a complete revision at about the period when he was writing Edward II and the not dissimilar Hero and Leander.1 The connexion of Thomas Nash with our play is very uncertain, and on the evidence of style would seem to be slight. There is no discernible resemblance between Nash's only other extant dramatic work, Summer's Last Will and Testament, and any part of Dido, whereas the peculiar style of Marlowe can be recognized in almost every scene. Lines 1549-1600, which occur within a couple of pages of the end of the drama, are in themselves almost sufficient disproof of the theory that Nash found the tragedy a torso and added the conclusion. Marlowe perhaps never wrote more characteristic verses than these: So thou wouldst proue as true as Paris did, Thy mother was no Goddesse periurd man, In no other case can Marlowe be shown to have collaborated with a fellow dramatist during his London career, unless with Shakespeare in the Henry VI plays, and the conclusion would at first seem almost unavoidable that Dido is the product of an old college partnership between two Cambridge contemporaries. There is much which is attractive in this view, and I should be reluctant to abandon it entirely; yet reasons exist which make it probable, if not certain, that Nash was in some way connected with the play at a period subsequent to 1587. In the first place Marlowe's name on the title-page of a tragedy was certainly of much more value in 1594 than Nash's, and it is unlikely that the publisher of the quarto, even if he had been himself aware of the fact, would have called the reader's attention to the minor dramatist's ancient concern in a work which had been recently revised and renovated by the more celebrated author. The fact may be added, for what it is worth, that Nash's introductory epistle to Menaphon in 1589 suggests a dislike for Marlowe's dramatic 1 Cf. Knutowski, op. cit. 2 11. 1554-6, 1564-7. methods hardly in consonance with the theory of recent joint authorship, whereas his later allusions to the poet indicate regard and admiration. not There exists a third rather mysterious bit of evidence tending to connect Nash with Dido at a period which can only very shortly have antedated the play's publication. It is an Elegy on Marlowe's death, which both Bishop Tanner 1 and Warton, the literary historian,2 declare to be affixed to the 1594 edition of Dido, but which is not found in any of the three known copies. Tanner and Warton appear to have written independently on the subject; the latter furnished Malone with certain details specified by the former. It can hardly be doubted, therefore, that this elegy really occurred in at least one copy of the tragedy, and since Nash is definitely mentioned as the author, we can perhaps infer that it was a printed addition to the play, inserted by way of dedication or prologue, and not a mere manuscript note on a fly-leaf. Nash's connexion with Dido may therefore be analogous to Heywood's connexion with the Jew of Malta: he may merely have prepared the play for the printers by introducing a few superficial changes and writing a prefatory elegy which through negligence of the printer or late arrival found its way into only a part of the edition. This assumption does not necessarily contradict the theory that Nash had an earlier and more fundamental concern in the play, but it leaves the theory without any sort of confirmation. In any case it appears to be probable that Dido is in its present form mainly the work of Marlowe and that the play represents two stages in that poet's development. 3 Stage history. The only early edition of Dido was published by Thomas Woodcocke in 1594, apparently without registration. Only three copies are certainly known to exist, and they appear to agree in every respect; the present text follows the Bodleian copy. From the titlepage we learn that the tragedy had been acted by the Children of the Chapel'. The one ascertained fact concerning the history of this company during the ten years previous to 1594 seems to be that they acted before the 1 Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica, 1748, p. 512. 2 Hist. Eng. Poetry, iii. p. 433, note. 3 Hazlitt's Handbook, p. 373, says four, but probably inaccurately; one of the three copies seems here to have been counted twice. Queen at Croydon in 1591, under the direction of N. Giles, and Mr. Fleay assumes,1 apparently with no further evidence, that Dido was presented on this occasion. Henslowe's Diary, from which we should, of course, have no right to expect information regarding a play of the Chapel Children, does contain two allusions to a possibly related drama on the same subject. On January 3, 1597, Henslowe expended 29 shillings for furnishings a geanste the playe of dido & enevs', and two entries below he adds the memorandum: Lent vnto the company when they fyrst played dido at nyght the some of thirtishillynges weh wasse the 8 of Jenewary 1597.' Source. The primary source of Dido is found in the first, second, and fourth books of the Aeneid. Knutowski 2 has exerted himself to show that the play is also influenced in various passages by Ovid's works. A comparison of the tragedy with the Vergilian original throws interesting light on the structure of the former. Parts of the play follow the corresponding lines of the Aeneid with schoolboy slavishness, whereas the borrowed material is elsewhere altered with a freedom and insight which evidence a mature judgement and no small dramatic skill. In this respect, as in others, the text of Dido appears to be a composite of elements dating from two rather widely separated periods. There is no evidence that the play of Marlowe and Nash was directly influenced by any of the earlier dramas on the same subject, though it is not unlikely that Halliwell's Latin play of Dido, performed at Cambridge in 1564, or Gager's Oxford play (1583) in the same language, may have offered the original suggestion for our tragedy. 1 Biog. Chron. Eng. Dr. ii. 147. 2 Op. cit., p. 61 ff. Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage: Played by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell. Written by Chriftopher Marlowe, and Thomas Nah. Gent. AT LONDON, Printed, by the Widdowe Orwin, for Thomas Woodcocke, and are to be folde at his fhop, in Paules Church-yeard,at Hurst = Text of the play in vol. ii of Old English Drama, published by Hurst, Robinson & Co., 1825. Robinson's edition of Marlowe, 1826. Rob. Dyce Dyce Cunn. McK. T. B. Broughton Deighton Mitford = Dyce's first edition of Marlowe, 1850. Dyce's revised edition of Marlowe, 1858, etc. Text of the play in Grosart's edition of Nash (vol. vi), Text of the play in McKerrow's edition of Nash (vol. ii), 1904. The present editor. J. B.'s MS. notes in copy of Rob. (Brit. Mus. 11771 d). Conjectural emendations in The Old Dramatists, 1896. J. M.'s conjectures, quoted by Dyce. |