the
King.
His line ‘And to conclude, I will revenge his death!’ seems to be an illogical conclusion to the speech opening
3.13.
Dissembling / false fronts: Lorenzo throughout, and
Hieronimo
chooses to in Act 3:
HIERONIMO.
Thus therefore will I rest me in unrest,
Dissembling quiet in unquietness,
Not seeming that I know their villainies… (3.13.29-31)Slide33
HIERONIMO.
Each one of us must act his part
In unknown languages,
That it may breed the more variety,
As you, my lord, in Latin, I in Greek,
You in Italian; and for because I know
That Bel-imperia hath practised the French,
In courtly French shall all her phrases be.
[…]
BALTHAZAR
.
But this will be a mere confusion,
And hardly shall we all be understood. (4.1.172-81
)
HIERONIMO.
Now shall I see the fall of Babylon,
Wrought by the heavens in this confusion. (4.1.195-6
)
David
Bevington
notes that the English Bibles of the Renaissance tended to confuse “Babylon” with “Babel” (p. 117
). (
Presumably the play-within-the-play was really performed in English, despite the printed text’s insistence that it was
not.)
The failure of language reaches
its violent climax
in the final scene,
of course, culminating
in the highly symbolic moment when Hieronimo bites out his own tongue.Slide34
What is the appeal of a revenge narrative?
A vicarious
rebellion against social authority?
Blood-lust
?
“…if
you will learn to rebel against princes, to commit treasons […], if you will learn to contemn God and all His laws, to care neither for Heaven nor Hell, and to commit all kind of sin and mischief, you need to go to no other school, for all these good examples may you see painted before your eyes in interludes and plays.” (Philip
Stubbes
,
The
Anatomie
of Abuses
, 1583
)
A moral
warning?
Vengefulness as
hamartia?
“Plays are writ with this aim, and carried with this method, to teach the subjects obedience to their King, to shew the people the untimely ends of such as have moved tumults, commotions, and insurrections […] If we present a Tragedy, we include the fatal and abortive ends of such as commit notorious murders, which is aggravated and acted with all the Art that may be, to terrify men from the like abhorred practises
.” (
Thomas Heywood,
An Apology for Actors
,
1612)
A fantasy
of human agency?
“Revenge
triumphs over
death…” (Francis Bacon, ‘Of Death’, Essays, 1612)Slide35
Metatheatrical revenge
Is it significant that the audience is presented with numerous onstage spectators of revenge tragedy?
Andrea and Revenge
Lorenzo and Balthazar
The court audience of
Soliman
and
Perseda
Gregory
Semenza
:
“…
the play offers multiple fictional counterparts for the real persons involved in its performances, thereby establishing an
identificatory
dynamic similar to that provided by a
mirror” (
Semenza
2010: 154)
There is a kind of demonic humour in
Hieronimo’s
line
“But
Bel-imperia plays
Perseda
well”
(4.4.69), as she, Lorenzo and Balthazar lie dead or dying, and the court remain under the impression that they are watching
fiction.Slide36
How are we positioned in relation to the ending?
Bel-imperia’s suicide?
Castile’s murder?
Then
he makes signs for a knife to mend his pen.
CASTILE
.
O, he would have a knife to mend his pen.
VICEROY
.
Here, and advise thee that thou write the
truth
. (4.4.199-200
)
Castile is punished in the afterlife by vultures permanently tearing at his liver (
4.5.31-2). Is this simply because
he
opposed
Bel-imperia’s engagement to Don Andrea
?
What are we to make of Andrea’s gloating over the ending?
ANDREA
.
Ay, now my hopes have end in their effects,
When blood and sorrow finish my desires:
[…] Ay, these were spectacles to please my soul. (4.5.1-2, 12)Slide37
References
Bristol,
Michael
D. (1983) ‘Carnival and the Institutions of Theatre in Elizabethan England’,
ELH
, 50: 4,
637-654.
Semenza
, Gregory M
. C. (2010) ‘
The
Spanish Tragedy
and
Metatheatre
’,
in Emma Smith and Garrett J. Sullivan
[eds.]
The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Tragedy, Cambridge University Press, 153-62.