Donna N. Murphy-The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum - Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and The Authorship of Early Shakespeare and Anonymous Plays-Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2013) PDF

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum
The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum:

Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe,
and the Authorship of Early Shakespeare
and Anonymous Plays
By
Donna N. Murphy
The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum:

Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and the Authorship of Early Shakespeare
and Anonymous Plays, by Donna N. Murphy
This book first published 2013
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright 2013 by Donna N. Murphy
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-4988-X, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4988-3
To Isabel Gortzar, d. April 26, 2013
An extraordinary woman, and a passionate and tireless Marlovian scholar.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations .................................................................................. ix

Acknowledgments ..................................................................................... xii
Foreword .................................................................................................. xiv
Cynthia Morgan
The Marlowe Studies
Table 1 ..................................................................................................... xxv
Proposed Dates and Authorship for Known Plays by Marlowe and Nashe,
and other Plays Discussed in this Book
Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1
Introduction
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 19
Caesars Revenge
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 48
The Taming of a Shrew
Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 67
The Contention and II Henry VI
Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 105
The True Tragedy and III Henry VI
Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 121
Dating the Plays via Kyds Soliman and Perseda and Lylys
The Woman in the Moon
Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 133
Edward III
viii
Table of Contents
Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 161

Thomas of Woodstock
Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 189
Titus Andronicus
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 218
Romeo and Juliet
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 243
I Henry IV
Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 263
Conclusion
Appendix A ............................................................................................. 268
Thomas Nashe and Doctor Faustus
Appendix B.............................................................................................. 274
Thomas Nashe and The Jew of Malta
Editions Used in this Book ...................................................................... 280
Bibliography ............................................................................................ 285
Index ........................................................................................................ 295
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Ado
Ant.
AWW
AYL
Cor.
Cym.
Err.
Ham.
1H4
2H4
H5
1H6
2H6
3H6
H8
JC
Jn.
LLL
Lear
Luc.
Mac.
MM
MDN
MV
Attrib. to
Shakespeare
Much Ado About
Nothing
Antony and
Cleopatra
Alls Well That
Ends Well
As You Like It
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
The Comedy of
Errors
Hamlet
I Henry IV
II Henry IV
Henry V
I Henry VI
II Henry VI
III Henry VI
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King John
Loves Labours
Lost
King Lear
The Rape of
Lucrece
Macbeth
Measure for
Measure
A Midsummer
Nights Dream
The Merchant of
Venice
Oth.
Per.
PPilg.
R2
R3
Rom.
Son.
TGV
Tim.
Tit.
Tmp.
TN
TNK
TOTS
Tro.
Ven.
Wiv.
WT
DF
Dido
E2
HL
JM
LFB
MP
OE
PS
1T
2T
Othello
Pericles
The Passionate Pilgrim
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeares Sonnets
The Two Gentlemen of
Verona
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
The Tempest
Twelfth Night
The Two Noble Kinsmen
The Taming of the Shrew
Troilus and Cressida
Venus and Adonis
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Winters Tale
Attrib. to Marlowe
Doctor Faustus (with
Nashe)
Dido, Queen of Carthage
Edward II
Hero and Leander
The Jew of Malta (with
Nashe)
Lucans First Book
The Massacre at Paris
Ovids Elegies
The Passionate Shepherd to
his Love
I Tamburlaine
II Tamburlaine
List of Abbreviations
CR
Cont.
E3
FQ
Sol.
TOAS
TT
Wood.
Other Works
Caesars Revenge
The First Part of
the Contention
Betwixt the Two
Famous Houses of
York and
Lancaster
Edward III
The Faerie
Queene, by
Edmund Spenser
Soliman and
Perseda , attrib. to
Thomas Kyd
The Taming of a
Shrew
The True Tragedy
of Richard, Duke
of York
Thomas of
Woodstock, or
Richard II Part
One
Almond
Anatomy
Comets
Lenten
Pierce
Pref. to
A&S
Pref. to
Menaphon
Saffron
Strange
Summer
Tears
Terrors
Unfortunate
Valentines
Attrib. to Nashe
An Almond for a Parrot
Anatomy of Absurdity
Two Dangerous Comets
Lenten Stuff
Pierce Penniless
Preface to Astrophel &
Stella
Preface to Menaphon
Have With You to SaffronWalden
Strange News
Summers Last Will and
Testament
Christs Tears Over
Jerusalem
Terrors of the Night
The Unfortunate Traveler
The Choice of Valentines
Attributed in whole or part to Dekker (for an explanation of

nontraditional attributions, see my The Mysterious Connection Between
Thomas Nashe, Thomas Dekker, and T. M.)
Banq.
BB
BL
BMC
CC
DD
The Bloody
Banquet
The Black Book
The Bellman of
London
Blurt, Master
Constable
The Compters
Commonwealth
Dekker his Dream
DT
EMIH
FHT
GH
1HW
2HW
The Dead Term

Every Man in His
Humor
Father Hubburds
Tales
The Gulls
Hornbook
I The Honest
Whore
II The Honest
Whore
ITBN
JMM
KC
LC
MG
MML
NFH
NG
NH
NSS
NW
OA
OF
OP
Over.
PC
PG
PP
If This Be Not
Good, the Devil is
in It
Jests To Make You
Merry
A Knights
Conjuring
Lantern and
Candlelight
The Meeting of
Gallants at an
Ordinary
Match Me in
London
News from Hell
News From
Gravesend
Northward Ho
The Noble Spanish
Soldier
No Wit, No Help
Like a Womans
The Owls Almanac
Old Fortunatus
O per se O
Sir Thomas
Overbury his Wife
Platos Cap
Patient Grissil
The Penniless
Parliament
of Threadbare
Poets
PWPF
RA
RR
Sat.
SD
SDS
SH
SHR
STW
VD
VG
VM
WA
WB
WE
WH
WofE
WY
xi
Penny-wise,
Pound-Foolish
The Ravens
Almanac
A Rod for
Runaways
Satiro-Mastix
The Suns
Darling
The Seven Deadly
Sins
The Shoemakers
Holiday
A Strange HorseRace
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Villainies
Discovered
by Lantern and
Candlelight
Vox Graculi
The Virgin
Martyr
Work for
Armorers
The Whore of
Babylon
The Welsh
Embassador
Westward Ho
The Witch of
Edmunton
The Wonderful
Year
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to those who edited or otherwise offered comments to

help improve this book as it mutated and took shape over the years, above
all Cynthia Morgan, and also Alex Jack, Jane Nelson, Dan Sayers, Eileen
Vasey, Elaine Williams and Erica Wong. I am also grateful to David More
and Clare Murphy for help with previous work. Any errors, of course, are
my own.
I suppose I am starting a new category for candidacy of the authorship
of the works of Shakespeare: Christopher Marlowe as the main author,
with Thomas Nashe as the heretofore unrecognized co-author of certain
works; and George Peele, John Fletcher, Thomas Middleton, and George
Wilkins as co-authors of others.
I wish to acknowledge the brave and brazen Marlovians who blazed
the way and now rest in peace: Wilbur G. Zeigler, author of the novel It
Was Marlowe; David Rhys Williams, who wrote Shakespeare, Thy Name
is Marlowe; Calvin Hoffman, author of The Murder of the Man who was
Shakespeare; A. D. (Dorothy) Wraight, who penned In Search of
Christopher Marlowe, The Story that the Sonnets Tell, and Christopher
Marlowe and Edward Alleyn; and Louis Ule, who wrote A Concordance
to the Works of Christopher Marlowe, and Christopher Marlowe (15641607): a Biography.
I honor contemporaries who are challenging the conventional wisdom,
from a Marlovian point of view, that Stratfordian William Shakspere
wrote the works of Shakespeare, especially: Peter Farey, author of two
Hoffman Prize-winning essays, Hoffman and the Authorship, and
Arbella Stuart and Christopher Marlowe, and publisher of
www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm; Mike Rubbo, creator of the Hoffman
Prize-winning documentary, Much Ado About Something; Ros Barber,
author of the Hoffman Prize-winning verse novel The Marlowe Papers
and the Ph.D. thesis Writing Marlowe as Writing Shakespeare,
rosbarber.com/research/dphil-phd-thesis; Daryl Pinksen, author of
Marlowes Ghost; Carlo di Nota, publisher of marloweshakespeare.blogspot.kr and the International Marlowe-Shakespeare
Society site at www.marloweshakespeare.org; Cynthia Morgan, publisher
of www.themarlowestudies.org; Alex Jack, author of Hamlet. Christopher
Marlowe and William Shakespeare, and As You Like It. Christopher
Marlowe and William Shakespeare; David More, author of the essay in
xiii
verse The Marliad, and publisher of www.marlovian.com; Samuel

Blumenfeld, author of The Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection; and John
Baker, publisher of the now defunct www2.localaccess.com/marlowe.
The above-named works and websites contain puzzle pieces related to
Christopher Marlowe writing the works of William Shakespeare. No one
work tells the full story or gets everything right, to the extent that we know
what right is, but each one moves the case for Marlowe forward. It takes
a Globe to uncover and describe all the aspects of this vast mystery that is
Shakespeare. We hope you will join us!
Donna N. Murphy
www.donnanmurphy.com
FOREWORD
Some law of logic should fix the number of

coincidences, in a given domain, after which they
cease to be coincidences, and form, instead, the living
organism of a new truth.
Vladimir Nabokov
In this book, Donna Murphy provides a host of linguistic and other

coincidences between Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.
Indeed, they are so numerous that, taken together with what else we know
about Marlowes education, travel, foreign language ability and excellence
in writing, and the absence of knowledge about the same for William
Shakspere of Stratford, these coincidences appear to create Nabokovs
organism of a new truth. In this instance, the new truth would be that
Marlowe, about to be imprisoned, certainly tortured, and likely executed
as a heretic, faked his own death and continued to write, at times with
others, under the name William Shakespeare. Murphys thesis is that
one can document a continuum from Marlowes early work through
Shakespeares early canon and, via use of language, show how Marlowe
became Shakespeare.
Thomas Nashe was the newsmonger of his time. He wrote about
anybody who was somebody in the literary realm: Christopher Marlowe,
Robert Greene, Gabriel Harvey, Thomas Kyd, Samuel Daniel, Arthur
Golding, John Lyly, George Peele, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser,
and many othersbut he gave nary a word-nod to William Shakespeare.1
The silence of a pamphleteer like Nashe speaks volumes, especially since
many believe, as does Murphy, that Nashe co-authored Henry VI, Part I.
In fact, Murphy forges new trails regarding co-authorship between
Marlowe and his friend Nashe, finding the presence of both hands in seven
plays. Her theory is that for the most part, in plays they jointly authored,
Marlowes was the voice of wisdom, Nashes wit. Many will flinch at this
new idea, even though it is the same comedic voice we find in both
Marlowe and Shakespeare. The reader will judge for his or her self after
viewing Donnas collection of Nasheian lines in various plays along the
Marlowe-Shakespeare continuum.
After receiving his M. A. from Cambridge and his initial success as a
xv
playwright, Marlowes most practical use to the State would have been
through the medium of drama. I propose that Lord Burghley and Sir
Francis Walsingham asked Marlowe, who had already done the Queen
unspecified good service by the time he graduated, to write plays for the
State.2 At that time, England was a Protestant theocracy, and contained a
large population of closet Catholics. The leaders greatest fear was civil
war, spurred on by Catholic Spain and France. As Marlowe phrased it in
his translation of part of Lucans Pharsalia, about the civil war between
Caesar and Pompey: So when the worlds compounded union breaks,
Time ends, and to old Chaos all things turn (73-4). A people unified in
their identification with country was necessary to combat religious
division. National pride and allegiance to Queen now depended on a
generally illiterate people knowing their history, with a Tudor twist. What
better way to accomplish this task than to have them see their former kings
brought to life again on-stage and, at the same time, see their enemies
vanquished? What better way to advance subtler agendas?
Marlowe wrote The Massacre at Paris, which took place partly during
the time Sir Francis Walsingham was Englands ambassador to France.
Walsingham lived through the St. Bartholomews Day Massacre of 1572,
when thousands of Protestant Huguenots were murdered in the streets.
Marlowes play depicts the duplicity of Catholic French leaders, as well as
vengeance when the evil Duke of Guise is stabbed to death. David Riggs
wrote about Marlowes sources for this play:
He had an intimate, firsthand knowledge of the feud between King Henri
III and the Guise. Much of the factual material in the latter part of The
Massacre can only be verified by recourse to confidential sources in the
State Papers. Marlowe obtained this information by word of mouth, from
men who had been witness to these events. In contrast to the partisan
accounts of Protestant and Catholic pamphleteers, he gives an evenhanded, densely factual report on the feud. The brief documentary scenes
that succeed one another in The Massacre at Paris resemble diplomatic
dispatches; these were the raw materials of intelligence fieldwork.3
The Massacre at Paris weakened the position of English Catholics,

bolstered Protestants, and was based in part on diplomatic correspondence
to which Marlowe had surprising access.
Marlowes play Edward II appears to illustrate Sir Francis
Walsinghams concerns about King James. Walsingham made the long
journey to Scotland in 1583 to confer privately with James in order to
countercheck the influence of Spain on him. His foremost reservation had
to do with Jamess relationship with his male cousin Esm Stuart, who
xvi
Foreword
was the kings strongest political influence. Stuart had been sent to
Scotland by the Duke of Guise in order to restore French Catholic
interests. Walsingham later wrote a report for the Queen detailing his
communication with James, the theme of which seems to be echoed in
Edward II. Ive put part of what Walsingham said to King James here, and
it is a theme that runs throughout the Shakespeare canon:
That therefore divers princes . . . have been deposed, for that being advised
to remove the said counselors from them rather than to yield to them, have
been content to run any hazard or adventure, whereof both the histories of
England and Scotland did give sufficient precedents . . . That as subjects
are bound to obey dutifully so were princes bound to command justly;
which reason and ground of government was set down the deposition of
Edward the Second, as by ancient record thereof doth appear (emphasis
added).
Walsinghams said counselors that might induce a prince to run

any hazard or adventure refers to James close relationship with Stuart, to
whom he formed a romantic attachment. James was in the line of
succession to the English Crown. His attitude about governance was of
extreme importance to Lord Burghley and Sir Francis Walsingham. As for
Walsinghams warning to James that princes have been deposed for
showing too much favor to said counselors, in the play Marlowe has
Lancaster tell Edward, Look for rebellion, look to be deposed . . . One of
Walsinghams chief qualms was that King James had showered Stuart
with gifts and political power; hed been made a member of the Privy
Council, Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and governor of Dumbarton
Castle. In Act I of Edward II we find King Edward speaking the following
lines that mirror Francis Walsinghams concern with the giving away of
the body politic:
Edward. I here create thee Lord High Chamberlain,
Chief Secretary to the state and me,
Earl of Cornwall, King and Lord of Man . . .
Ill give thee more, for but to honor thee
Is Edward pleased with kingly regiment.
Fearst thou thy person? Thou shalt have a guard.
Wants thou gold? Go to my treasury.
Wouldst thou be loved and feared? Receive my seal (Sc. i.153-5, 163-7)
These worries were well founded. After James VI of Scotland became

James I of England, he continued to have male favorites. The most famous
was George Villiers, whom James created, in succession, Gentleman of
xvii
the Bedchamber, Baron Whaddon, Viscount Villiers, Earl of Buckingham,

Marquess of Buckingham, and finally Earl of Coventry and Duke of
Buckingham. The wealth and attention James showered upon his male
favorites had a debilitating effect on the court.
It is possible the motive for writing Edward II was to discredit James
so that the Queen would more seriously consider Arbella Stuart as her
successor. Arbella was the great great granddaughter of King Henry VII
and first cousin to James; both she and James were contenders for the
throne. A man named Morley tutored her for 3 years, and was
dismissed after Arbellas grandmother found cause to be doubtful of his
forwardness in religion.4 Peter Farey wrote a Hoffman prize-winning
essay that presented a compelling case in favor of this Morley being
Christopher Marlowe. Walsingham may not have lived to view Edward II.
While Murphy dates the plays composition to 1590, Walsingham died
early in the year, on April 6.
Of the plays Murphy explores in this book, II Henry VI, III Henry VI
and Edward III not only brought Englands rulers to life, they were far
different from the late medieval morality plays preceding them. The
morality plays reinforced the Church; these history plays reinforced the
State. II Henry VI and III Henry VI, first published anonymously, are
about the infighting, wrack, and ruin of civil war. This is symbolized most
poignantly in III Henry VI when a son drags on-stage the body of a man he
has killed in battle, only to realize it is his own father, followed by a man
about to pillage the body of an enemy he has slaughtered, belatedly
realizing it is his son. The Shakespeare plays also served State interests,
depicting the constant scheming, chaos, and years of destruction that could
ensue if Catholics and Protestants fought each other.
The anonymous play Edward III, printed as Shakespeares in the 2005
Oxford edition of Shakespeares works, is also a play that fits with State
interests. Edward III is a morality tale about how to be a good king, and
ingeniously celebrates the victory of the English over the Spanish Armada.
As Murphy says, Edward III is a natural extension of Edward II. In fact,
evidence from the 16th centurya sequence of allusions in the works of
Robert Greenetells us that Marlowe wrote Edward III. This sequence
not only matches Marlowe as the author of the play, it also points to the
great Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn as the Upstart Crow in Greenes
infamous Groatsworth of Wit. There is no documentary evidence that
William Shakspere wrote Edward III or was the man alluded to as the
Upstart Crow, but the following allusions establish an historical context
for both Marlowe and Alleyn.
xviii
Foreword
Greenes antipathy toward Marlowe had its origins around 1587, when
he wrote a play in poor imitation of Tamburlaine entitled Alphonsus, King
of Aragon. The envious Greene took his first stabs at Marlowe in the
preface of a fiction pamphlet published during 1588, Perimedes the BlackeSmith, in which he described an author whom scholars have identified to be
Marlowe as having wantonlye set out such impious instances of intolerable
poetrie, such mad and scoffing poets, that have propheticall spirits, as bred
of Merlins race.5
Greenes next envious taunts were in Menaphon, which appeared in
1589. Scholars have identified a poke at Marlowe, who was the eldest son
of a cobbler in Canterbury, through the mouth of the character Melicertus:
Whosoeuer Samela descanted of that loue, tolde you a Canterbury tale;
some propheticall full mouth, that as he were a Coblers eldest sonne,
would by the laste tell where anothers shooe wrings, but his sowterly aime
was iust leuell, in thinking euerie looke was loue, or euerie faire worde a
pawne of loyaltie.6
In 1590, Greene alluded to Marlowe and Alleyn in Francescos

Fortunes:
Why Roscius, art thou proud with Esops Crow, being pranct with the glorie
of others feathers? of thy selfe thou canst say nothing, and if the Cobler
hath taught thee to say, Aue Caesar, disdain not thy tutor, because thou
pratest in a Kings chamber: what sentence thou utterest on the stage,
flowes from the censure of our wittes, and what sentence or conceipte of
the inuention the people applaud for excellent, that comes from the secrets
of our knowledge.7
Greene is referring to the play Edward III, where the Black Prince, son
of King Edward, cries Ave Caesar after his father decides to go to war
with France:
Prince. As cheerful sounding to my youthful spleen
This tumult is of wars increasing broils,
As at the coronation of a king
The joyful clamours of the people are,
When Ave Caesar they pronounce aloud. (I.i.160-4)
Just as we would instantly recognize Heres looking at you, kid as

Humphrey Bogarts line in Casa Blanca, it was likely Greenes readers
knew he was alluding to the great actor Edward Alleyn (various scholars
have identified him as Greenes Roscius) and the dramatist Marlowe
(the Cobler), who wrote the words Ave Caesar spoken in the Kings
xix
chamber during the first act of Edward III. Esops Crow was an apt
metaphor for an actor. Alleyn played the leading roles in Doctor Faustus,
Tamburlaine, and The Jew of Malta. His relationship with Marlowe is
highlighted in this allusion.
Here we do not find the scholars path barred by evidence that has been
destroyed by time, but the rare occasion of literary proof spared from the
damp of the centuries, yet these allusions have not been taken into account
by Marlowes biographers. Neither do the most recent publications of
Edward III, the 1998 New Cambridge and 2005 Oxford editions, mention
them in their introductions.
To build a strong navy and keep it strong required a nation undivided.
Edward III was the founder of Englands navy. After the battle of Sluys in
1340, in which the English navy destroyed the French navy, Parliament
awarded King Edward III the title Sovereign of the Sea. It was this naval
victory that would have given Burghley and Walsinghams dramatist an
analogy for the victory over the Spanish Armada. A. D. Wraight first
suggested the play was a celebration of Englands victory over the Spanish
Armada in her book Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn, published
in 1965. She voiced the opinion that Marlowes biographers hadnt seen
the connection earlier because the 1588 Armada association was obscured
by the plays publication date of 1596. I suggest this lapse in time might
also have obscured Marlowes biographers association of Greenes 1590
allusions to the plays author.
When Edward III is seen to be Marlowes play, the gap shrinks
between Marlowe the rebel and Shakespeare the upholder of the covenants
on which honor and civilization depend. Should we be convinced Marlowe
wrote this play, Edward III marks the paradigm shift in one-dimensional
interpretations of Marlowes character as well as his work. Tamburlaine
and Doctor Faustus can no longer be seen as projections of Marlowes
own desires, but characters developed with the objectivity of the artist in
his early twenties, the time when genius has not fully developed an indepth philosophy that will guide its dramatic forms.
Many current Shakespeare scholars want to ascribe Edward III and the
early versions of II and III Henry VI (The First Part of the Contention
betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster and The True
Tragedy of Richard Duke of Yorke) to Shakspere from Stratford. The only
way they can do this is to place him as a dramatist before we have any
documented evidence he was in London writing plays.
In 1766, Thomas Trywitt first suggested that the Upstart Crow and
Shake-scene in Greenes 1592 Groatsworth of Wit might be Shakspere
from Stratford. Greene wrote:
xx
Foreword
Yes trust them not: for there is an vpstart Crow, beautified with our
feathers, that with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is
as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an
absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene
in a countrie.8
It was Edward Alleyn to whom Greene referred as Crow two years

earlier, specifically proud with Esops Crow, being pranct with the glorie
of others feathers. In Groatsworth, Greene addresses three writers who
have been identified as Marlowe, Nashe and Peele, telling them not to give
their words or feathers to the Crow. We know Marlowe gave Alleyn
feathers in at least three plays. Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hide is a
quote from III Henry VI (also included in its early version, The True
Tragedy). Murphy provides detailed linguistic evidence that Marlowe
wrote this play, and cites others who propose that Alleyn did bumbast out
a blanke verse by writing Faire Em and the lost play Tambercam. As for
the capitalization of vpstart Crow and Shake-scene, A. D. Wraight
pointed out that these words are capitalized as common nouns, just as
other nouns in the Groatsworth text, such as Father, Teacher, Sonne, and
Schollers. All the proper names, however, are both capitalized and printed
in italics, such as Greene, Caine, Iuuenall, and Iohannes fac totum. From
this examination of the text it is clear we have no need to seek for a man
named by Greene as Shake-scene, any more than we should be looking
for a man named Crow.
Assumptions become a part of history when they are not questioned.
The assumption Greene was alluding to Shakspere from Stratford as the
vpstart Crow and Shake-scene that various scholars have made filled
the void of his writing career before Venus and Adonis was published with
the William Shakespeare name attached, less than two weeks after
Marlowe died at Deptford. Removing the Greene allusion means that the
first mention of any connection between Shakespeare and the theater is a
March 15, 1595 record of payment to him, Will Kemp, and Richard
Burbage for a performance of the Lord Chamberlains Men before the
Queen in December 1594.
Richard III, written later than Edward III, c. 1592-3, advanced Tudor
interests once again with its evil king, for whom the Henry VI plays had
laid a solid foundation. Richard III was portrayed as a Marlovian overreacher in the mold of Tamberlaine, Doctor Faustus, the Guise, and the
Jew of Malta. The Tudor lineage descended from Henry VII, who
overthrew King Richard and his House of York. Richard III famously
demonizes Richard III, in reality an able administrator who cared about his
subjects, and a loving husband and father who did not murder Henry VI or
xxi
the Duke of Clarence, or plot to kill his wife and marry his nieceas in
the play; it is unknown who had the two princes in the Tower of London
killed. The drama made Richard a monster, and Henry VII a hero for
killing him in battle. In the theater, audience members are relieved when
Queen Elizabeths grandfather slays Richard III, who in reality was killed
by a common soldier at Bosworth Field.
The Massacre at Paris, Edward II, Edward III, the Henry VI plays, and
Richard III can all be viewed as having been written to advance State
interests. The uncommon linguistic similarities to Marlowes writing that
Murphy has discovered, along with the evidence from Robert Greene,
show Marlowe to be the mastermind behind them all.
It is no great leap to viewing Marlowe as the author of sonnets
intended to advance Lord Burghleys private interests. Many scholars
believe that Burghley commissioned Shakespeare Sonnets 1-17 to
convince the Earl of Southampton to marry Burghleys granddaughter,
Elizabeth de Vere. Burghley possessed known connections to Marlowe,
both as a signer of a letter requesting Cambridge University to grant
Marlowe his M. A. because contrary to rumors otherwise, the young man
had done her Majesty good service, and because when Marlowe was
remanded to Burghley from the Netherlands on charges of the capital
crime of coining, he was quickly released, raising suspicion that he had
been working abroad on Burghleys behalf. Marlowe overlapped in
attendance at Cambridge with Southampton. Shakspere from Stratford had
no known ties to Burghley or Southampton.
The same thread involving the use of skillful rhetoric to coax a
reluctant individual to mate runs through Marlowes Hero and Leander,
Shakespeares Venus and Adonis, and these Sonnets.
Hero and Leander:
Like untuned golden strings all women are,
Which long time lie untouched will harshly jar.
Vessels of brass oft handled brightly shine;
What difference betwixt the richest mine
And basest mold but use? for both, not used,
Are of like worth. Then treasure is abused
When misers keep it; being put to loan,
In time it will return us two for one. (Sestiad I 229-36)
Foreword
xxii
Venus and Adonis:

Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,
Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use
By the law of nature thou art bound to breed,
That thine may live when thou thyself art dead;
And so in spite of death thou dost survive,
In that thy likeness still is left alive. (163-4, 171-4)
Sonnet 6:
Then let not winters ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled.
Make sweet some vial, treasure thou some place
With beautys treasure, ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury
Which happies those that pay the willing loan:
Thats for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; (1-8)
Both Venus and Adonis and Sonnet 6 encourage someone to breed before
he dies or winter defaces him. Both Hero and Leander and Sonnet 6
within a similar context mention treasure, loan, and two for one vs.
ten for one.
Richard II, on the other hand, ran counter to the interests of the State.
In this history play written c. 1595, the English Bolingbroke invades from
abroad and deposes an unpopular king who has surrounded himself with
bad advisors. Queen Elizabeth told William Lambarde, Keeper of the
Records at the Tower of London, that she knew King Richard II was
intended to represent her. The deposition scene was omitted from the
original printing and not restored until the fourth quarto in 1608 (the first
quarto printed after the Queens death). During Act I, King Richard
banishes two men, Mowbray and Bolingbroke, who then speak eloquently
about the pain of exile:
The language I have learnt these forty years,
My native English, now I must forgo,
And now my tongues use is to me no more
Than an unstringd viol or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cased up,
Or, being open, put into his hands
That know no touch to tune the harmony. (I.iii.154-9)
xxiii
Note that both the Richard II excerpt and the one from Hero and Leander
quoted above employ clever stringed instrument analogies. We know of no
reason why William Shakspere would have written against the Queen. On
the other hand, if she had played a role in saving Marlowes life, yet sent
him into exile because she would not stand up for him vis--vis the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Marlowe would have had ample cause to be
bitter.
You are about to read a well reasoned argument, backed up by a
multitude of linguistic evidence, that Marlowe, sometimes writing with
Thomas Nashe, started off with the early anonymous plays Caesars
Revenge and I and II Tamburlaine, advanced to the anonymous A Taming
of a Shrew and the history plays I have discussed, and later co-authored
with Nashe Romeo and Juliet and I Henry IV.
The exploration of who wrote the works of Shakespeare in and of itself
has much to teach us. As Anthony Kellet has written:
The authorship debate is gold-dust. It is not only a perfect vehicle for
analyzing and exploring personal contentin all sorts of works, by
numerous authors, then relating them back to the Shakespeare canon, for
what that might reveal about its authorbut also a way to teach young
people how to question preconceived ideas and dogma. It can teach them
how to reason from basic principles. It teaches them not to blindly accept
what they are presented as fact, to analyze data for themselves, and to
debate their findings with others.9
Cynthia Morgan10
The Marlowe Studies
Notes
1
List of contemporary English authors Nashe referred to by name: Thomas

Achlow, Robert Armin, Roger Ascham, William Camden, Henry Chettle, Thomas
Churchyard, Anthony Chute, Samuel Daniel, Thomas Deloney, William Elderton,
Abraham Fraunce, George Gascoigne, Arthur Golding, Robert Greene, John
Harington, Gabriel Harvey, Richard Harvey, Raphael Holinshed, John Lyly,
Christopher Marlowe, Richard Mulcaster, Thomas Newton, George Peele,
Countess of Pembroke Mary Sidney Herbert, Matthew Roydon, Sir Philip Sidney,
Edmund Spenser, Richard Stanyhurst, Philip Stubbs, Dick Tarleton, George
Turberville, William Warner, Dr. Thomas Watson, and poet Thomas Watson.
Nashe is believed to have made an uncomplimentary reference to Thomas Kyd as
the kid in Aesop in his preface to Robert Greenes Menaphon.
2
Good service quote from the record of a letter from the Privy Council dated
June 29, 1587, PRO Privy Council Registers PC2 / 14 / 381.
xxiv
Foreword
David Riggs, The World of Christopher Marlowe (New York: Henry Holt and
Co., 2004), 313.
4
British Library, Lansdowne, MS.71, f.3.
5
Robert Greene, The Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Robert
Greene, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (London and Aylesbury: Printed for private
circulation only, 1881-86), vol. 7, 7.
6
Grosart, vol. 6, 86.
7
8
9
Anthony Kellet, Praying We See the Light, March 22, 2013, http://marloweshakespeare.blogspot.ca/2013/03/praying-we-see-light-by-anthony-kellett_22.html.
Accessed August 7, 2013.
10
Id like to thank Donna Murphy for her support of my theory about Marlowe as
State play writer and her additions to that theme. What began as a Foreword by me
turned into a collaboration between Donna and myself.
TABLE 1
PROPOSED DATES AND AUTHORSHIP FOR
KNOWN PLAYS BY MARLOWE AND NASHE,
AND OTHER PLAYS DISCUSSED IN THIS BOOK
Dates are for composition. In some cases, the extant versions of the plays
are revisions.
Title
Date
Authorship
Caesars Revenge
I Tamburlaine
II Tamburlaine
Doctor Faustus
c. 1586-7
c. 1587
c. 1587
c. 1587-88 (by
March 1588)
c. 1588
Marlowe
Marlowe
Marlowe
Marlowe & Nashe
c. 1589
c. 1590 (by June
1590)
c. 1590 (by June
1590)
c. 1590
c. 1590
c. 1590
Marlowe
Marlowe & Nashe
c. 1590-91 (by
March 1591)
c. 1590-1
c. 1591
c. 1592
Marlowe
c. 1591-3
c. 1593-4
c. 1595-6
c. 1596-7
Marlowe & Peele

Marlowe & Nashe
Marlowe & Nashe
Marlowe & Nashe
Dido, Queen of
Carthage
The Massacre at Paris
The Contention (Q1
2H6)
True Tragedy (O1 3H6)
Edward II
The Woman in the
Moon
Edward III
Soliman and Perseda
The Jew of Malta
Summers Last Will and
Testament
Titus Andronicus
Thomas of Woodstock
Romeo and Juliet
I Henry IV
Marlowe
Marlowe & Nashe

Marlowe
Marlowe
Lyly
Kyd
Marlowe & Nashe
Nashe
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
A book discussing the overthrow of King Richard II enraged Queen

Elizabeth. She doubted Dr. John Haywarde wrote it, even though he
signed its dedication and his initials appeared on the title page, suspecting
some more mischievous author. The Queen told Sir Francis Bacon, her
Counsel Learned, that she wanted Haywarde tortured to uncover the truth.
Bacon replied, Nay, Madam, he is a doctor; never rack his person, but
rack his style; let him have pen, ink, and paper, and help of books, and be
enjoined to continue the story where it breaketh off, and I will undertake,
by collating the styles, to judge whether he were the author or no.1
Thomas Nashe claimed to be able to tell by collation of stiles that a
letter flattering the author in Gabriel Harveys Foure Letters and Certain
Sonnets was penned by Harvey himself.2 Robert Greene protested that
even though some said the style bewrayed him as author of an
anonymous book, The Cobbler of Canterbury, he did not write it. My
modern-day linguistic analysis indicates that yes, he did.3
If Bacon and Nashe were confident that they could identify an
Elizabethan author by his style, and others correctly fingered the author of
The Cobbler, why has it been so difficult to assign authorship of various
anonymous Elizabethan-era plays? They float around like jetsam on the
ocean, drifting first toward one name, then another, finding nowhere a
fixed harbor. And how to account for the miracle of Shakespeare: an actor
with no university education possessing a bottomless vocabulary;
knowledge of five languages; a love of setting plays abroad and an
uncanny awareness of Italy, even though theres no evidence he ever
stepped foot off the island of Britain; and excellence in writing styles
ranging from the high poetry of kings, to the crude humor of servants?
The findings in this book support the theory that poet/playwright
Christopher Marlowe, who had gotten himself into trouble with religious
authorities and was about to be imprisoned, certainly tortured and
probably executed, did not die at Deptford in 1593 but continued writing
as William Shakespeare. By exploring certain anonymous and
Shakespeare plays, I provide linguistic evidence of a Marlowe-
Chapter One
Shakespeare continuum beginning with Caesars Revenge, c. 1586-7;

through The Taming of a Shrew and the first versions of II and III Henry
VI, c. 1590; the first version of Edward III c. 1590-1; Titus Andronicus c.
1591-3; and the first version of Thomas of Woodstock c. 1593-4; then
onward to Romeo and Juliet c. 1595-6; and I Henry IV, c. 1596-7. My
research shows how Christopher Marlowe, living on after he supposedly
died, appears to have become Shakespeare on a linguistic basis.
Central to an understanding of Marlowe and Shakespeare, however, is
an understanding of Marlowes friend Thomas Nashe. As early as 1588
with Doctor Faustus, I maintain that Marlowe and Nashe engaged in a
writing partnership. In certain plays co-authored by the two of them, we
hear Marlowes adept plotting, his development of complex characters,
and his superb flights of poetry. But we also hear Nashe, an endlessly
inventive, comic author with an enormous vocabulary, creating servants,
members of the lower class, clowns and miscreants of all stripes,
encouraging us to laugh at their vices. Marlowe wrote the parts of kings,
queens, noblemen, the lovers and the damned, taking theater-goers
outward on journeys through English history and countries across the sea,
and inward, compelling us to think about ourselves. In certain works they
co-authored, Marlowes was the voice of wisdom, and Nashes, wit. In
Romeo and Juliet, I will suggest that Marlowe wrote lines for the title pair,
and Nashe, Mercutio and the servants. In I Henry IV, I will propose that
Marlowe wrote the role of King Henry, while Nashe created Falstaff.
Challenges
Various challenges confront those who attempt to make authorship
attributions. First, authors copied verbiage from each other: Christopher
Marlowes Tamburlaine plays (1T and 2T) lifted wording from Edmund
Spensers The Faerie Queene; Robert Greene inserted triple world, a
phrase from Marlowes 2T, into Alphonsus, King of Aragon; George
Peeles The Old Wives Tale contains two lines from Robert Greenes
Orlando Furioso, while his Edward I shares variants of three lines with
Marlowes Edward II. In all of these cases, however, it is clear on the
basis of style and other indicators that the duplicated author was not
involved in the penning of the pieces that copied him.
Second, as authors matured, their style and vocabulary improved.
Marlowes Edward II (E2) is far superior to Tamburlaine; the plot and
language of Greenes Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay are significantly
more complex than in Alphonsus, King of Aragon; and Shakespeare
changed markedly during the course of his career, as evidenced by the
Introduction
differences between III Henry VI (3H6), A Midsummer Nights Dream,

and King Lear.
Third, Elizabethan-era playwrights sometimes worked together, as
theater manager Philip Henslowes Diary attests. Indeed, scholars have
detected co-authorship in Shakespeares I Henry VI (with Thomas Nashe),
Titus Andronicus (with George Peele), Pericles (with George Wilkins),
Timon of Athens (with Thomas Middleton), and Henry VIII and The Two
Noble Kinsmen (both with John Fletcher).4 Thus, the byline Shakespeare
includes at least six authors. Any given play might be the work of more
than one author, even when only one person received title-page credit.
When authors worked together, one of them may have edited the work of
another, muddling a strict division of authorship. Fourth, plays were
sometimes revised; the printed version may not be the first version, and
the changes may have been made by someone other than the original
author, or by an original author whose style had altered over time.
We can increase the chances of success by becoming thoroughly
familiar with the biography, style, and ability of the main playwrights who
were active during the primary focus years of my research, 1586-1593:
Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Lodge, John Lyly, Christopher
Marlowe, Anthony Munday, Thomas Nashe, George Peele, William
Shakespeare (a special case), and Robert Wilson. I have spent several
years endeavoring to do this, and have published a series of articles about
English Renaissance authorship attribution.5
We must also keep in mind the potential for deception. In a previous
book, The Mysterious Connection between Thomas Nashe, Thomas
Dekker, and T. M.: An English Renaissance Deception?, I presented
linguistic evidence that after pamphleteer, poet, and playwright Thomas
Nashe was banished from London by authorities, he reentered the city
under the name Thomas Dekker, and that after the Archbishop of
Canterbury banned him from all future publishing, Nashe pretended to die
and permanently assumed the new persona. I also presented linguistic
evidence that in addition to writing under the name Thomas Dekker,
Thomas Nashe published anonymously, wrote two pieces under the initials
T. M. (work heretofore believed to be by Thomas Middleton), and one
piece each under the names Adam Evesdropper, Jocundary Merry-brains,
Jack Daw and William Fennor, making it appear that several authors could
write in Nashes seemingly distinctive style.
I view Nashe and Dekker as one and the same author, but have
recorded their works separately on my List of Abbreviations to conform
to convention and lessen confusion. In the body of my text, I refer to this
author as Nashe, Dekker, and Nashe & Dekker.
Chapter One
We then choose methods to help us detect evidence of the hand of one

or more playwrights in a given play. Authorship attribution studies prior to
the second half of the 20th century centered around parallelssimilarities
of thought or expression between a work of known authorship and a work
whose authorship was in question. Unfortunately, some of the parallels
were common phrases, or untested to determine how uncommon they
were; claimed on the basis of an exceedingly small known body of work
by an author; or made due to commonplace similarities of thought. They
also failed to take into account the possibility of parody. Some of the most
skillful attributions based largely upon parallels have been quite
convincing, such as Donald J. McGinns finding that Thomas Nashe wrote
the anonymous An Almond for a Parrot, and G. D. Monsarrats argument
that John Ford wrote A Funeral Elegy by W. S.6 Others, including the
assignment of The Famous Victories of Henry V to Samuel Rowley, and
Edward III to Robert Wilson, were founded upon sand. 7
In the latter part of the 20th century, attention shifted to a stylometric
examination of texts for linguistic preferences (pish, ith, em),
contractions, and rare words within an authors canon. Researchers
including Cyrus Hoy and David J. Lake made great progress with 17th
century texts, helping to distinguish authorship of works in the Beaumont
and Fletcher folios, and to pin down which plays were written by Thomas
Middleton. The attribution of the 17th century Pericles to George Wilkins
and Shakespeare was aided by the fact that both the play and the texts used
to differentiate Wilkins were written close together in time. It was slower
going with 16th century plays, however, which exhibit fewer uncommon
linguistic preferences.
With the advent of computers, computational stylistics came to the
fore, with machines counting function words (and, but, in), lexical
words (conjunctions, pronouns, prepositions), or performing principal
components analysis derived from applied linear algebra, to find the most
frequent words and filter out the others. The results of such studies are, on
the whole, unconvincing. Sir Brian Vickers, a respected authority in the
field of authorship attribution who appreciates studies that pay attention to
language and directly engage with the text, wrote, Two independent
surveys [of computer-assisted attribution studies] by leading practitioners
have made the same diagnosisthat the discipline is in a permanent state
of confusion.8
Stylometric studies must be based on assumptions, including the
assumption that an author wrote all the words in the works that are
employed to establish his baseline vocabulary and linguistic preferences,
and that, for the purposes of such baselines, works written several years
Introduction
apart by the same author are treated identically. I was unwilling to make
such assumptions.
Instead, I gravitated back in the direction of parallels with a powerful,
new tool at my disposal: the searchable Early English Books Online-Text
Creation Partnership (EEBO) database. I employed it to develop two new
techniques: Matches/Near Matches and Rare Scattered Word Clusters.
Matches and Near Matches

Parallels in language between plays vary in quality. I sought to locate
occasions where linguistic repetition existed and was quite uncommon
with the help of EEBO, comprised of 32,863 full texts of works written
from 1472 to 1700 at the time of my study. It included most Elizabethan
and Jacobian-era plays plus non-dramatic works by playwrights, but did
not contain certain pieces by Nashe & Dekker or the manuscript play
Thomas of Woodstock.9 I examined these pieces via other electronic texts
and by hand, but for ease of expression, the term EEBO encompasses
them as well. MacDonald Jackson printed a valuable discussion regarding
use of this database, emphasizing the special care which must be taken to
search for unusual spellings, since texts are uploaded in their original
state.10 I have adopted the following EEBO terminology: fby.10 =
followed by, the second term follows within ten words of the first term;
near.20 = the second term occurs within twenty words either before or
after the first; and * = a placeholder for endings, such that wind* will
find winde, window, windmills, etc. The use of EEBO enabled me
to locate Matches and Near Matches.
When a word, phrase, or juxtaposition occurs in EEBO in two or more
works I posit to involve the hand of the same person, plus no more than
one additional occurrence within forty years of the known or approximate
date of authorship, it is called a Match. Near Matches are terms found
in such works plus no more than fifteen other pieces within the 32,863
texts of EEBO. Quotations in compilations or Restoration-era plays and
operas based on Renaissance-era plays are excluded. Matches and Near
Matches enable us to jettison the commonplace as evidence of
interconnections.
The similarities I discuss throughout the book occur in the works
EEBO editions, generally the first edition, and in the case of Shakespeare,
also the First Folio edition. I have chosen to quote the more popular plays
from modern editions because they provide act, scene and line numbering,
modern spelling and punctuation, and thoughtful emendations. In the case
of the Shakespeare canon, I quote from The Complete Works by William
Chapter One
Shakespeare, general editors Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, Oxford,

2005. Sometimes, however, this book provides an emendation that dilutes
or removes the linguistic similarity I wish to demonstrate. In such cases, I
quote from the W. J. Craig-edited The Complete Works of William
Shakespeare, Oxford, 1904 (1945 reprint), which sticks closer to the
Shakespeare First Folio version.
Matches and Near Matches in the Works of Marlowe

and Shakespeare
In The Mysterious Connection between Thomas Nashe, Thomas
Dekker, and T. M., I provided examples which showed that Thomas Nashe
repeated himself in ways that were uncommon, with word juxtapositions
that were Matches or Near Matches between two of his works. Christopher
Marlowe also echoed himself, as John Bakeless six pages of similarities
between Dido, Queen of Carthage and Marlowes other work testifies.11
While few of Bakeless examples are sufficiently uncommon to meet my
strict criteria, following are five Matches to illustrate the point. Words in
bold always denote my emphasis. Throughout this book, I also cite
instances where these Matches/Near Matches occur in dramatic or nondramatic works by other playwrights, so that we can ascertain the extent to
which the wording juxtaposition circulated within that group.
1. Dido: And clad her in a crystal livery (V.i.6); and 2T: And
clothe it in a crystal livery (I.iii.4)EEBO Match: Chrystal
livery*.
2. 2T: Fenced with the concave of a monstrous rock (III.ii.89); and
DF: Bred in the concave of some monstrous rock (Sc. x.79)
EEBO Match: Concave near.20 monstrous rock*.
3. E2: I cannot brook these haughty menaces (Sc. i.133); and MP:
I cannot brook thy haughty insolence (Sc. xix.57)EEBO
Match: Cannot brook fby.5 haughty.
4. LFB: As when against pine-bearing Ossas rocks (li. 390); and
HL: From steep pine-bearing mountains to the plain (Sestiad
I.116)EEBO Match: Pine-bearing.
5. E2: And still his mind runs on his minion (Sc. vi.4); and MP:
His mind, you see, runs on his minions (Sc. xiv.45)EEBO
Match: Run*/ran on fby.5 minion*.
Introduction
Shakespeare, too, echoed himself in uncommon ways. Below are five

Matches within the Shakespeare canon.
1. MV: Madam, you have bereft me of all words (III.ii.175); and
Tro.: You have bereft me of all words, lady (III.ii.53)EEBO
Match: Bereft me of all words.
2. Tro.: I have a womans longing,/ An appetite that I am sick
withal,/ To see great Hector in his weeds of peace (III.iii.230-2);
and WT: I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight/ I have a
womans longing (IV.iv.667-8)EEBO Match: I have a
womans longing.
3. Ant.: Kingdoms are clay. Our dungy earth alike/ Feeds beast as
man (I.i.37-8); and WT: Theres not a grain of it the face to
sweeten/ Of the whole dungy earth (II.i.157-8)EEBO Match:
Dungy earth.
4. 2H4: His tongue/ Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,/ Remembered
knolling a departing friend (I.i.101-3); and Son. 71: Than you
shall hear the surly sullen bell/ Give warning to the world that I am
fled (2-3)EEBO Match: Sullen bell*.
5. Ado: Ill tell thee what, Prince: a college of wit-crackers cannot
flout me out of my humour (V.iv.99-100); and AYL: Tis no
matter. Neer a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of
my calling (III.iii.96-8)EEBO Match: Flout me out of my.
As stated before, authors did copy each other, but a large number of
Matches/Near Matches between the work in question and a variety of
works by a known author is an important indication that the same hand
was involved. The Tamburlaine/Edmund Spenser parallels which I will
present in the next chapter fail this test. The parallels in Tamburlaine I and
II are to one work by Spenser, The Faerie Queene Books I-III, rather than
to a variety of Spensers work, evidencing Marlowes use of it as a source
rather than that Spenser (who was not a playwright and was living in
Ireland when Tamburlaine was produced) wrote the plays. Given that a
large number of Matches/Near Matches could be due to an intentional
parodyas I shall maintain is the case with The Taming of a Shrew and
Soliman and Persedaor an extreme case of one playwright intentionally
or unintentionally copying another, however, I will support them with
other authorship detection devices.
Chapter One
Rare Scattered Word Clusters

A Rare Scattered Word Cluster is two to four words or phrases that
occur within 100 words of each other in the two works identified plus no
more than one other time in EEBO, with at least one of the instances
spread out over three or more lines. The reason I stipulate that one of the
occurrences be spread out over at least three lines is to lessen the
likelihood that it was caused by one author copying another. A Rare
Scattered Word Cluster is a robust indication of a single mind at work. In
the example from Marlowes 1T and DF below, the phrase stars that
reigned at my nativity is already a Match between 1T and DF. What
cements the association, however, is that shared words nearby evince the
same thought process: hell, air, earth, and heaven.
1T:
Bajazeth. Fiends, look on me, and, thou dread god of hell,
With ebon sceptre strike this hateful earth
And make it swallow both of us at once!
Tamburlaine. Now clear the triple region of the air,
And let the majesty of heaven behold
Their scourge and terror tread on emperors.
Smile stars that reigned at my nativity (IV.ii.27-33)
DF:
Earth, gape! O, no, it will not harbour me.
You stars that reigned at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud,
That when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven. (Sc. xiv.85-92)
Following is another example of a Rare Scattered Word Cluster
between Marlowes E2 and HL for Goat foot*/feet* near.100 lawn*
near.100 nymph*, which also both contain satyrs, water, and sport*:
Introduction
E2:
Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;
My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,
Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay.
Sometime a lovely boy in Dians shape,
With hair that gilds the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,
And in his sportful hands an olive tree (Sc. 1.57-63)
HL:
That of the cooling river durst not drink,
Lest water-nymphs should pull him from the brink;
And when he sported in the fragrant lawns,
Goat-footed satyrs and up-staring fauns
Would steal him thence. (Sestiad II.197-201)
Other Tools
In this study I employ other tools, such as biographical connections,
logic, Strong Parallels, and Image Clusters. As Gary Taylor wrote,
Biographical evidence cannot often be found, but cannot easily be
dismissed when present.12 In some of the works that follow, I will explore
connections to Christopher Marlowes life and family. I will also use
logic, particularly when discussing parallel passages from Edmund
Spencers The Faerie Queene in Tamburlaine, Caesars Revenge, and
Titus Andronicus.
Another tool, the Strong Parallel, consists of two or more passages that
do not contain Matches or Near Matches but possess sufficient points in
common to be worthy of note. I cite only a small number of high quality
ones. Compare, for example, Shakespeares Rom.: O serpent heart hid
with a flowring face! (III.ii.73) to 3H6: O tigers heart wrapped in a
womans hide! (I.iv.138, True Tragedy B2v). Only the word heart
recurs, but each is an exclamatory sentence beginning with O followed
by an adjective, noun, verb, preposition, article, adjective, and noun. Note
also Luc.: O rash false heat, wrapped in repentant cold (48); and a
decade later, Oth.: O perjured woman! Thou dost stone my heart
(V.ii.68). Marlowes earlier Dido contains O love! O hate! O cruel
womens hearts (III.iii.66).
Chapter One
10
Certain playwrights minds operated via Image Clusters, according to

Caroline Spurgeon in Shakespeares Imagery. For example, in the
following series (not reported in Spurgeons book), Shakespeare
associated a hot horse with running, then stopping:
1H4:
Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,
Meet and neer part till one drop down a corpse (IV.i.123-4)
H8:
Anger is like
A full-hot horse, who being allowed his way,
Self-mettle tires him. (I.i.132-4)
TNK:
The hot horse, hot as fire
Took toy at this and fell to what disorder
His power could give his will; bounds; comes on end; (V.vi.65-7)
Corresponding Image Clusters in two different plays are another
potential indication that the same author was involved in both, when used
in combination with other identification tools.
Nashe and Dekker and Marlowe and Shakespeare

Thomas Nashe has been difficult to characterize as a playwright
because only two plays were published under his name, and one of them,
Dido, Queen of Carthage, by both Nashe and Marlowe according to the
title page, displays only Marlowes writing style. The other, Summers
Last Will and Testament, wr. 1592, was an experimental show (the
prologue tells us tis no play neither, but a show) with anthropomorphized
seasons and no character development or dramatic arc. I concur with
others who believe Nashe was not involved in the writing of Dido and, at
most, may have helped edit it.13 Meanwhile, Summer yields few clues as to
what Nashe might have been capable of in terms of more conventional
playwrighting.
A bigger help is the prose humor in Doctor Faustus, which Paul
Kocher and myself have argued was by Nashe (see Appendix A). Here we
Introduction
11
experience Nashes comedic style in the dialogue of the servants, the

presentation of the seven deadly sins, and the mocking of the pope. I also
find Nashes voice in The Jew of Malta (JM) IV.ii, IV.iii, and IV.iv (see
Appendix B). Like DF, JM bore only Marlowes name on the title page,
and like DF, it contains clowning that appears to be at odds with
Marlowes prevalent style. In addition, various scholars believe Nashe had
a hand in I Henry VI, Act I. 14 Although Marlowe may have written the
beginning of I.i, the bulk of Act I enables us to listen to a more serious
side of Nashes dramatic writing.
My finding that Nashe assumed the identity of Thomas Dekker gives
us a great deal more to go on. Dekker had a hand in over sixty extant
works, including more than two dozen plays and pageants. Although
works by the same author written during the same time period tend to
display the greatest number of linguistic connections, and Dekkers plays
were written later than those examined in the current book, ties are
nevertheless evident.
J. J. M. Tobin maintained that Shakespeare knew his Nashe almost as
well as his Bible and has documented a remarkable number of parallels
between Nashes writings and Shakespeare plays.15 Meanwhile, F. P.
Wilson noted: You get many reminiscences of Shakespeare in Dekker.16
I propose the reason for these phenomena is that Nashe and Dekker were
one and the same author, who sometimes co-wrote plays by Shakespeare
with Christopher Marlowe.
As for Marlowe and Shakespeare, Azar Hussain remarked,
Shakespeares literary debt to Marlowe is evident throughout his plays
and poems. At times the two men appear as shadows of each other, literary
doppelgangers.17 A whole cottage industry has sprung up among scholars
who have written articles and books comparing Marlowe and
Shakespeare.18 Robert Logans recent tome, Shakespeares Marlowe,
found Marlowes influence in twenty works by the Bard.19 The linguistic
connections are strongest in Shakespeares earlier plays, but continue to
pop up in later ones. According to A. L. Rowse, [Marlowes] was the
originating genius. William Shakespeare never forgot him: in his
penultimate, valedictory play, The Tempest, he is still echoing Marlowes
phrases.20
The documentation for Shakespeares literary career began when he
was 29 years old, about two weeks after Marlowes supposed death on
May 30, 1593, when Shakespeares name appeared on the dedication page
of the poem Venus and Adonis, which had previously been registered
anonymously.21 As A. D. Wraight noted, the title page contains the first
two lines in Latin of Book 1 Elegy XV from Ovids Amores, which
12
Chapter One
Marlowe translated. The last two lines of this particular Elegy read,
according to Marlowes translation: Then though death rakes my bones in
funeral fire,/ Ill live, and as he pulls me down mount higher.22 She
viewed the inclusion of the quote from Elegy XV as a subtle clue that
Marlowe died, but lived.
Marlowe had been arrested on charges of heresy, and was let out on his
own recognizance while his enemy, Richard Baines, collected evidence
against him. Just before Marlowe was about to be imprisoned, certainly
tortured, and probably executed, as heretics Henry Barrow, John
Greenwood, and John Penry had been during the previous two months,
Marlowe died in a fight over a bill for a meal at Eleanor Bulls house. A
group of people who call themselves Marlovians believe that Marlowe
faked his own death, and continued to write using someone from Stratfordupon-Avon named Shakspere (according to the spelling on his baptismal
and burial records) as a front man to submit his work. I shall call this man
Shakspere, and use the name Shakespeare to designate the author(s) of
the canon of work traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare. My
research supports the Marlovian theory, although mine is a hybrid version
that proposes occurrences of co-authorship by Nashe.
This book employs Matches/Near Matches, Rare Scattered Word
Clusters, Image Clusters, Strong Parallels, biographical connections, and
logic to advance the theories that Christopher Marlowe wrote the
anonymous plays Caesars Revenge, The True Tragedy of Richard Duke
of York and its revision, III Henry VI, and Edward III. It maintains that
Marlowe co-authored Titus Andronicus with George Peele. It also finds
that Marlowe and Thomas Nashe co-authored The Taming of a Shrew,
Thomas of Woodstock, and The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the
Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster, while Marlowe, with or
without Nashe, rewrote The Contention as II Henry VI. It identifies
Marlowe and Nashe as co-authors of Romeo and Juliet and I Henry IV.
We shall begin by discussing the anonymous play Caesars Revenge,
c. 1586-7, which exhibits linguistic evidence of a Marlowe-Shakespeare
continuum that tilts strongly toward Marlowe in his early Tamburlaine
period, writing heavily under the influence of Edmund Spensers The
Faerie Queene. The Taming of a Shrew, an anonymous play I view to have
been written by Marlowe and Nashe for Marlowes sisters wedding in
June, 1590, parodies and repudiates his previous ornate style. The
Shakespeare connections grow stronger in the c. 1590 and First Folio
editions of II and III Henry VI, but these plays are more tightly bound to
Marlowe on a linguistic basis.
Introduction
13
The Marlowe-Shakespeare continuum tilts toward Shakespeare in

Edward III, a work I will claim was first written as of March, 1591, then
later revised before 1595 by the same playwright, and the Shakespeare
portions of Titus Andronicus, c. 1591-3, that nevertheless display
remarkable ties to Marlowe. Indeed, a line in Titus Andronicus remembers
the first half of a line in Spensers 606-page The Fairie Queene, while
Marlowes I Tamburlaine remembers the second half of the same line. In
the later plays Romeo and Juliet and I Henry IV, the continuum in terms of
dazzling ability tilts decidedly toward Shakespeare, although ties to
Marlowe, while fainter, are still evident. In these particular plays, the
connections to Nashe, in works under his own name as well as ones
attributed to Dekker, are strong and plentiful (see Table 1).23
Notes
1
Apology Concerning the Earl of Essex in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James
Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denan Heath (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:
F. Frommann Verlag G. Holzboog, 1961-63), vol. 10, 149-50.
2
Thomas Nashe, Strange News (London, 1592), C4v.
3
Donna N. Murphy, The Cobbler of Canterbury and Robert Greene, Notes &
Queries 57 (2010): 349-52.
4
Regarding Shakespeare, see Brian Vickers, Shakespeare, Co-Author (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002).
5
Donna N. Murphy, Jack Straw and George Peele, Notes & Queries 59 (2012):
513-8; Notes & Queries, George a Greene and Robert Greene, Notes & Queries
59 (2012): 53-8; Look Up and See Wonders and Thomas Dekker, Notes &
Queries 59 (2012): 101-4; Two Dangerous Comets and Thomas Nashe, Notes &
Queries 58 (2011): 219-23; The Repentance of Robert Greene, Greenes
Groatsworth of Wit, and Robert Greene, Notes & Queries 58 (2011): 223-230;
Locrine, Selimus, Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge, Notes & Queries 56
(2009): 559-64; and The Date and Co-Authorship of Doctor Faustus, Cahiers
lisabthains 75 (2009): 43-4.
6
Donald J. McGinn, Nashes Share in the Marprelate Controversy, Publications
of the Modern Language Association of America 59 (1944): 952-84; and G. D.
Monsarrat, A Funeral Elegy: Ford, W.S., and Shakespeare, The Review of
English Studies 53 (2002): 186-203.
7
For Samuel Rowley as the author of The Famous Victories of Henry V, see H.
Dugdale Sykes, Sidelights to the Elizabethan Drama (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1924), 49-78; for Robert Wilson and Edward III, see S. R. Golding, The
Authorship of Edward III, Notes & Queries 154 (1928): 313-5. As an example,
belly god*, which S. R. Golding viewed as an indication that Robert Wilson
wrote both The Cobblers Prophecy and Edward III, appears over 270 times in preRestoration (pre-1660) EEBO.
14
Chapter One
Brian Vickers, Shakespeare and Authorship Studies in the Twenty-First

Century, Shakespeare Quarterly 62 (2011): 106-42, 114.
9
Following are non-EEBO searchable works examined by other means. Attributed
to Marlowe and Nashe: Thomas of Woodstock. Those I attribute in whole or part to
Thomas Dekker: Troia-Nova Triumphans; Father Hubburds Tales; Londons
Tempe; Villainies Discovered by Lantern and Candlelight; English Villainies; The
Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets; Sir Thomas Overbury his Wife, prison
characters; The Welsh Embassador; The Compters Commonwealth; and Essays
and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners, second 1618 edition (the first edition is
EEBO searchable under the author G. M. and title Certaine Characters and
Essayes of Prison and Prisoners). Attributed to Thomas Nashe: Lenten Stuff;
Fearful and Lamentable Effects of Two Dangerous Comets; and The Choice of
Valentines.
10
MacDonald Jackson, Defining ShakespearePericles as Test Case (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003), 196-7. I made use of EEBOs variant spelling
option, supplemented by various spellings listed in the OED. Sources of error this
technique cannot account for are occasions when EEBOs software was unable to
read complete words and added placeholders, such that, for example, awkwarde
might become akwarde; typos in the original, e.g. ankward; and missing
pages in EEBOs searchable copies.
11
John Bakeless, The Tragicall History of Christopher Marlowe (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1942), vol. 2, 49-54.
12
Gary Taylor, The Canon and Chronology of Shakespeares Plays, in Stanley
Wells and Gary Taylor, William Shakespeare. A Textual Companion (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1987), 77.
13
On Nashes lack of involvement in writing Dido, see Thomas Nashe, The Works
of Thomas Nashe, ed. Ronald B. McKerrow (London: A. H. Bullen, 1904-10), vol.
4, 295; Frederick S. Boas, Christopher Marlowe: A Biographical and Critical
Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), 49-50; and Charles Nicholl, A Cup of
News: The Life of Thomas Nashe (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), 170.
14
Regarding Nashes hand in 1H6, see Brian Vickers, Incomplete Shakespeare:
Or, Denying Coauthorship in 1 Henry VI, Shakespeare Quarterly 58 (2007): 31152.
15
Quote from J. J. M. Tobin, More Evidence for a 1594 Titus, Notes & Queries
49 (2002): 222. For similarities between the works of Nashe and Shakespeare, see
J. J. M. Tobin, Shakespeare, Nashe and Sir Thomas More, Notes & Queries 53
(2006): 59-62; J. J. M. Tobin, Another Psalm for Falstaff, Notes & Queries 51
(2004): 283-4; J. J. M. Tobin, Lears Howling, Again, Notes & Queries 51
(2004): 287-9; J. J. M. Tobin, Dr. Pinch and Gabriel Harvey, Notes & Queries
50 (2003): 23-5; J. J. M. Tobin, Have With You to Athens Wood, Notes &
Queries 50 (2003): 32-5; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and Iago, Notes & Queries 50
(2003): 47-50; J. J. M. Tobin, How Drunken was Barnardine? Notes & Queries
50 (2003): 46-7; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and a Crux in Measure for Measure,
Notes & Queries 48 (2001): 264-6; J. J. M. Tobin, A Touch of Greene, Much
Nashe, and all Shakespeare, in Thomas A. Pendleton, Henry VI: Critical Essays
Introduction
15
(NY: Routledge, 2001), 39-56; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and Some Shakespearean

Sonnets, Notes & Queries 46 (1999): 222-6; J. J. M. Tobin, Justice for Fleay,
Notes & Queries 46 (1999): 230-1; J. J. M. Tobin, Antony, Brutus and Christs
Tears Over Jerusalem, Notes & Queries 45 (1998): 324-31; J. J. M. Tobin,
Nashe and Shakespeare: Some Further Borrowings, Notes & Queries 39 (1992):
309-320; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and Measure for Measure, Notes & Queries 33
(1986): 360; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and Richard II, American Notes & Queries
24 (1985): 5-7; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and JC, Notes & Queries 32 (1985): 4734; J. J. M. Tobin, More on Nothing, Notes & Queries 32 (1985): 479-80; J. J. M.
Tobin, Nashe and Othello, Notes & Queries 31 (1984): 202-3; J. J. M. Tobin,
More Elements from Nashe, Hamlet Studies 5 (1983): 55-4; J. J. M. Tobin,
Hamlet and Salary, Notes & Queries 30 (1983): 125-6; J. J. M. Tobin Nashe
and Richard III, Notes & Queries 29 (1982): 112-3; J. J. M. Tobin, Hamlet and
Nashes Lenten Stuffe, Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen und
Literaturen 219 (1982): 388-95; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and The Two Gentlemen
of Verona, Notes & Queries 28 (1981): 122-3; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and
Hamlet Yet Again, Hamlet Studies 2 (1980): 35-46; J. J. M. Tobin, Gabriel
Harvey in Illyria, English Studies 61 (1980): 318-28; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and
As You Like It, Notes & Queries 223 (1978); A. Davenport, Shakespeare and
Nashes Pierce Penilesse, Notes & Queries 1953: 371-4; and G. Blakemore
Evans, Thomas Nashe and the Dram of Eale, Notes & Queries 1953: 377-8.
See also works on Nashe and Shakespeare cited in the footnotes of my discussions
of Rom. and 1H4. I must emphasize that a few parallels do not an attribution make,
and each play should be examined individually in detail for evidence that Nashe
co-authored it.
16
John Monro, More Shakspere Allusions, Modern Philology 13 (1916): 497544, 509.
17
Azar Hussain, The Reckoning and the Three Deaths of Christopher Marlowe,
Notes & Queries 56 (2009): 547-8.
18
Some of the works that compare Marlowe and Shakespeare are: Lucy Potter,
Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Fortunes of Catharsis, in Rapt in Secret
Studies: Emerging Shakespeares, ed. Darryl Chalk and Laurie Johnson
(Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 287-303; Meredith
Skura, What Shakespeare Did to Marlowe in Private: Dido, Faustus, and
Bottom, in Christopher Marlowe the Craftsman, ed. Sarah K. Scott and M. L.
Stapleton (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010); Jane Blanchard, Marlowes and
Shakespeares Late Masterpieces: Such Stuff / As Dreams are Made On, South
Atlantic Review 74 (2009): 165-80; David Bevington, Christopher Marlowe: The
Late Years, in Placing the Plays of Christopher Marlowe. Fresh Cultural
Contexts, ed. Sarah Munson Deats and Robert A. Logan (Burlington, VT: Ashgate,
2008): 209-224; Contance Brown Kuriyama, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and the
Theoretically Irrelevant Author, in Placing the Plays of Christopher Marlowe,
185-192; Robert A. Logan, Glutted with Conceit: Imprints of Doctor Faustus on
The Tempest, in Placing the Plays of Christopher Marlowe, 193-208; Lisa
Hopkins, The Cultural Uses of the Caesars on the English Renaissance Stage
16
Chapter One
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 55-77 on Tamburlaine and Julius Caesar;

Thomas Healy, Shakespeare and Marlowe, in The Oxford Handbook of
Literature and Theology, ed. Andrew Hass, David Jasper, and Elisabeth Jay
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 382-97; Anthony B. Dawson, Priamus
is Dead: Memorial Repetition in Marlowe and Shakespeare, in Shakespeare,
Memory and Performance, ed. Peter Holland (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), 63-84; Eric C. Brown, Shakespeares Anxious Epistemology:
Loves Labors Lost and Marlowes Doctor Faustus, Texas Studies in Literature
and Language 45 (2003): 20-41; Thomas Merriam, Marlowe in Henry V. A Crisis
in Shakespearean Identity? (Oxford: Oxquarry Books, 2002); Murray J. Levith,
Shakespeares Merchant and Marlowes Other Play in The Merchant of Venice:
New Critical Essays, ed. John W. Mahon and Ellen Macleod Mahon (New York:
Routledge, 2002), 95-106; Thomas Merriam, Faustian Joan, Notes & Queries 49
(2002): 218-20; Maurice Charney, Marlowes Hero and Leander Shows
Shakespeare, in Venus and Adonis, How to Write an Ovidean Verse Epyllion, in
Marlowes Empery: Expanding His Critical Contexts, ed. Sara Munson Deats and
Robert A. Logan (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2002), 85-94; Dorothea
Kehler, Shakespeares Recollections of Marlowes Dido, Queen of Carthage:
Two Notes, American Notes & Queries 14 (2001): 5-10; David Lucking, Our
Devils Now Are Ended: A Comparative Analysis of The Tempest and Doctor
Faustus, The Dalhousie Review 80 (2000): 151-67; Maurice Charney, Marlowe
and Shakespeares African Queens, Shakespearean Illuminations. Essays in
Honor of Marvin Rosenberg (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1998), 242-52;
Maurice Charney, The Voice of Marlowes Tamburlaine in Early Shakespeare,
Comparative Drama 31 (1997): 213-23; Meredith Skura, Marlowes Edward II:
Penetrating Language in Shakespeares Richard II, Shakespearae Survey 50
(1997): 41-55; Jonathan Bate, Marlowes Ghost, in Bates The Genius of
Shakespeare (London: Macmillan Publishers, Ltd., 1997), 101-32; M. L. Stapleton,
After That I Loathe, I Runne; Shakespeares Sonnets 127-54 and Marlowes All
Ovids Elegies, in Stapletons Harmful Eloquence: Ovids Amores from Antiquity
to Shakespeare (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 133-53;
Thomas Merriam, Tamburlaine Stalks in Henry VI, Computers and the
Humanities 30 (1996): 267-80; Maurice Charney, Marlowes Edward II as Model
for Shakespeares Richard II, Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 33
(1994): 31-41; Thomas Merriam, Neural Computation in Stylometry II: An
Application to the Works of Shakespeare and Marlowe, Literary and Linguistic
Computing 9 (1994): 1-6; Emily C. Bartels, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and the
Revision of Stereotypes, Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 32
(1993): 13-26; James Shapiro, Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); Robert P. Merrix and Carole
Levin, Richard II and Edward II: The Structure of Deposition, Shakespeare
Yearbook 1990, vol. 1: 1-13; Kenneth Muir, Marlowe and Shakespeare, in A
Poet and a Filthy Play-maker: New Essays on Christopher Marlowe, ed. Kenneth
Friendenreich, Roma Gill, and Constance B. Kuriyama (New York: AMS Press,
1988): 1-12; Jean MacIntyre, Faustus and the Later Shakespeare, Cahiers
Introduction
17
lisabthains 29 (1986): 27-37; Lawrence Danson, Continuity and Character in

Shakespeare and Marlowe, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 26 (1986):
217-234; M. C. Bradbrook, Shakespeares Recollections of Marlowe, in Essays
in Honour of Kenneth Muir, ed. Philip Edwards, Inga-Stina Ewbank, and G. K.
Hunter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980) 191-204; Marjorie Garber,
Marlovian Vision/Shakespearean Revision, Research Opportunities in
Renaissance Drama 22 (1979): 3-9; Harriet Hawkins, If this be Error:
Imagination and Truth in Shakespeare and Marlowe, in Hawkins Poetic Freedom
and Poetic Truth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976): 78-104; Roy Battenhouse, The
Relation of Henry V to Tamburlaine, Shakespeare Survey 27 (1974): 71-9;
Wolfgang Clemen, Shakespeare and Marlowe, in Shakespeare 1971, ed. Clifford
Leech and J. M. R. Margeson (Toronto: Unversity of Toronto Press, 1972), 12332; Irving Ribner, Barabas and Shylock, in Christopher Marlowes The Jew of
Malta: Text and Major Criticism, ed. Irving Ribner (New York: The Odyssey
Press, 1970), 157-62; Michael Manheim, The Weak King History Play of the
Early 1590s, Renaissance Drama n.s. II, 1969: 71-80; Glynne Wickham,
Shakespeares King Richard II and Marlowes King Edward II, in Wickhams
Shakespeares Dramatic Heritage (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969): 16579; Robert Egan, A Muse of Fire: Henry V in the Light of Tamburlaine, Modern
Language Quarterly 29 (1968): 15-28; Harold Brooks, Marlowe and Early
Shakespeare, in Christopher Marlowe, ed. Brian Morris (NY: Hill and Wang,
1968), 67-94; Brian Gibbons, Unstable Proteus: Marlowes The Tragedy of Dido
Queen of Carthage, in Christopher Marlowe, 27-46; Nicholas Brooke, Marlowe
as Provocative Agent in Shakespeares Early Plays, Shakespeare Survey 14
(1961): 34-44; Thomas P. Harrison, Shakespeare and Marlowes Dido, Queen of
Carthage, The University of Texas Studies in English 35 (1956): 57-63; and F. P.
Wilson, Marlowe and Early Shakespeare (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953).
19
Robert Logan, Shakespeares Marlowe (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing
Co., 2007), 8.
20
A. L. Rowse, Shakespeare: The Man, 1973, quoted in Daryl Pinksen, Marlowes
Ghost (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse.com, 2008), 7. Pinksen lists quotes by fourteen
scholars remarking upon the close relationship between Marlowe and Shakespeare.
21
Venus and Adonis was entered in the Stationers Register with no authors name
associated on April 18, 1593. I do not include Robert Greenes reference to
Shake-scene in his pamphlet Greenes Groatsworth of Wit, 1592 for reasons
discussed in my chapter on True Tragedy/3H6.
22
Wraight made the point about Elegy XV in A.D. Wraight, The Story That The
Sonnets Tell (London: Adam Hart, 1994), 8, 489. For comparison purposes,
Showermans translation of ergo etiam cum me supremus adederit ignis,/ vivam,
parsque mei multa superstes erit is I, too, when the final fires have eaten up my
frame, shall still live on, and the great part of me survive my death. Ovid.
Heroides and Amores, tr. Grant Showerman (London: William Heinemann, 1931),
378-9.
23
The Mysterious Connection between Thomas Nashe, Thomas Dekker, and T. M.
An English Renaissance Deception? proposes that Nashe published material
18
Chapter One
anonymously and under the names Thomas Dekker, T. M., Adam

Evesdropper, Jocundary Merry-brains, Jack Daw, William Fennor,
Geffray Mynshul, and Sir Thomas Overbury, and made small, unattributed
contributions to the plays No Wit, No Help Like a Womans which has been soley
attributed to Thomas Middleton, and Every Man in his Humor, previously solely
attributed to Ben Jonson.
CHAPTER TWO
CAESARS REVENGE
The Tragedie of Caesar and Pompey or Caesars Revenge, usually

known as Caesars Revenge (CR), was entered into the Stationers
Register for John Wright and Nathaniel Fossbrooke June 5, 1606, and
printed in 1607 with no authors name attached. It also appeared in an
undated quarto printed by G[eorge] E[ld]. Because the 1607 quarto listed
Wrights and Fossbrookes names as publishers, and the second only
Wright, T. M. Parrot proposed that the undated quarto appeared later, after
Fossbrooke presumably sold his rights to Wright.1 The title page of the
dated edition states: Privately acted by the Students of Trinity College in
Oxford. Scholars place the composition of CR in the 1590s, prior to
Shakespeares Julius Caesar, due to its writing style and echoes of The
Fairie Queene, plus plays which were popular at that time. Only 2.3
percent of its lines have feminine endings (lines with eleven syllables
instead of ten), another indication that CR is an early play.2
The action in CR begins just after Caesar has defeated Pompey; the
two are in different locations and share no scenes together. Both Pompey
and his wife are dead by the end of II.ii, Caesar is murdered in Act III, and
his vengeful ghost appears in Act IV. All of this fits the second part of the
title The Tragedie of Caesar and Pompey or Caesars Revenge better than
the first. Might it have been the second part of a two-part play? A drama
listed in Henslowes Diary as The 2 Pte of sesore was acted once by the
Admirals Men on June 18, 1595, the same company that acted a piece
called Seser and Pompie on November 8, 1594 and in 1595 and 1596.
Well never know, because Caesar and Pompey were popular subjects
for drama. As Parrot pointed out, Julyus Sesar was performed at Court in
1562; The Storie of Pompey entertained Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall in
1581; a Latin drama on the death of Caesar was played at Christ Church,
Oxford in 1582; Stephen Gosson mentioned The History of Caesar and
Pompey in 1582; the Bard wrote his Julius Caesar c. 1599; Henslowe paid
for the lost Sesers Ffalle in 1602; while Sir William Alexander penned The
Tragedy of Julius Caesar, and George Chapman Caesar and Pompey,
early in the 17th century.
Chapter Two
20
CRs author had read Plutarchs Lives of the Noble Greeks and
Romans, but based his play mainly upon Appians Ancient History and
Exquisite Chronicle of the Romans Wars, and Lucans Pharsalia, an epic
poem about the civil war between Julius Caesar, and Pompey, the first
book of which Marlowe translated.3 It is not known when Marlowe
performed this translation, but because I have found relatively few
Matches/Near Matches to the rest of his work, I would tend to place it at
the beginning of Marlowes canon. Clifford Ronan maintained that [N]o
authors plays are more Romanized than Marlowes, a corpus marked by
what Knolls calls Caesarism.4 Ronan noted, for example, that in MP the
Guise planned to lead the king in a Roman triumph5: As ancient
Romans over their captive lords,/ So will I triumph over this wanton king/
And he shall follow my proud chariots wheels (Sc. xxi.51-3). Similar
language appears in E2: I think myself as great/ As Caesar riding in the
Roman street,/ With captive kings at his triumphant car (Sc. i.171-3).
Marlowes Caesarism extends back to Tamburlaine, as evidenced by
1T: Both we will reign as consuls of the earth/ And mighty kings shall be
our senators (I.ii.197-8); the famous catch-phrase in 1T: And ride in
triumph through Persepolis (II.v.49); and Tamburlaines decision to yoke
his captive kings to his chariot in 2T so he can ride in triumph through the
camp (III.v.150, IV.iii). Lisa Hopkins wrote, Marlowes conception of
Tamburlaine is clearly partly Caesarian in origin.6 I propose that CR
represents a bridge between Lucan and Tamburlaine: a play about Caesar
by Marlowe that he then echoedCR: But Pompey was by envious
heauens reserud,/ Captiue to followe Caesars Chariot wheeles/ Riding in
triumph to the Capitol, and Now Caesar rides triumphantly through
Rome (I.i.115-7 and III.Chorus.1146).
Chronology
Robert Greene wrote a play called Orlando Furioso, based upon
Ludovico Ariostos Italian poem of the same name. Greenes drama
contains what I propose to be a spoof of CR.
Compare CR:
Vpon her face a garden of delite,
Exceeding fair Adonis fayned Bowre,
Heere staind white Lyllies spread their branches faire,
Heere lips send forth sweete Gilly-flowers smell.
And Damasck-rose in her faire cheekes do bud,
Caesars Revenge
21
While beds of Violets still come betweene

With fresh varyety to please the eye,
Nor neede these flowers the heate of Phoebus beames,
They cherisht are by virtue of her eyes. (I.vi.586-594)
To Orlando Furioso:
Orlando. Are not these the beauteous cheeks,
Wherein the Lillie and the natiue Rose
Sits equall suted with a blushing red?
Clown. He makes a garden plot in my face.
Orlando. Are not, my dere, those radient eyes,
Whereout proud Phoebus flasheth out his beames?
Clown. Yes, yes, with squibs and crackers brauely. (III.ii.971-77)7
Although the lily and rose imagery is common enough, the specific
association between a face and a garden, and between eyes and Phoebus
beams in both works, combined with the jocular tone of the clowns
speech in Orlando Furioso, lead me to conclude that Orlando was
parodying CR. Note also that in CR, Cassius helps to plot and carry out
Caesars murder, while Orlando contains: He knows the Countie, (like to
Cassius,)/ Sits sadly dumping, ayming Caesars death/ Yet crying Aue to
his Maiestie (II.i.429-31). Lastly, Greene, an imitative writer, may have
picked up Orlando: He, my Lord, runs madding through the woods
(II.i.722) from CR: Marsruns madding through Pharsalias purple
fieldes (Chorus I. 2-3).
If I am correct about the parody, Greenes work can help us date CR.
Orlando was printed in 1594 as it was played before the Queenes
Maiestie, and penned between July 1588it alludes to Englands victory
over the Spanish Armadaand February 21, 1592, when it was played by
the Admirals and Lord Stranges Men in Henslowes theater. The Defense
of Conny-Catching, 1592, stated that Greene sold Orlando first to the
Queens Men, and was then paid again upon selling it to the Admirals.8
John Clark Jordan thought Orlando would have been acted during the
year following the Armada victory, and favored the companys court
performance on December 26, 1588 as the most likely date, while W. W.
Greg thought that Greene composed Orlando in 1591 on the basis of the
fact that he called the villain Sacrapant rather than Sacripante as in
Ariostos original.9 Sacrapant is the spelling in John Haringtons
translation of Ariostos Orlando Furioso published in 1591. Greene might,
however, have taken the spelling from Sacrapant, a king of Lybia
22
Chapter Two
mentioned in his Perimedes the Blacke-Smith (1588 edn, G3v-G4r). His

play does not otherwise evidence any indication that Greene read
Haringtons translation, according to J. Churton Collins, which would tend
to support the view that Orlando Furioso was penned prior to1591.10
CR contains the phrase for to 30 times within its 2570 lines,
probably because it appears over eighty times in The Faerie Queene,
which CR studiously echoes; within CR, the phrase is relatively
unobtrusive. The two other known over-concentrations of for to in
contemporary plays are 68 times in the 1941 lines of Greenes Alphonsus,
King of Aragon, c. 1587, written in poor imitation of Tamburlaine; and 44
times in the 2664 lines of the anonymous King Leir, c. 1590-94. In both of
these plays, the appearance of for to is often glaring. Greene seemed to
associate excessive use of for to with plays only. In his myriad lengthy
pamphlets, the phrase usually appears between one to three times each,
and in only two works does it occur more than five times: Mourning
Garment, 8 times; and A Maidens Dream, 7 times. For to is found, on
the other hand, more than five times in five other plays associated with
Greene: James IV, 13 times; Selimus, 13 times; Friar Bacon and Friar
Bungay, 12 times; A Looking Glass for London and England, 9 times; and
George a Green, 9 times.
It seems to me the most likely reason Greene included for to so often
in Alphonsus is that he heard it in someone elses play. Might that play
have been CR? Indeed, it is possible that Alphonsus: Ghosts which
wander round about the Stigian fieldes (II.i.393-4) is an echo of CR:
[Caesars] ghost, that now sits wandring by the Stygian bankes
(II.iii.802-3); that Alphonsus: Drummes with dub a dub (IV.iii.1430)
echoes CR: Thy dubbing drum (III.Chorus. 1150); and that Alphonsus:
With such a train as Iulius Caesar came/ To noble Rome (I.i.164-5) is a
remembrance of Caesars triumphant entrance in III.ii of CR. If we posit
that this was the case, then CRs terminus ad quem becomes c. 1587.
CR, The Faerie Queene, and Tamburlaine

We know that Marlowe viewed The Faerie Queene (FQ) in manuscript
because he repeated phrases from it in 1T and 2T, c. 1587. A stanza from
FQ also appeared in a 1588 work by Abraham Fraunce; he and Marlowe
are the only two authors known to have incorporated it into their work
prior to its publication in 1590 (Spenser included a letter dated January 23,
1590 in FQ, and FQs title page specifies the year 1590). A. C. Judson
speculated that Lodowick Brysketta friend of Spensertook a copy of
the manuscript from Ireland where he and Spenser resided, to England,
Caesars Revenge
23
where Bryskett was known to have been located during the summer of
1587. Steven W. May thought that Spenser sent his manuscript to England
in the summer of 1586 due to a sonnet he addressed to his friend Gabriel
Harvey from Dublin dated July 19, 1586, which Harvey printed in Foure
Letters and Certain Sonnets. May proposed that this sonnet accompanied
The Faerie Queene manuscript, and that Marlowes access to it may have
been via Harvey, the two both then resident at Cambridge University.11
Following are close parallels between 1T, 2T, and The Faerie Queene,
Books I-III (neither Tamburlaine nor CR parallels Books IV-VI, which
were published in 1596). 12
Marlowes Tamburlaine
Spensers The Faerie Queene
1. Jove sometimes maskd in a

shepherds weed (1T I.ii.199)
1. Lo I the man, whose Muse

whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly
Shepheards weeds (Proem I)
2. Well, lovely boys, you shall be

emperors both,
Stretching your conquering arms
from east to west (2T I.iii.96-7)
2. Their scepters stretcht from East

to Westerne shore (Book I Canto 1
Stanza 5)
3. When all the gods stand gazing at

his pomp,
So will I ride through Samarcanda
streets (2T IV.iii.129-30)
3. The Gods stand gazing on,

when she does ride
To Ioues high house through
heauens bras-paued way (I.4.17)
4. Then let the stony dart of

senseless cold
Pierce through the centre of my
withered heart
And make a passage for my loathd
life! (1T V.i.302-4)
4. Now let the stony dart of

senselesse cold
Perce to my hart, and pas through
euery side,
And let eternall night so sad sight
fro me hide. (I.7.22)
5. Spangled with diamonds dancing

in the air,
To note me emperor of the threefold
world,
Like to an almond tree y-mounted
high
Upon the lofty and celestial mount
5. Did shake, and seemd to

daunce for iollity,
Like to an Almond tree ymounted
hye
On top of greene Selinis all alone,
With blossoms braue bedecked
daintily;
24
Chapter Two
Of ever-green Selinus, quaintly

decked
With blooms more white than
Erycinas brows,
Whose tender blossoms tremble
every one
At every little breath that thorough
heaven is blown (2T IV.iii.117-24)
Her tender locks do tremble euery

one
At euery little breath, that vnder
heauen is blowne. (I.7.32)
6. For all the wealth of Gihons

golden waves (1T V.1.123)
6. And Gehons golden waues doe

wash continually (I.7.43)
7. Enrolled in flames and fiery

smouldering mists. (1T II.iii.20)
7. Enrold in flames,
smouldring dreriment (I.8.9)
8. Ill make ye roar, that earth may

echo forth
The far-resounding torments ye
sustain,
As when an herd of lusty Cymbrian
bulls
Run mourning round about the
females miss,
And, stung with fury of their
following,
Fill all the air with troublous
bellowing. (2T IV.i.186-91)
8. He loudly brayd with beastly

yelling sound,
That all the fields rebellowed
againe;
As great a noyse, as when in
Cymbrian plaine
An heard of Bulles, whom kindly
rage doth sting,
Do for the milkie mothers want
complaine,
And fill the fields with troublous
bellowing. (I.8.11)
9. Behold my swordwhat see you

at the point?...
For there sits Death, there sits
imperious Death...
He [Death] now is seated on my
horsemens spears (1T V.i.108, 111,
114-5)
9. For death sate on the point of

that enchaunted speare. (III.i.9)
10. Ah, shepherd, pity my distressd

plight (1T I.ii.7)
10. To comfort me in
distressed plight (III.5.35)
and
my
CR also closely parallels Spensers The Faerie Queene Books I-III: 13
Caesars Revenge
Caesars Revenge
25
Spensers The Faerie Queene
1. Millions of Soules, to Plutoes

grisly dames (I.i.273)
1. He bad awake blacke Plutoes

griesly Dame (Book I Canto 1
Stanza 37)
2. The restlesse mind that harbors

sorrowing thoughts,
And is with child of noble
enterprise,
Doth neuer cease from honors
toilesome taske,
Till it bringes forth Eternall gloryes
broode. (III.v.1451-4)
2. The noble hart, that harbours

vertuous thought,
And is with child of glorious great
intent,
Can neuer rest, vntill it forth haue
brought
Theternall brood of glorie
excellent: (I.5.1)
3. Then by this loue, and by these

christall eyes,
More bright then are the Lamps of
Ioues high house (I.iii.423-4)
3. So wept Duessa vntill euentide,

That shyning lampes in Ioues high
house were light (I.5.19)
4. Thy three-forkd engine

reuenge my death (III.viii.1711)
to
4. The fiers threeforked engin

making way (I.8.9)
5. Great Prince, what thanks can

Cleopatra giue,
Nought haue poore Virgins to
requite such good:
My simple selfe and seruice then
vouchsafe,
And let the heauens, and he that
althings sees.
With equall eyes, such merits
recompence (I.iv.532-6)
5. What hath poore Virgin for such

perill past,
Wherewith you to reward? Accept
therefore
My simple selfe, and seruice
euermore;
And he that high does sit, and all
things see
With equall eyes, their merites to
restore (I.8.27)
6. A stately Pallace, whose fayre

doble gates:
Are wrought with garnishd Carued
Iuory,
And stately pillars of pure bullion
framd.
With Orient Pearles and Indian
stones imbost (II.iii.849-52)
6. The royall riches and exceeding

cost,
Of every pillour and of euery post;
Which all of purest bullion framed
were,
And with great pearles and
pretious stones embost (III.1.32)
Chapter Two
26
7. The purple Hyacinth of Phoebus

Land:
Fresh Amarinthus that doth neuer
die,
And
faire
Narcissus
deere
resp[l]endent shoars (II.iii.900-2)
7. Fresh Hyacinthus, Phoebus

paramoure,
Foolish Narcisse, that likes the
watry shore,
Sad Amaranthus, made a flowre
but late (III.6.45)
8. The sunne burnt Indians, from the

east shall bring (I.iv.515)
8. Like as the sunburnt Indians do

aray (III.12.8)
In fact, CR and Tamburlaine are closely connected to each other via

The Faerie Queene. Note how 1T ties together two previously cited
parallels between CR and The Fairie Queene:
1. CR:
With Orient Pearles and Indian stones imbost (II.iii.852)
Then by this love, and by these christall eyes,
More bright then are the Lamps of Ioues high house (I.iii.423-4)
FQ:
And with great pearles and pretious stones embost (III.1.32)
So wept Duessa vntill eventide,
That shyning lampes in Ioues high house were light (I.5.19)
1T:
Zenocrate, the loveliest maid alive,
Fairer than rocks of pearl and precious stone,
The only paragon of Tamburlaine,
Whose eyes are brighter than the lamps of heaven (III.iii.117-20)
In and of itself, 1Ts combination of lines from CR that spring from FQ
is fascinating. Adding to it the next piece of information, however, appears
to place us beyond the realm of coincidence. When we return to the
beginning of one of the passages 2T directly draws from Spensers work,
we see that CR quotes from the same stanza in a different way.
Caesars Revenge
27
2. 2T:
Thorough the streets with troops of conquered kings
Ill ride in golden armour like ths sun,
And in my helm a triple plume shall spring,
Spangled with diamonds dancing in the air,
To note me emperor of the threefold world,
Like to an almond tree y-mounted high
Upon the lofty and celestial mount
Of ever-green Selinus, quaintly decked
With blooms more white than Erycinas brows,
Whose tender blossoms tremble every one
At every little breath that thorough heaven is blown (2T
IV.iii.114-24)
FQ:
Vpon the top of all his loftie crest,
A bunch of haires discolourd diuersly [i.e., a plume]
With sprincled pearle, and gold full richly drest,
Did shake, and seemd to daunce for iollity,
Like to an Almond tree ymounted hye
On top of greene Selinis all alone,
With blossoms braue bedecked daintily;
Her tender locks do tremble euery one
At euery little breath, that vnder heauen is blowne. (I.7.32)
CR:
But to be met with troopes of Horse and Men.
With playes and pageants to be entertaynd,
A courtly trayne in royall rich aray,
With spangled plumes, that daunced in the ayre (II.i.708-11)
Our trembling feare did make our helmes to shake
And goodly terror it might seeme to be,
Faire shieldes, gay swords, and goulden crests did shine.
Their spangled plumes did dance for Iolity (V.iii.2360, 2367-9)
Plume* near.30 spangl* near.30 danc* is an EEBO Match for 2T and
CRthe only two occurrences in EEBO. 2T has: And in my helm a
Chapter Two
28
triple plume shall spring,/ Spangled with diamonds dancing in the air
(IV.iii.116-7), while CR has: With spangled plumes, that daunced in
the ayre (II.i.711).
Dance for jollity is an EEBO Match between CR and FQ. CR has:
Their spangled plumes did dance for Iolity (V.iii.2369), while in FQ
we find: Did shake, and seemd to daunce for iollity (I.7.32). Most
importantly, this line in FQ immediately precedes lines that 2T quotes
from FQ (Like to an Almond tree ymounted hye, etc.).
FQ Books I-III is 606 pages long and totals 18,081 lines, not counting
dedications. The chances are quite slim that two different authors would
single out two consecutive lines. I submit these passages as evidence that
Marlowe wrote CR.
Rare Scattered Word Clusters and Marlowes Works

Frederick S. Boas acknowledged Tamburlaines influence upon CR.
The whole conception of Caesar is manifestly inspired by
Tamburlainewhile the dictators relation to Cleopatra is coloured by the
Scythians to Zenocrate.14 He did not consider the possibility that both
plays were by the same author, and that CR might have come first.
1. CR and 2T are connected by the Rare Scattered Word Cluster Cynthia*
near.100 looks near.100 ebb (all forms of verb), which also collocates my
fby.2 joys.
CR:
My Cynthia, whose glory neuer waynes,
Guyding the Tide of mine affections:
That with the change of thy imperious lookes,
Dost make my doubtfull ioyes to eb and flowe (I.iv.569-72)
2T:
Olympia, pity him in whom thy looks
Have greater operation and more force
Than Cynthias in the watery wilderness,
For with thy view my joys are at the full,
And ebb again as thou departst from me (IV.ii.28-32)
Caesars Revenge
29
2. Other works by Marlowe are tied to CR as well. Below is a Rare

Scattered Word Cluster between CR and Dido for Dandl* near.100 arm(s)
near.100 lull* that also juxtaposes sweet and fed/eating.
CR:
Oh I did neuer tast mine Honours sweete
Nor now can iudge of this my sharpest sowre.
Fifty eight yeares in Fortunes sweete solf lap
Haue I beene luld a sleep with pleasant ioyes,
Me hath she dandled in her foulding Armes,
And fed my hopes (I.i.129-34)
Dido:
Aeneas. No marvel, Dido, though thou be in love,
That daily dandlest Cupid in thy arms!
Welcome, sweet child, where hast thou been this long?
Ascanius. Eating sweet comfits with Queen Didos maid,
Who ever since hath lulled me in her arms. (V.i.44-8)
3. Rare Scattered World Cluster between CR and HL for Amourous
Leander* near.100 dangling tresses near.100 sphere*.
CR:
Famous for amorous Leanders death:
And now by gentle Fortunes so am blest,
As to behold what mazed thoughtes admire:
Heauens wonder, Natures and Earths Ornament,
And gaze vpon these fi[e]ry sun-bright eyes:
The Heauenly spheares which Loue and Beauty mooue,
These Cheekes where Lillyes and red-roses striue,
For soueraignty, yet both do equall raigne:
The dangling tresses of thy curled haire,
Nets weaud to catch our frayle and wandring thoughts (I.iv.552-61)
HL:
Amorous Leander, beautiful and young
(Whose tragedy divine Musaeus sung,)
Chapter Two
30
Dwelt at Abydos; since him dwelt there none

For whom succeeding times make greater moan.
His dangling tresses, that were never shorn,
Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne,
Would have allured the ventrous youth of Greece
To hazard more than for the Golden Fleece.
Fair Cynthia wished his arms might be her sphere; (Sestiad I.51-9)
4. Rare Scattered Word Cluster between CR and DF for Blue* near.100
Hecate* near.100 hell*.
Blew-burning torches to increase your feare:
The bride-grooms scull shal make the bridal bondes:
And hel-borne hags shall dance an Antick round,
While Hecate Hymen (heu, heu) Hymen cries,
And now methinkes I see the seas blew face (CR III.iii.1339-43)
Hell and the Furies forked haire,
Plutos blew fire, and Hecats tree (DF 1616 ed. D4r)
Both the author of CR and an author of DF knew the superstition
associating blue flame with the presence of ghosts, as did the author of
Richard III, who had King Richard say, after having been visited by
ghosts: O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!/ The lights burn
blue (V.iii.180-1).
Caesars Revenge, Marlowe, and Other Tools

1. Lisa Hopkins noted the following Strong Parallel: in CR Caesar
discourses to Cleopatra about rule over vast geographical expanses and the
payment of tribute, as Tamburlaine does to Zenocrate in 1T. 15
CR:
Not onely gipt but all Africa,
Will I subiect to Cleopatras name.
Thy rule shall stretch from vnknowne Zanziber,
Vnto those Sandes where high erected poastes.
Of great Alcides, do vp hold his name,
The sunne burnt Indians, from the east shall bring:
Their pretious store of pure refined gould,
Caesars Revenge
31
The laboring worme shall weaue the Africke twiste,

And to exceed the pompe of Persian Queene,
The Sea shall pay the tribute of his pearles,
For to adorne thy goulden yellow lockes, (I.iv.510-20)
1T:
To gratify thee, sweet Zenocrate,
Egyptians, Moors, and men of Asia,
From Barbary unto the Western Indie,
Shall pay a yearly tribute to thy sire,
And from the bounds of Afric to the banks
Of Ganges shall his mighty arm extend
Hang up your weapons on Alcides post (1T V.i.516-21, 528)
2. CR mentions Helen of Troy twice, and contains an association between
Helen and face, thousand, and ships, an Image Cluster that
reappears in the anonymous plays TOAS and E3, and runs like a thread
through various works attributed to Marlowe and the Bard.
CR:
I marveyle not at that which fables tell,
How rauisht Hellen moued the angry Greeks,
To vndertake eleuen yeares tedious seege,
To re-obtayne a beauty so diuine,
When I beheld thy sweete composed face. (I.vi.523-7)
That fatall face which now doth so bewitch thee,
Like to that vaine vnconstant Greekish dame,
Which made the stately Ilian towers to smoke,
Shall thousand bleeding Romains lay one ground
Hidden with shippes, and now the trumpets sound (III.iii.1332-5,
1344)
DF:
No marvel though the angry Greeks pursued
With ten years war the rape of such a queen,
Whose heavenly beauty passeth all compare. (Sc. xiii.27-9)
Chapter Two
32
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? (Sc. xiii.90-1)
Dido:
Tell him, I never vowed at Aulis gulf
The desolation of his native Troy,
Nor sent a thousand ships unto the walls (V.i.202-4)
2T:
Helen, whose beauty summoned Greece to arms
And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos (II.iv.87-8)
TOAS:
More fair then was the Grecian Helena
For whose sweet sake so many princes di[e]de,
That came with thousand shippes to Tenedos. (li. 258-60)
E3:
Here, till our navy of a thousand sail (III.i.1)
R2:
Was this face the face
That every day under his household roof
Did keep ten thousand men? (IV.i.271-3)
Tro.:
Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl
Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships (II.ii.80-81)
AWW:
Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
Why the Grecians sackd Troy? (I.iii.69-70)
Caesars Revenge
33
Lear:
Was this a face
To be exposd against the warring winds? (IV.vi.28-9)
Caesars Revenge and The Passionate Shepherd

Marlowe wrote the poem The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, and we
find echoes of it in Dido (I.i.32-49, III.i.84-92, 112-132), 1T (I.ii.82-105),
2T (I.ii.30-53) and E2 (Sc. i.54-70), and its parody in JM (IV.ii.91-101).
Shakespeare employed the poems style in TOTS (Introduction 2 34-52),
and parodied it in Wiv. (III.i.16-28). In Wiv., it is humorously confused
with the Bibles Psalm 137, the famous lament of exile for Jews in
Babylon. Marlovians who believe that Marlowe spent time in exile find
this noteworthy.
CR echoed The Passionate Shepherd, too.
CR:
Caesar. I will regard no more these murtherous spoyles,
And bloudy triumphs that I likd of late:
But in loues pleasures spend my wanton dayes,
Ile make thee garlondes of sweete smelling flowers,
And with faire rosall Chaplets crowne thy head
Cleopatra. Come now faire Prince, and feast thee in our Courts
With Nardus Coranets weele guird our heads:
And al[l] the while melodious warbling notes,
Passing the seauen-fold harmony of Heauen:
Shall seeme to rauish our enchanted thoughts (II.iii.895-9, 907,
914-7)
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love:
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
34
Chapter Two
And we will sit upon the rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. (1-12)
The Shakespeare Canon and Caesars Revenge

CR treats the defeat of Pompey by Caesar and carries its plot through
and beyond the murder of Caesar in Rome. Shakespeares Julius Caesar
(JC) is populated by six of the same characters as CR, but focuses on the
deaths of Caesar and his betrayers, while Shakespeares Antony and
Cleopatra (Ant.) expands upon a scene in CR where Antony falls in love
with Cleopatra. Catos suicide, dramatized in CR, is referred to in passing
in JC. As with JC, in CR, Calpurnia tells her husband of disturbing dreams
and tries to dissuade him from going to the Senate House, and an augurer
foretells Caesars doom. Caesar goes to the Senate anyway, is stabbed (last
by Brutus), and Mark Antony rouses the crowd to avenge Caesars death.
Caesars ghost is more verbose in CR, spurring on Antony and Octavius
and communicating with Discord, overseer of the tragedy. Both JC and
CR end after Brutus death.
Various scholars view CR as an important source for JC, along with
Plutarch, and Marlowes LFB. 16 Ernest Schanzer noted that both CR and
JC contain three tragedies: the tragedy of Caesars hubris ending with his
assassination, an Elizabethan revenge tragedy, and the psychological
tragedy of Brutus.17 He also remarked, regarding JC, upon:
Antonys reference to Caesars spirit ranging for revenge, With At by his
side come hot from hell. As the other references in his plays to At
indicate, she was to Shakespeare, as to Spenser (F.Q. Bk. iv, I, 19ff. [and
Bk. ii, VII, 55]), the embodiment of the spirit of discord. She and Caesars
ghost appear in company at the end of the play. Into Caesars Revenge a
figure called Discord is introduced, who announces herself as having
come hot from hell She and Caesars ghost appear in company at the
end of the play, left victors on the field of battle, to express their
satisfaction in the high death-toll.18
Caesars Revenge
35
George Mandel, who thought CR influenced JC, noted that in both

plays, after Titinius discovers his friend Cassiuss body, he commits
suicide using Cassiuss weapon, whereas in Plutarch, Titinius kills himself
with his own weapon. In both plays, just before killing himself, Titinius
states that his suicide will show how he felt about Cassius. In CR: But
sithence in my life my loue was neuer shewne,/ Now in my death Ile make
it to be knowne (V.v.2490-1) vs. in JC: Brutus, come apace,/ And see
how I regarded Caius Cassius (V.iii.86-7).
Moreover, in CR Titinius states that by using Cassiuss weapon to kill
himself he will punish it, since it killed his friend; he will distayne with
baser blood the knife (V.v.2501), while in JC, Antony tells the
conspirators that if they want to kill him, they should use the weapons
with which they just killed Caesar: there is no instrument/ Of half that
worth as those your swords, made rich/ With the most noble blood of all
this world (III.i.155-7). In one instance, Titiniuss baser blood stains the
weapon, while in the other, Julius Caesars blood makes rich the weapons.
Mandel says, It is easy to imagine one of these ideas planting the seed of
the other one in the mind of the later playwright.19 In my view, it is easier
to imagine that both plays were written by the same playwright.
Ren Weis maintained that CR was a source for Ant. as well, on the
basis of close thematic and linguistic echoes. For example, Egypt near.20
unpeople* occurs in EEBO only in these two playsCR: Egipt shalbe
vnpeopled for thine ayde (I.i.154); and Ant.: He shall have every day a
several greeting,/ Or Ill unpeople Egypt (I.v.77-8).20 Both plays compare
Antony and Cleopatra to Aeneas and Dido, with Ant. resculpting the
analogy to make it more complex.
Rare Scattered Word Cluster and Shakespeares Work

We find a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between CR and Shakespeares
Venus and Adonis (Ven.) for Uncontrolled crest* near.100 drum*, which
also contains hang/hung, shield, arms, and bed.
CR:
Caesar will ioy in Cleopatras ioy,
And thinke his fame no whit disparaged,
To change his armes, and deadly sounding droms,
For loues sweete Laies, and Lydian harmony,
And now hang vp these Idle instruments.
My warlike speare and vncontrouled crest:
Chapter Two
36
My mortall wounding sword and siluer shield,

And vnder thy sweete banners beare the brunt,
Of peacefull warres and amorous Alarmes
Why Mars himself his bloudy rage alayd,
Dallying in Venus bed hath often playd (II.iii.870-80)
Vnto those Sandes where high erected poastes.
Of great Alcides, do vp hold his name (I.iv.513-4)
Ven.:
Over my altars hath he hung his lance,
His battered shield, his uncontrolld crest,
And for my sake hath learned to sport and dance,
To toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest,
Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red,
Making my arms his field, his tent my bed. (103-8)
Both the vocabulary and the sentiments are similar: a warrior hangs up
his weapons and makes love instead of war, with a playful comparison
between the two.
Note also 1T:
Cast off your armour, put on scarlet robes
Hang up your weapons on Alcides post
For Tamburlaine takes truce with all the world.
Thy first betrothd love, Arabia
We will our celebrated rites of marriage solemnize. (V.i.524, 52830, 534)
Marlovian Matches, Near Matches, and Other Similarities

Following are Matches, Near Matches, and other similarities between
CR and works by Marlowe and Shakespeare, in order of appearance within
CR21:
1. CR: With which the wanton wind was wont to play,/ To drowne
with Billows of orewhelming woes (I.i.48-9) vs. Dido: And
playing with that female wanton boy/ Whiles my Aeneas wanders
on the seas/ And rests a prey to every billows pride (I.i.51-3)
Caesars Revenge
EEBO Match: Play* near.30 with near.30 wanton* near.30 billow*.

Note also Dido: Through which the water shall delight to play
(III.i.118); and Wood.: Their wanton heads so oft play with the
winds (III.ii.20).
2. CR: Ingrauen in the eyes and hearts of men./ Although the
oppression of distressed Rome (I.i.122-3) vs. Dido: To feed her
eyes with his engraven fame./Thus in stout Hectors race three
hundred years/ The Roman sceptre royal shall remain (I.i.1035)EEBO Match: Eye* near.30 engraven near.30 Rom*.
3. CR: And Cole-black Libians, shall manure the grounde/ In thy
defence with bleeding hearts of men (I.i.154-5) vs. R2: The
blood of England shall manure the ground (IV.i.128)EEBO
Match: Shall manure the ground.
4. CR: Take we our last farwell, then though with paine,/ Heere three
do part that nere shall meet againe (I.i.182-3) vs. R2:
Farewell: if hearts presages be not vain,/ We three here part
that neer shall meet again (II.ii.142-3)EEBO Match:
Never/nere shall meet again near.20 part. Note also Wood.: On
earth, I fear, we never more shall meet./ Of Edward the Thirds
seven sons we three are left (III.ii.105-6).
5. CR: Heere lyeth one thats boucherd by his Sire/ And heere the
Sonne was his old Fathers death./ Both slew vnknowing, both
vnknowne are slaine (I.i.227-9) vs. Ven.: Or butcher sire that
reaves his son of life (766); and R3: The father rashly
slaughtered his own son;/ The son, compelled, been butcher to the
sire (V.viii.25-6)EEBO Match: Butcher* near.5 sire. Note also
the poignant Scene II.v in 3H6 (True Tragedy C2v-C3r) where a
son enters carrying his father whom he has mistakenly killed in
battle, followed by a father carrying his son whom he has
mistakenly slain. Lucans First Book (LFB) contains: Shouldst
thou bid me/ Entomb my sword within my brothers bowels,/ Or
fathers throat, or womens groaning womb,/ This hand (albeit
unwilling) should perform it (376-9).
6. CR: When Phoebus left faire Thetis watery couch/ And peeping
forth from out the goulden gate/ Of his bright pallace, saw our
battle rankd:/ Oft did hee seeke to turne his fiery steedes (I.i.25560) vs. 2T: The sun, unable to sustain the sight,/ Shall hide his
head in Thetis watery lap,/ And leave his steeds to fair Bootes
charge (I.iii.168-70)EEBO Match: Thetis* near.40 watery
near.40 steeds.
37
38
Chapter Two
7. CR: Tis but thy feare that doth it so miscall (I.iii.387) vs. R2: My
heart will sigh when I miscall it so (I.iii.252)EEBO Match:
Miscall* near.3 it so.
8. CR: Which beares a burthen heauier then the Heauens,/ Vnder the
which steele-shouldred Atlas grones (I.iii.418-9) vs. Dido: That
earth-born Atlas groaning underprops;/ No bounds but heaven
shall bound his empery (I.i.99-100)EEBO Match: Atlas*
near.30 groan* near.30 heaven*.
9. CR: Earth gape and swallow him that Heauens hate,/ Consume
me Fire with thy deuouring flames (I.iii.451-2) vs. R3: Either
heavn with lightning strike the murdrer dead,/ Or earth gape
open wide and eat him quick/ As thou dost swallow up this good
kings blood,/ Which his hell-governed arm hath butcherd!
(I.ii.64-7)EEBO: Earth* gape* near.20 swallow*, a juxtaposition
which also occurs in playwright Samuel Daniels poetry, 1594, and
Nathaniel Richards play, The Tragedy of Messalina, pr. 1640.
Note also 1T: Gape, earth, and let the fiends infernal view/ A hell
as hopeless and as full of fear/ As are the blasted banks of Erebus
(V.i.242-4).
10. CR: Vnto those Sandes where high erected poastes./ Of great
Alcides, do vp hold his name (I.iv.513-4) vs. 1T: Hang up your
weapons on Alcides post (V.i.528)EEBO Match: Alcides
near.20 post*.
11. CR: And dredeles past the toyling Hellespont,/ Famous for
amorous Leanders death (I.iv.551-2) vs. HL: And prayed the
narrow toiling Hellespont/ To part in twain, that he [Leander]
might come and go (Sestiad II.150-1)EEBO Match: Toiling
Hellespont.
12. CR: He on his goulden trapped Palfreys rides,/ That from their
nostrels do the morning blow,/ Through Heauens great path-way
paud with shining starres (I.iv.564-6) vs. 2T: The horse that
guide the golden eye of heaven/ And blow the morning from
their nostrils (IV.iii.7-8)EEBO Match: Gold* near.30 nostril*
near.30 blow*. The initial inspiration may have come from FQs
His sea-horses did seeme to snort amayne,/ And from their
nosethrilles blow the brynie streame (III.11.41).
13. CR, regarding Cleopatra: AdonisLipsroseWith fresh
varyety to please the eyeVenus, and Her beauties pleasing
colours would restore,/ Decayed sight with fresh variety
(I.vi.587, 589, 590, 592, 603 and II.iii.930-1) vs. Ven., regarding
Adonis: LipsMaking them red, and pale, with fresh variety
Caesars Revenge
(19, 21)EEBO: Fresh variety. This phrase also occurs in Samuel

Daniels play The Queens Arcadia, 1606; and non-dramatic works
by playwrights Thomas Heywood dated 1609, and Thomas May,
1633.
14. CR: Though Caesar be as great as great may be,/ Yet Pompey
once was euen as great as he,/ And how he rode clad in Setorius
spoyles (II.Chorus.618-9) vs. E2: Which whiles I have, I think
myself as great,/ As Caesar riding in the Roman street/ With
captive kings at his triumphant car (Sc. i.171-3); and the parody
TOAS: Which since I haue so happilie attaind,/ My fortune now I
doo account as great/ As earst did Caesar when he conquered
most (185-7)EEBO: As great as near.10 Caesar. The
juxtaposition also occurs in Nathaniel Lees tragedy, Theodosius,
pr. 1680.
15. CR: Brauely resolud, noble Sempronius (II.i.660) vs. 1T: Are
these resolvd noble Scythians (I.ii.225)EEBO Match:
Resolved noble.
16. CR: Well I haue liued till to that height I came/ That all the world
did tremble at my name (II.i.745-6) vs. E2: As for myself, I
stand as Joves huge tree,/ And others are but shrubs compared to
me;/ All tremble at my name (Sc. xxvi.11-3)EEBO: Tremble*
at my name, occurring among other playwrights in Nathaniel Lees
Mithridates, 1678. Note also 2T: As all the world shall tremble
at their view (I.iii.57).
17. CR: Since that thou this so heauy tale hast tould (II.ii.790) vs.
Ven.: She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,/ As if they heard the
woeful words she told (1125-6)EEBO: Heavy tale* near.20
told, a juxtaposition also occurring in a key source for the Bards
Romeo and Juliet, Arthur Brookes Romeus and Juliet, 1562.
18. CR: With golden Roofes that glister like the Sunne,/ Shalbe
prepard to entertaine my Loue (II.iii.853-4) vs. 1T: That roofs
of gold and sun-bright palaces/ Should have prepared to entertain
his grace (IV.ii.62-3)EEBO Match: Roof* near.30 prepar*
near.30 entertain*.
19. CR: Mens eyes must mil-stones drop, when fooles shed teares
(II.iv.682) vs. R3: Your eyes drop millstones when fools eyes
fall tears (I.iii.351)EEBO Match: Millstone* near.20 fool*
near.20 drop*. Tilley lists the proverb He weeps millstones
(M967) but provides no other example wherein it is associated with
fools.
39
40
Chapter Two
20. CR: Dost thou assault, that faithfull princely hand:/ And makst
the base Earth to drinke thy Noble bloud (II.v.1092-3) vs. R2:
Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee/ To make the base
earth proud with kissing it (III.iii.188-9)EEBO Match: Mak*
the base earth. Note also E2: And, highly scorning that the lowly
earth/ Should drink his blood (Sc. xxi.13-4); and E3:
PrinceIf not, this day shall drink more English blood,/ Then
eer was buried in our British earth (IV.iv.68, 74-5).
21. CR: Vnto the Soule of thy dead Country Rome./ Why sleepest
thou Cassius? Wake thee from thy dreame:/ And yet thou naught
doest dreame but blood and death./ For dreadfull visions do afright
thy sleepe (Chor. III.1156-59) vs. LFB: His mind was troubled,
and he aimed at war,/ And coming to the ford of Rubicon,/ At night
in dreadful vision fearful Rome (186-8)EEBO Match:
Dreadful vision* near.40 Rom*.
22. CR: Which from the Romaines he with blood did get:/ The Tyrant
mounted in his goulden chayre (III.i.1179-80) vs. 2T:
Blood.As if a chair of gold enamelld,/ Enchased with
diamonds, sapphires, rubies,/ And fairest pearl of wealthy India,/
Were mounted here under a canopy (III.ii.116, 119-22)EEBO:
Chair* near.30 gold* near.30 mounted.
23. CR: By that fayre charming Circes wounding look (III.ii.1199)
vs. E2: That charming Circes, walking on the waves (Sc.
iv.172)EEBO Match: Charming Circe*.
24. CR: Clad in the beauty of my glorious lampes (III.ii.1219) vs.
DF: Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars (Sc. xiii.104)
EEBO Match: Clad in the beauty.
25. CR: And hel-borne hags shall dance an Antick round
(III.iii.1341) vs. E2: My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,/
Shall with their goat feet dance an antic hay (Sc. i.58-9)EEBO:
Dance an antic. Among playwrights, the phrase also occurs in
Nashes The Unfortunate Traveler, 1594; Barnabe Barnes The
Devils Charter, pr. 1607; The Tragedy of Messalina by Nathaniel
Richards, pr. 1640; and three post-Restoration plays. Both excerpts
may have been picking up threads from FQs A troupe of Faunes
and Satyres far away/ Within the wood were dauncing in a rownd
(I.6.7).
26. CR: Leaue to lament braue Romans, loe I come (III.v.1435) vs.
Dido: Aeneas, see, here come the citizens./ Leave to lament, lest
they laugh at our fears (II.i.37-8)EEBO Match: Leave to lament
near.10 come*.
Caesars Revenge
27. CR: Why thinke you Lords that tis ambitions spur./ That
pricketh Caesar to these high attempts (II.iv.1468-9) vs. Mac.: I
have no spur/ To prick the sides of my intent, but only/ Vaulting
ambition (I.vii.25-7)EEBO: Spur* near.30 prick* near.30
ambition*. The juxtaposition occurs as well in Thomas Lodges
translation of Seneca, 1614.
28. CR: As great Atrides with the angry Greekes,/ Marching in fury
to pale walls of Troy (III.v.1519-20) vs. DF, speaking of Helen of
Troy: No marvel though the angry Greeks pursued/ With ten
years war the rape of such a queen (Sc. xiii.27-8)EEBO: Angry
Greek(s).
29. CR: The angry heauens with thre[e]atning dire aspect,/ Boding
mischance, and bal[e]full massacers (III.vii.1638-9) vs. R2: And
for our eyes do hate the dire aspect/ Of civil wounds ploughed up
with neighbours swords (I.iii.126-7)EEBO: Dire aspect. The
phrase also appears in the play Tancred and Gismund, wr. 1566.
30. CR: Set downe the hearse and let Calphurnia weepe
(IV.ii.1811) vs. R3: Set down, set down your honourable load,/ If
honour may be shrouded in a hearse (I.ii.1-2)EEBO: Set* down
near.20 hearse*. The juxtaposition appears elsewhere among
playwrights in three other plays: the anonymous A Larum for
London, pr. 1602; John Kirkes The Seven Champions of
Christiandom, pr. 1638; and Richard Bromes The Love-Sick Court,
pr. 1659.
31. CR: Here doth my care and comfort resting lie:/ Let them
accompany thy mournefull hearse (IV.ii.1816-7) vs. E2: And
thou shalt die, and on his mournful hearse/ Thy hateful and
accursd head shall lie (Sc. xxvi 29-30)EEBO Match: Lie*
near.30 mournful hearse*.
32. CR: To appease the furies of these howling Ghostes
(IV.iii.1936) vs. 1T: Where shaking ghosts with ever-howling
groans (V.i.245)EEBO: Howling near.10 ghosts.
33. CR: Wake not Bellona with your trumpets Clange (IV.iv.2042)
vs. 1T: Awake, ye men of Memphis! Hear the clang/ Of Sythian
trumpets! (IV.i.1-2)EEBO Match: Wake*/awake* near.30
trump* near.30 clang*.
34. CR: Change feare to Ioy, and warre to smooth-fact Peace
(IV.iv.2087) vs. R3: Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced
peace (V.viii.33)EEBO Match: Smooth-faced peace. The
phrase also occurs in the undated, anonymous play The Faithful
Friends. Shakespeares King John contains That smooth-facd
41
42
Chapter Two
gentleman, tickling Commodity (II.i.573), followed by a

juxtaposition of war and peace (II.i.585-6).
35. CR: When as he slew that fruitefull headed snake,/ Which Lerna
long-time fostered in her wombe (IV.iv.2116-7) vs. 1T: Or,
wingd snakes of Lerna, cast your stings (IV.iv.21)EEBO:
Lerna* near.20 snak*.
36. CR: Shall make such hills as shall surpasse in height/ The Snowy
Alpes and aery Appenines (V.i.2204-5) vs. 2T: That rests upon
the snowy Apennines (I.i.111)EEBO: Snowy near.5 Apenines
[various spellings]. The juxtaposition also occurs in the two
parodies, TOAS: Whiter then are the snowie Apenis (680), and
Soliman and Perseda: Neck, whiter then the snowie Apenines
(IV.i.83); and William Sampsons play The Vow Breaker, 1636.
37. CR: The wrathfull steeds do check their iron bits,/ And with a
well gracd terror strike the ground (V.i.2247-8) vs. HL: A hot
proud horseSpits forth the ringled bit, and with his hooves/
Checks the submissive ground (Sestiad II.141, 143-4)EEBO
Match: Check* near.30 bit(s) near.30 ground*.
38. CR: And dismall triumphes sound my fatall knell,/ Furyes I come
to meete you all in Hell (V.i.2328-9) vs. E2: And to the gates of
hell convey me hence;/ Let Plutos bells ring out my fatal knell
(Sc. xx.87-8)EEBO Match: Hell* near.30 fatal knell*.
39. CR: Through black Cocytus and infernall Styx,/ Lethean waues,
and fiers of Phlegeton (V.v.2512-3) vs. DF: Now, by the
kingdoms of infernal rule,/ Of Styx, Acheron, and the fiery lake/
Of ever-burning Phlegethon I swear (Sc. viii.44-6)EEBO
Match: Infernal* fby.20 Styx fby.20 Phlegethon.
40. CR: Hell and Elisium must be digd in one,/ And both will be to[o]
litle to contayne,/ Numberles numbers of afflicted ghostes/ That I
my selfe haue tumbling thither sent (V.v.2541-4) vs. DF: This
word damnation terrifies not him,/ For he confounds hell in
Elysium./ His ghost be with the old philosophers! (Sc. iii.60-2)
EEBO Match: Hell(s) near.30 Elisium* near.30 ghost*. The other
occurrence of this juxtaposition is in Robert Greenes Orpharion.
Similarity: CR: Heere are no birdes to please thee with their notes:/
But rauenous Vultures, and night Rauens ho[a]rse (I.i.266-7) vs. Ovids
Elegies (OE): To hoarse screech-owls foul shadows it allows,/ Vultures
and furies nestled in the boughs, and The ravenous vulture lives, the
puttock hovers (Book I Elegia XII.19-20 and Book II Elegia VI.33).
Caesars Revenge
43
Similarity: CR: As crazed Bark is tossd in trobled Seas (I.iv.605)

vs. JM: Our seamen/ wondered how you durst with so much wealth/
Trust such a crazd vessel (I.i.77-9).
Similarity: CR: And if, it be true that sorrowes feeling powre,/ Could
turne poore Niobe into a weeping stone/ O let mee weepe a like, and like
stone begriefe (III.ii.784-6, 793) vs. Dido: Theban Niobe,/ Who for
her sons death wept out life and breath,/ And, dry with grief, was turned
into a stone,/ Had not such passions in her head as I (II.i.3-6). Both
excerpts refer to Niobe, a figure in Greek mythology. She boasted of her
fourteen children to Leto, who had only two, Apollo and Artemis. To
punish her for her pride, these two killed Niobes children. Niobe then
began weeping continuously, and was eventually turned into a stone which
wept.
Similarity: CR: And great Alcides, when he did returne:/ From Iunos
taskes, and Nemean victories (II.iii.881-2) vs. LFB: Or like Megaera/
That scared Alcides, when by Junos task/ He had before looked Pluto in
the face (574-6).
Similarity: CR: This is the Scepter that my crowne shall beare,/
And this the golden diadem Ile weare (III.v.1512-3) vs. Dido: How
vain am I to wear this diadem/ And bear this golden sceptre in my
hand!/ A burgonet of steel and not a crown,/ A sword and not a sceptre
fits Aeneas (IV.iv.40-3).
Chronology Revisited
On the basis of style, Matching Rare Word Clusters, and Matches,
Near Matches and other similarities, I propose that CR is a play by
Christopher Marlowe written prior to Tamburlaine or Dido, and in
addition constitutes an example of the Marlowe-Shakespeare continuum.
One reason I place it before Tamburlaine and Dido is because CR more
closely parallels FQ than Tamburlaine such that, for example, Ioues high
house in CR (I.v.424) and FQ (I.5.19) becomes Joves high court in 2T
(I.iii.153) and HL (li.29). Second, Tamburlaines ride in triumph/chariot
images logically derive from CR. Third, CRs verbose description of Helen
of Troy (see above) ought logically to precede the more elegant, pithy
associations in Dido and 2T. Lastly, the Tamburlaine plays are, overall,
better written than CR.
Possible wording sources for CR are Albions England by William
Warner, 1586, for monarchize (first EEBO appearance); and The Third
Part of the First Booke of the Mirrour of Knighthood, translated by R. P.
in 1586, for What is he dead? (first EEBO appearance). The first
44
Chapter Two
occurrence of dauntless in the OED/EEBO is Thomas Hughes Certain

devises and showes presented to her Maiestie by the gentlemen of GrayesInn, 1587. Dauntless appears five times in CR, twice as it occurs in
Hughes piece: dauntless mind(s) (I.i.100 and III.ii.1231), but since both
are shows rather than source-type material, the direction of influence
might have flowed either way.
CRs plenteous classical allusions are the mark of an author who was
either still at the university or had recently left it. According to Martin
Wiggins, at the time Marlowe attended Cambridge, all student plays were
written in Latin, their purpose being to aid the study of rhetoric and
provide young scholars with an opportunity to speak Latin in public.22 The
fact that CR was penned in English makes it more likely that Marlowe
wrote it after leaving school in 1587. I suggest that Marlowe wrote CR
between July1586, the date of Spensers dedication to Harvey, and the
appearance of Tamburlaine in 1587, with 1587 being the more probable
year of composition.
Inferences About Marlowe

Much can happen to a play between the time it is written and the time
it is published. In this case, if my chronology is correct, the gap is twenty
years. There are, however, no particular signs that CR was updated after its
penning. I have not found, for example, references to contemporary
events, the insertion of clowning to make it more attractive to the
groundlings, or the appearance of contractions which might signal a 17thcentury revision. Perhaps CR was dusted off and printed due to the
popularity of Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra.
If Marlowe wrote CR and it was not substantially revised, what does it
tell us about him? First, it informs us that he was experimenting with
compound adjectives, which are plentiful in CR: big-boned; bloodslaughtered; blood-sucking; blood-thirsting; blood-thirsty; blue-burning;
changed-colored; coal-black; dead-doing; deadly-burning; discordthirsting; enough-tormented; ever-daring; fool-hardy; force-commanding;
golden-tressed; hearts-thrilling; hell-born; high-erected; high-hanged;
high-reared; inward-burning; life-lending; light-shining; long-expected;
milk-white; mortal-wounding; never-meeting; never-sundered; noblestomacked; seven-fold; seven-mouthed; silver-streaming; silver-winged;
smooth-paved; steel-shouldered; sun-bright; sun-burnt; three-forked;
under-ringing; and wind-depressing.
Second, he was experimenting with rhyme. Fully 11 percent of CRs
2570 lines were rhymed, compared to 2 percent for Tamburlaine and 2.2
Caesars Revenge
45
percent for Dido. Both the rhyme and the compound words may have been
due to the influence of The Faerie Queene, which was written in an
ababbcbcc rhyme scheme, and incorporated some of the same compound
adjectives as CR: coal-black; dead-doing; fool-hardy; heart-thrilling; milkwhite; sun-bright; three-forked, as well as similar ones such as bloodyhanded; dead-living; heart-burning; lamp-burning; sea-shouldering; and
steel-headed. 1T also employed a few of FQs compound adjectives: coalblack; ever-living; milk-white; and sun-bright.
Third, Marlowe was already engaging in displays of irony (not found
in The Faerie Queene), demonstrating both insightful knowledge about the
workings of the world, and a flair for the ironic aside:
CR:
Loe you my maisters, hee that kills but one,
Is straight a Villaine and a murtherer cald,
But they that use to kill men by the great,
And thousandes slay through their ambition,
They are braue champions, and stout warriors cald,
Tis like that he that steales a rotten sheepe
That in a dich would else have cast his hide
He for his labor hath the halters hier.
But Kings and mighty Princes of the world,
By letters pattens rob both Sea and Land.
Do not then Pompey of thy murther []plaine,
Since thy ambition halfe the world hath slayne. (II.i.754-65)
Note the sardonic comment by Sempronius after Pompey steps off his
boat in Egypt, just before Sempronius murders him:
CR:
Pompey. Trusting vpon King Ptolomeys promisd fayth,
And hoping succor, I am come to shore:
In Egipt heere a while to make aboade.
Sempromius. Fayth longer Pompey then thou dost expect. (II.i.6858)
Lastly, in its portrayal of warriors such as Pompey, Caesar, and
Antony, and of Caesars and Antonys love for Cleopatra, CR shows us a
Chapter Two
46
fascination with both Mars and Venus, with war and love, themes to which
the Marlowe and Shakespeare works returned again and again.
CR:
What meanes great Caesar, droopes our generall,
Or melts in womanish compassion:
To see Pharsalias fieldes to change their hewe
And siluer streames be turnd to lakes of blood?
Why Casear oft hath sacrificd in France,
Millions of Soules, to Plutoes grisly dames:
And make the changed coloured Rhene to blush,
To beare his bloody burthen to the sea. (I.i.268-75)
On thy perfection let me euer gaze,
And eyes now learne to treade a louers maze,
Heere may you surfet with delicious store,
The more you see, desire to looke the more:
Vpon her face a garden of delite,
Exceeding fair Adonis fayned Bowre
O that I might but enter in this bowre,
Or once attaine the cropping of the flower. (I.vi.582-7, 595-6)
Notes
1
T. M. Parrott, The Academic Tragedy of Caesar and Pompey, Modern

Language Review 5 (1910): 435-44.
2
In counting feminine endings, I included only sure ones, such that lines where
words like heaven or over,which could have been pronounced as
monosyllabicwould cause them to have eleven syllables, are counted as ten. The
attribution of feminine endings is acknowledged to be somewhat subjective.
3
Ernest Schanzer, The Problem Plays of Shakespeare. A Study of Julius Caesar,
Measure for Measure, Antony and Cleopatra (London: Routledge & Paul, 1963),
21. Regarding a parallel to Plutarch, see Harry Morgan Ayres, Caesars
Revenge, PMLA 30 (1915): 771-87, 774.
4
Clifford Ronan, Antike Roman: Power Symbology and the Roman Play in Early
Modern England, 1585-1635 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1995);
quoted in Lisa Hopkins, Christopher Marlowe. A Literary Life (NY: Palgrave,
2000), 15.
5
Ronan, 157.
6
Lisa Hopkins, The Cultural Uses of the Caesars on the English Renaissance
Stage (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 58.
Caesars Revenge
47
Orlando Furioso is quoted from Robert Greene, The Plays and Poems of Robert
Greene, ed. J. Churton Collins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), vol. 1.
8
I therefore propose that a reason causing F. S. Boas to date this play to the 1590s,
a parallel between Samuel Daniels poem The Complaint of Rosamond, 1592, and
CR, represents the influence of the play upon Daniel rather than the other way
around. Frederick S. Boas, University Drama in the Tudor Age (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1914), 267-78. Boas also noted parallels between CR and The Spanish
Tragedy. The dating of The Spanish Tragedy, written between 1582-1592, is
notoriously difficult to narrow down, although scholars tend to place its penning
prior to Englands battle with the Spanish Armada in the summer of 1588. To
further investigate this angle, we would need to better determine which play came
first.
9
John Clark Jordan, Robert Greene (New York: Columbia University Press,
1915), 179-80; and W. W. Greg, Two Elizabethan Stage Abridgements: The Battle
of Alcazar & Orlando Furioso (Oxford: 1923), 125-30.
10
The Plays and Poems of Robert Greene, ed. J. Churton Collins, vol. 1, 217.
11
E. A. J. Honigman, Shakespeares Impact on his Contemporaries (Tatowa, NJ:
Barnes and Noble Books, 1982); and Steven W. May, Marlowe, Spenser, Sidney
andAbraham Fraunce? The Review of English Studies 62 (2010): 30-63, 43-4.
12
The parallels are from Bakeless, vol. 1, 205-8, and my own research.
13
The parallels are from Charles Crawford, Collectanea (Stratford-on-Avon: The
Shakespeare Head Press, 1906-1907), 290-2, T. M. Parrott, and my own research.
14
Boas, 270-1.
15
Hopkins, The Cultural Uses of the Caesars on the English Renaissance Stage,
60.
16
Schanzer, 20-1; Jacqueline Pearson, Shakespeare and Caesars Revenge,
Shakespeare Quarterly 32 (1981): 101-4; Frederick S. Boas, University Drama in
the Tudor Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914), 267-78; and William Poole,
Julius Caesar and Caesars Revenge Again, Notes & Queries 49 (2002): 227-8.
17
Ernest Schanzer, cited in Kenneth Muir, The Sources of Shakespeares Plays
(London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1977), 120-1; Narrative and Dramatic Sources of
Shakespeare, ed. Geoffrey Bullough (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966),
vol. 5, 33-57; and Ernest Schanzer, A Neglected Source of Julius Caesar, Notes
& Queries 199 (1954): 196-7.
18
Schanzer, A Neglected Source of Julius Caesar, 196.
19
George Mandel, Julius Caesar and Caesars Revenge, Yet Again, Notes &
Queries 59 (2012): 534-6, 535.
20
Ren J. A. Weis, Caesars Revenge: A Neglected Elizabethan Source of Antony
and Cleopatra, Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft West Jahrbuch 1983, 178-86.
See also Clifford J. Ronan, Caesars Revenge and the Roman Thoughts in Antony
and Cleopatra, Shakespeare Studies XIX (1987): 171-82.
21
A source for some of the parallels I ran through EEBO is Ayres, Caesars
Revenge.
22
Martin Wiggins, When Did Marlowe Write Dido, Queen of Carthage? The
Review of English Studies 59 (2008): 521-41, 528-30.
CHAPTER THREE
THE TAMING OF A SHREW
The Taming of A Shrew (TOAS) was printed in an anonymous quarto in

1594, with the title page announcing it had been acted by the Earl of
Pembrokes Men. TOAS has often been discussed because of its
relationship to Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew, (TOTS), a play of
unknown acting history which was first published in 1623. Comparing the
two, TOAS is set in Athens rather than Padua; aside from Sly and Kate, the
rest of the characters names are different; and the father has three
daughters to marry off instead of two. The plays share certain wording,
however, that indicates one was based upon the other,1 and their premise is
similar: the taming of the shrewish Kate by her husband, called Petruchio
in TOTS and Ferando in TOAS. In both comedies, one suitor poses as a
lute instructor; Kates husband is basely attired for the wedding and carries
Kate off before the feast; and at the end there is a wager between husbands
over whose wife is most obedient.
A previously undetected allusion helps us to date TOAS prior to the
January 12, 1593 entry of Thomas Nashes Strange News in the
Stationers Register. In Strange News Nashe wrote: It shoulde seeme
Mother Hubbard is no great shrewe, howeuer thou treading on her heeles
so oft, shee may bee tempted beyonde her ten commandements (K3v).
Nashe seems to be referring to lines uttered by Kate, the shrew in TOAS,
regarding her fingernails: Hands off I say, and get you from this place;/
Or I wil[l] set my ten commandments in your face (330-1). Moreover, a
strong echo of TOAS appears in A Knack to Know a Knave, a comedy that
almost certainly involved the hand of Robert Greene who died in
September, 1592.2 A Knack, which contains numerous allusions to
contemporary plays, was first mentioned in Henslowes Diary on June 10,
1592, and was likely penned by the spring of 1592.3 Due to A Knacks
imitative nature, it is more likely that TOAS came before it, rather than the
other way around.
It is well known that, often quoting verbatim, TOAS parallels multiple
passages from plays involving Marlowe: DF, 1T, 2T, and Dido (see
footnote for parallels).4 Our first instinct is to suspect an unimaginative
49
fellow who cut and pasted source material into his work. Yet TOAS is
quite creative. Holderness and Loughsey noted that the effect of the
excerpts is one of ironic quotation rather than promiscuous pastiche.5
According to Marion Bodwell Smith, The problem of the Marlovian
imagery in The Taming of A Shrew is more than one of plagiarism; its
author seems at times to have almost thought like Marlowe.6
Roy Eriksen proposed that Marlowe wrote TOAS.7 He noted how
TOAS adeptly handles various plots simultaneously, as does DF; that
Marlowe displayed a penchant for self-parody; and that Marlowes work
and original material in TOAS shared a type of holistic rhetorical speech
patterning. In other words, TOAS contains a style of composition
involving the creation of strongly jointed speeches by treating them as if
they were complete rhetorical periods, or complete sentenceswith a
well-defined beginning, middle and end.8 They involve repetitions and
parallelisms that encircle a central image and show a dramatist that is
highly conscious about his art. 9 He added that Shakespeare is the
dramatist who learned most from Marlowes technique in this respect.10 I
concur with Eriksen in part: I view TOAS as a self-parody written by
Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe.
Christopher Marlowe: Rare Scattered Word Clusters

It is fruitless to discuss Matches and Near Matches to Marlowes
works due to the parodic nature of the play. There are, however, Rare
Scattered Word Clusters and Image Clusters that demonstrate not mere
parroting, but the presence of a similar way of thinking. Sometimes these
clusters extend into Shakespeares works.
1. Stephen Roy Miller reported what I have found to be a Rare Scattered
Word Cluster that TOAS shares with Dido as well as Shakespeares Loves
Labours Lost. These three works are the only instances of Prometh*
near.100 eye* near.100 sparkle* in EEBO.11 The grouping in all three
also includes fire, and in the first two plays contains burn*.
Dido:
The man that I do eye whereer I am,
Whose amorous face, like Paean, sparkles fire,
Whenas he butts his beams on Floras bed.
Prometheus hath put on Cupids shape,
And I must perish in his burning arms. (III.iv.17-21)
Chapter Three
50
TOAS:
Brighter then the burnisht pallace of the sunne,
The eie-sight of the glorious firmament
In whose bright lookes sparkles the radiant fire,
Wilie Prometheus slylie stole from Ioue,
Infusing breath, life, motion, soule,
To euerie object striken by thine eies. (583-8)
LLL:
From womens eyes this doctrine I derive.
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire. (IV.iii.326-7)
2. Another Rare Scattered Word Cluster occurs between Dido and TOAS
for Thickest throng* near.100 Hector* near.100 Pyrrhus, which also
collocates blood* and Grec*/Greek*.
Dido:
Aeneas. Troy is a-fire, the Grecians have the town!
Dido. O Hector, who weeps not to hear thy name?
Aeneas. Yet flung I forth and, desperate of my life,
Ran in the thickest throngs, and with this sword
Sent many of their savage ghosts to hell.
At last came Pyrrhus, fell and full of ire,
His harness dropping blood (II.i.208-14)
TOAS:
Emelia. Like to the warlike Amazonian Queene,
Pentheselea Hectors paramore,
Who foyld the bloudie Pirrhus murderous greeke,
Ile thrust my selfe amongst the thickest throngs (1189-92)
If TOAS were truly attempting to parody Didos lines in the excerpt
above, Emelia ought to have compared herself to Aeneas running through
the thickest throngs. Dido does not mention Amazon Queen Penthesilea. It
would seem that here the author is operating from his own knowledge
base, sharing the same rare types of word associations as Marlowe.
51
Marlowe: Image Clusters

1. Another example of an author apparently operating from his own
knowledge base is found in passages from CR and TOAS.
CR:
Like to that vaine vnconstant Greekish dame,
Which made the stately Ilian towres to smoke,
Shall thousand bleeding Romains lay on[e] ground:
Hymen in sable not in saferon robes,
Instead of roundes shall dolefull dirges singe.
For nuptiall tapers, shall the furies beare,
Blew-burning torches to increase your feare (III.iii.1333-9)
TOAS:
And now my liefest loue, the time drawes nie,
That Himen mounted in his saffron robe,
Must with his torches waight vpon thy traine,
As Hellens brothers on the horned Moone (1203-6)
Hymen, the god of marriage, was often depicted wearing a saffron robe
and holding a torch in his hand. Note, however, that CR also associates
him with the unconstant Greekish dame, Helen of Troy. TOAS, on the
other hand, mentions Helen of Troys brothers, meaning the Gemini
constellation containing the stars which were named after them, Castor
and Pollux, and associates them with the moon, which poets viewed as
unconstant because it changes.
2. An image cluster between TOAS and DF located just prior to the
Thickest throng* near.100 Hector* near.100 Pyrrhus Rare Scattered Word
Cluster demonstrates another connection between TOAS and Marlowe that
goes well beyond cut and paste. Yet again, the connection extends into
Shakespeares canon. The first OED listing for smoky (def. 8) in the
sense of steamy, rising in fine spray, appears in DF. It occurs at the end of
the play, when Faustus is about to be snatched off to hell by the devil. He
implores the stars.
Chapter Three
52
DF:
You stars that reigned at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud,
That when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven. (Sc. xiv.86-92)
Smoky (def. 8) also appears in TOAS, in relation to a couple that
Marlowe immortalized in poetry, Hero and Leander.
TOAS:
And should my loue as earst Leander did,
Attempte to swimme the boyling helispont
For Heros loue: no towers of brasse should hold
But I would follow thee through those raging flouds,
With lockes disheuered and my brest all bare,
With bended knees upon Abidas shoore,
I would with smokie sighes and brinish teares,
Importune Neptune and the watry Gods,
To send a guard of siluer scaled Dolphyns,
With sounding Tritons to be our conuoy,
And to transport us safe unto the shore (1173-83)
In both excerpts something (the stars) or someone (Neptune and the
watery gods) is being implored for safety. In the case of DF, it is safe
ascension to heaven, to avoid being dragged off to hell, while in TOAS it is
safe transport to the shore in the event that a ladys paramour should, like
Leander, attempt to swim the Hellespont for her. Preceding the TOAS
excerpt in the text there is talk of heaven and hell. In both cases, smoky
is associated with something emitted from the mouth (limbs vs. sighs), as
well as moisture (foggy mists vs. brinish tears and watery gods). The
correspondences, in combination with the complexity of the imagery
involved, point to composition by the same author.
A similar passage occurs in Tit. It combines the elements of imploring
with heaven, fog, and clouds from the DF passage, and those of kneeling,
tears, and moist sighs from the TOAS excerpt.
53
Tit.:
If any power pities wretched tears,
To that I call. What, wouldst thou kneel with me?
Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers,
Or with our sighs well breathe the welkin dim
And staineth sun with fog, as sometime clouds
When they do hug him in their melting bosoms. (III.i.207-12)
Moreover, something moist emitted from the mouth, mist, and hiding
are grouped in Romeo and Juliet (Rom.), a play that also associates clouds
with sighs.
Rom.:
Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans
Mist-like enfold me from the search of eyes. (III.iii.72-3)
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs. (I.i.130)
3. Roy Eriksen found that DF and TOAS both contain a clustering of
words related to comparisons, turns of phrase, chastity, brightness, love,
and beauty.
DF:
Be she as chaste as was Penelope,
As wise as Saba, or as beautiful
As was bright Lucifer before his fall. (Sc. v.157-9)
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele,
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusas azured arms (Sc. xiii.104-8)
TOAS:
A louely loue,
As bright as is the heauen cristalline,
As faire as is the milke white way of Ioue,
54
Chapter Three
As chast as Phoebe in her sommer sportes,

As softe and tender as the asure downe,
That circles Cithereas siluer doues. (902-7)
Those louelie dames
Richer in beawtie then the orient pearle,
Whiter then is the Alpine Christall mould,
And farre more louelie then the terean plant,
That blushing in the aire turnes to a stone. (438-42)
Thomas Nashe and TOAS

I propose that TOAS is a coauthorship between Marlowe and Thomas
Nashe. In TOAS, Nashes contributions are most readily detected in scenes
inhabited by members of the lower-class: Sly, Sander, the Boy, and the
serving men.
Following are Nasheian lines in TOAS:
Sander. Sander, Ifaith your a beast, I crie God hartilie
Mercie, my harts readie to run out of my bellie with
Laughing, I stood behind the doore all this while,
And heard what you said to hir.
Ferando. Why didst thou think that I did not speake wel to hir?
Sander You spoke like an asse to her, Ile tel you what,
And I had been there to haue woode hir, and had this
Cloke on that you haue, chud haue had her before she
Had gone a foot furder, and you talke of Woodcocks
with her, and I cannot tell you what.
Ferando. Wel sirha, & yet thou seest I haue got her for all this.
Sander. I marry twas more by hap then any good cunning
I hope sheele make you one of the head men of the
parish shortly.
Ferando. Wel sirha leaue your iesting and go to Polidors house,
The yong gentleman that was here with me,
And tell him the circumstance of all thou knowst,
Tell him on sunday next we must be married,
And if he aske thee whither I am gone,
Tell him into the countrie to my house,
And vpon sundaie Ile be heere againe. (367-87)
55
Nashe was known for his use of and creation of unusual words, and in
TOAS on one page (D1r) in a scene between Sander and the Boy, we find a
pile-up of Nashe-type words: thou abusious Villaine, thou
Imperfectious slaue, and O supernodicall fo[o]le. Although
supernodical, a compound formed from super and noddy, is the one
word that appears to have been invented (not found earlier in the
OED/EEBO), abusious and imperfectious were uncommon and
employed absurdly, in Nashe fashion.
Below is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster for Pair near.100 leg*
near.100 canvas* near.100 horse* between TOAS and Nashes Pierce
Penniless that also includes come/came.
TOAS:
When they should
Go to church to be maried he puts on an olde
Ierkin and a paire of canuas breeches downe to the
Small of his legge and a red cap on his head and he
Lookes as thou wilt burst thy selfe with laffing
When thou seest him: hes ene as good as a
Foole for me: and then when they should go to dinner
He made me Saddle the horse and away he came. (848-55)
Pierce:
The seauen liberall Sciences and a good leg, will scarse get a
Scholler a paire of shoos, and a Canuas-dublet These whelps of
the first litter of gentility, these exhalations drawn up to the heaven
of honour from the dunghill of abject fortune, have long been on
horseback to come riding (B4r)
Nasheian Matches and Near Matches

Matches and Near Matches to the Nashe & Dekker canon point to
Nashes presence in TOAS.
1. TOAS: You whorson droonken slaueFils the tother pot and alls
paid for, and Fill the pot (4, 9, 136) vs. PG: Fill the tother pot
you whoore & God saue the Duke (H4r)EEBO Match: Fill*
near.20 t[]other pot(s). Note also 1HW: The tother pottle (D1v);
56
Chapter Three
RR: The Oastesse being calld vp for tother Pot, and whilest it was
drinking (D2r); Saffron: Fill the pot, hostesse (A2v); and
(regarding tavern hostess Mother Bunch) in Pierce: Some other of
her fil-pot facultie (B4r).
2. TOAS: Heigh ho, heers good warme lying, and Slie. Heigh ho./
Lord. Heers wine my lord (13, 115-6) vs. Summer: Heigh ho.
Here is a coyle in deede (C1v)EEBO Match: Heigh ho here*.
3. TOAS: See that you be not dasht out of countenance (82) vs.
Strange: Thy roister doisterdome hath not dasht us out of
countenance (L1v)EEBO: Not dashed fby.3 out of
countenance.
4. TOAS: Ile fetch you lustie steedes more swift of pace/ Then
winged Pegasus in all his pride (125-6) vs. Unfortunate: His
wings, which he neuer vseth but running, beeing spread full saile,
made his lusty ste[e]d as proud vnder him as he had bin some other
Pegasus (H4r)EEBO Match: Lusty steed(s) near.20 Pegasus.
Also note, however, 1T: A hundred Tartars shall attend on thee,/
Mounted on steeds swifter than Pegasus (I.ii.93-4).
5. TOAS: Mercie, my harts readie to run out of my bellie with
laughing (368-9) vs. Pierce: You may commaund his heart out
of his belly to make a rasher of coales (C1r)EEBO: Heart fby.5
out of fby.5 belly. Among other playwrights, the juxtaposition
occurs in a translation by Anthony Munday, 1592.
6. TOAS: I hope sheele make you one of the head men of the parish
shortly (379-80) vs. Strange: A certificate (such as Rogues have)
from the head men of the Parish where hee was borne (C4v), and
Saffron: Principall Head-man of the parish wherein he dwells
(A2v)EEBO: Head man/men of the parish. In other works by
playwrights, the juxtaposition is found in the anonymous prose
pamphlet The Cobbler of Canterbury that I ascribe to Robert
Greene.
7. TOAS: I haue a prettie wench to my sister (400-1) vs. Dekkers
WY: A Lord may sup with a c[ob]ler, that hath a pretty wench to
his wife (E4r), yet also Marlowes E2: We that have pretty
wenches to our wives (Sc. ix.101)EEBO: Pretty wench* to.
8. TOAS: Plaine friend hop of my thum (408) vs. Lenten: As small
a hoppe on my thumbe as hee seemeth (E4v); and PG: Knocke
out his braines, and saue the little hop a my thumbes (H2r)
EEBO: Hop near.5 thumb*. The phrase also occurs in John Lylys
comedy, Mother Bombie, pr. 1594.
57
9. TOAS: Faith I, you thinke he standes as long about it as you doo

(447-8) vs. Saffron: If thou list not stand so long about it
(C3r)EEBO: Stand [all forms] fby.3 long about it. In Nashes
Anatomy of Absurdity we find: But why stand I so long about
meates (D4v).
10. TOAS: One cannot saue a bit after supper,/ But you are alwaies
readie to munch it vp (710-1) vs. Lenten: Giantly
Antaeusmuncheth him vp for imperiall dainties (F4r); ITBN:
Steale away a mouthfull cunningly, and munch it vp in a corner
hungerly (C4r); PG: You think tis enough if at dinner you tell vs
a tale of Pigm[i]es, and then mounch vp out vituals (I4r); and
MML: Some of you munch vp our flatten milk cheese (H3v)
EEBO Match: Munch* fby.3 up.
11. TOAS: What say you to a sheepes head and garlick? (951) vs.
Lenten: Bad him go eate a fooles head and garlick (K1r)
EEBO Match: Head and garlic.
A Canterbury Wedding
I favor Louis Ules little-known theory that TOAS was penned for the
wedding of Marlowes sister Margaret in Canterbury on June 15, 1590.12
If one accepts the strong hypothesis that A Midsummer Nights Dream was
composed for the wedding of Elizabeth Carey, a marriage did occasionally
motivate a new comedy.13 TOAS is about a father trying to marry off three
daughters, and Marlowes father had exactly three unmarried daughters of
marriageable age at the time: Margaret, age 25; Anne, age 19; and
Dorothy, age 17. Moreover, Marlowes mothers name was Kate. History
does not record specifics about Kate Marlowes personality, but we do
know that these same three daughters did not carry out the request in her
will to be buried in the same churchyard as and near to her husband, who
had died about seven weeks earlier. They buried her in a different
churchyard.14
It was to this wedding, I posit, that Thomas Nashe referred in An
Almond for a Parrot, 1590: Davy of Canterburydauncedst a whole
sunday at a wedding[his] leude legsbrought him thither, they kept
him there, they leapt, they daunced (F3r).15 Sir John Davies, whose
Epigrams were published in the same volume as Marlowes Elegies, loved
dancing so much that he wrote a highly regarded poem on the subject
called Orchestra, and Davies is called Davy in Thomas Bastards
Christoleros, Seven Bookes of Epigrams.16 A fly in the ointment is that
June 15, 1590 was a Monday, but we may hypothesize that the festivities
58
Chapter Three
were held the day before an official ceremony on a workday, so that

friends and family could attend. Some version of the Bards TOTS was
likely performed by the spring of 1592 because of parallels to it in the play
A Knack to Know a Knave. In addition, Antony Chutes poem Beauty
Dishonored, registered June 16, 1593, refers to a scene in TOTS rather
than TOAS. 17 While TOTS was an early work by the Bard, according to
this theory, TOAS was likely written earlier.
It is at least possible that Marlowe and Nashe rounded up friends,
fellow authors, and Marlowes father to act in this play, rehearsing it
beforehand in London. This would help account for the presence of Sir
John Davies at the wedding, while the boat trip from London toward
Canterbury, with Marlowes father onboard, could have served as an
inspiration for the anonymous The Cobbler of Canterbury, which I credit
to Robert Greene, written in 1590 almost certainly after the date of the
wedding.18 Greene was a friend of Nashe by that point.
As for TOTS, it contains interesting ties to Marlowe, too. Marlowes
fathers name was John, and in TOTS the fathers name is Baptista,
calling to mind the Biblical John the Baptist.19 In TOAS, Sly has no first
name, while in TOTS, his name is Christophero, evoking Marlowes first
name.
At the beginning of TOTS, the Host calls Christophero Sly a rogue. Sly
responds: Youre a baggage. The Slys are no rogues. Look in the
Chronicleswe came in with Richard Conqueror (Induction 1.3-5),
appearing to confuse Richard the Lionheart with William the Conqueror.
The Grafton and Holinshed chronicles do not name foreigners who
returned with Richard the Lionheart from his travels abroad, but do
provide lengthy lists of the men who came over from Normandy with
William. No Sly is among them.
Louis Ule pointed this out and added that in Graftons Chronicle at
Large, 1568, Morley is listed as one of the Gentlemen that came in with
William Conqueror. In Holinsheds Chronicles, 1587, Morleian Maine
(later spelled Morleyan Maine) appears in the roll of Battle Abbey,
followed by a list of men who came to England with William the
Conqueror. Holinshed noted that names on the two lists overlapped.20
Slys advice to look in the chronicles leads to an association with
Christopher Marlowe, a.k.a. Morley, one of the ways Marlowes name was
spelled.
59
Self Parody
TOAS appears to be a self parody that merrily pokes fun at earlier work
by Marlowe and Nashe. I include Nashe in the term self parody because
I believe TOAS parodies lines in DF that he wrote. I will preface these
next comments by stating that aside from the fact that sometimes prose
was printed as verse (and in the context of a parody, this could have been
on purpose), the text of TOAS is relatively free of corruption, and I am
assuming that the verbiage about to be discussed was accurately printed.
In TOAS, Ferando calls Kate louelier than Dianas purple robe (679),
a bizarre compliment. He swears by Ibis golden beake (682), as well as
by Merops head and by seauen mouthed Nile (1343), with the beak
and head/ mouth combination employed in bizarre oaths. TOASs
dissheuered locks (1177) appears to be a pun involving 1Ts hair
dishevelled and dissevered joints of men.
Ecce signum was a solemn phrase from the Latin mass meaning
behold the sign. TOAS has Sanders boy say I and thou beest not blind
thou maist see, Ecce signum, heere to humorously announce his presence
(419). This appears to be a carry-over of a joke from a Nasheian portion of
DF, when the clown Robin says ecce signum after stealing Faustus
conjuring book (Sc. ix.2).21 (Tilley terms ecce signum proverbial, S443,
citing DF as the first example.) And note what happens when the Italian
mountain range, mentioned in 2T as the snowy Apennines (I.i.111), is
misspelled in TOAS: Whiter then are the snowie Apenis (680).
Leah Marcus discussed other farcical elements of TOAS. The speech
by the Lord on its first page imitates one during which Doctor Faustus
dramatically conjures up devils:
TOAS:
Now that the gloomie shaddow of the night,
Longing to view Orions drisling lookes,
Leaps from thantarticke World vnto the skie
And dims the Welkin with her pitchie breath (17-20)
But what the Lord conjures up is merely the drunken commoner, Sly. At
the end of the comedy, the Tapster makes a poetic pronouncement before,
again, stumbling upon Sly.
Chapter Three
60
TOAS:
Now that the darkesome night is ouerpast,
And dawning day apeares in cristall sky,
Now must I hast[e] abroad: but soft whose this?
What Slie (1603-6)
The device is doubly ludricrous the second time, Marcus remarked.22
She additionally noted that Ferando offering Kate meat on a daggers point
parodied a similar scene under tragic circumstances in 1T.
Moreover, according to Marcus:
The love-stricken suitors of Katherines sisters in A Shrew can scarcely
articulate their passion without plunging into Marlovian bathos. The
sisters answers are frequently simple and matter-of-fact, deliberately and
comically deflating the suitors eloquence. A Shrew does not so much
plagiarize Marlowe as borrow Marlovian language to undercut the heroic
pretensions of the speakers.23
Marcus noted that Shakespeare employed a similar technique in The

Merchant of Venice, where the Prince of Moroccos overly ornamented
speech causes him to be held in derision by Portia and Nerissa.
Ferandos compliment to Kate wherein he tells her that she is whiter
than the icie haire that groes on Boreas chin (681) may have been an
inside joke. In Nashes preface to Robert Greenes Menaphon, 1589, he
rails against vainglorious tragoedians, who contend not so seriouslie to
excell in action, as to embowell the clowdes in a speach of comparison;
thinking themselves more than initiated in poets immortalitie, if they but
once get Boreas by the beard (**1r). This is an apparent reference to The
Metamorphosis, which describes Boreas beard as hung full of hideous
storms (Goldings 1567 translation, 5r). In EEBO, however, the only
person besides Ovid to have juxtaposed Boreas, the Greek god of the
north wind, with beard/hair/chin by the time of Nashes writing was
Robert Greene, in Menaphon: as white as the haires that grow on father
Boreas chinne (I1r). Fleay viewed Menaphon as a personal satire, and
whether someone had previously gotten Boreas by the beard in a lost
piece, we do not know.24 At any rate, the comparison involving Kate is
funny to begin with, and would have been even funnier to those in-theknow.
Provided that I am correct as to authorship, what does TOAS tell us
about the men who wrote it? It tells us that Marlowe helped to pen a true
comedy, in addition to his involvement in tragedies that contained comic
61
elements. It provides additional evidence that Marlowe and Nashe

sometimes co-authored plays, and that Nashe wrote comic lines for
members of the lower class. Most importantly, I believe, we learn that by
the time Marlowe co-authored TOAS, he had distanced himself from the
overly ornate speech that it parodies.
Other Works Paralleled in TOAS

Under the previously discussed Image Clusters, I reported a TOAS
quote revolving around Hero and Leander. Moreover, following the
induction, TOASs action begins with Polidor welcoming to Athens a
young man named Aurelius. Aurelius is from Cestus [Sestos], famous for
the loue/ Of good Leander and his Tragedie,/ For whom the Helespont
weeps brinish teares (176-8). The potential known sources for TOAS are
set in Italy; its location in Greece and references to Hero and Leander are
almost certainly contrived.
Edward Blount first published Marlowes Hero and Leander in 1598.
We do not know when Marlowe wrote this poem, but it is generally
assumed to have been penned in the first part of 1593, perhaps while he
was staying with Thomas Walsingham, since Blount dedicated it to
Walsingham. Marlowes friend George Chapman wrote a continuation of
Hero and Leander, as did Henry Petowe, the latter stating that This
history of Hero and Leander, penned by that admired poet Marlowe, but
not finished (being prevented by sudden death), with the implication
being that Marlowe would have finished it if he could.25 This is likely
because Blount called it an unfinished tragedy.
As it stands, however, Hero and Leander is a humorous, delightful
story about love at first sight, sexual longing and fulfillment; to have
continued and carried it on through Leanders death would have changed
the tone of the poem. As Brian Morris stated, in Hero and Leander
Marlowes bias is increasingly towards the full burlesque, and away from
the impending tragic end of the story. Perhaps that is why he never
finished it.26 Harold R. Walley noted:
Marlowe is, therefore, concerned throughout with the progress of
impetuous love from its inception to its consummationMarlowes
exclusive interest in this aspect of his poem and his disregard of its tragic
implications rather suggest that his poem is really complete as it stands. I
suspect that it is a fragment more by design than by accident.27
The lyric, comic nature of HL better aligns it with OE and portions of

Dido, both likely written before 1590, than with work attributed to
62
Chapter Three
Marlowe in 1590 and later. Because TOAS unnecessarily raises Hero and
Leander twice, and Sestos is mentioned twenty times in a play I have
identified as a self-parody, I think we should strongly consider the
possibility that Marlowe wrote Hero and Leander prior to TOAS, i.e., prior
to June 1590.
We find a Match between TOAS: Sonne fare you well, and see you
keepe your promise (363) and JM: We grant a month, but see you keep
your promise (I.ii.28)EEBO Match: See you keep your promise*.
There is also a strong parallel between TOAS: My fortune now I doo
account as great/ As earst did Caesar when he conquered most (186-7)
and E2: It shall suffice me to enjoy your love,/ Which whiles I have, I
think myself as great/ As Caesar riding in the Roman street (Sc. i.170-2).
Since only one parallel apiece to each work has been so far located, these
might be evidence of similar thought patterns by one author rather than
parodies of pre-existing works.
A similarity in thought occurs between TOAS and AYL. TOAS:
Polidor. Oh faire Emelia I pine for thee,/ And either must enioy thy loue,
or die./ Emelia. Fie man, I know you will not die for loue (589-91) vs.
AYL: Leander, he would have lived many a fair year though Hero had
turned nun if it had not been for a hot midsummer nightMen have died
from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love (IV.i.935, 99-101).
There is other work to which TOAS is more closely connected. We will
turn next to The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the Two Famous
Houses of York and Lancaster and 2H6, as well as its sister play pairing,
The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York and 3H6.
Division of TOAS Between Marlowe and Nashe

For each play in this book that I find to be a coauthorship between
Marlowe and Nashe, I attempt to delineate who wrote what portions.
These assignations are intended to serve as springboards for further
discussion, rather than to be set in stone. I tentatively divide TOAS
between Marlowe and Nashe as follows, using the New Cambridge edition
edited by Stephen Roy Miller, 1998. TOAS, more than any other play
herein discussed, gave me the sense that some of the time, Marlowe and
Nashe sat down and wrote lines together. I find no particular reason to
speculate that additional authors or revisers were involved:
63
Marlowe: Sc. i.1-7 with Nashe; Sc. i.8-55; Sc. i.56-85 with Nashe; Sc.
ii with Nashe; Sc. iii.1-185; Sc. iii.241-59 with Nashe; Sc. iii.260-308; Sc.
iv; Sc. v.47-66 with Nashe; Sc. v.67-119; Sc. vi.18-47 with Nashe; Sc. vii;
Sc. viii with Nashe; Sc. ix; Sc. x.1-48 with Nashe; Sc. x.49-65; Sc. xi.177; Sc. xii.2-55; Sc. xiii.1-44; Sc. xiii.55-135; Sc. xiv; Sc. xv with Nashe.
Nashe: Sc. i.1-7 with Marlowe; Sc. i.56-85 with Marlowe; Sc. ii with
Marlowe; Sc. iii.186-240; Sc. iii.241-59 with Marlowe; Sc. iii.309-16 (Sly
Interlude I); Sc. v.1-46; Sc. v.47-66 with Marlowe; Sc. vi.1-17; Sc. vi.1847 with Marlowe; Sc. viii with Marlowe; Sc. x.1-48 with Marlowe;
Sc.xi.78-79, Sc. xii.1 (Sly Interlude 2); Sc. xiii.45-54 (Sly Interlude 3); Sc.
xv with Marlowe.
Notes
1
In both plays, it is said that Kates husband-to-be has gone to the taming school,
to which the response in TOAS is: The taming schoole. why[,] is there such a
place? (927), and in TOTS: The taming-schoolwhat, is there such a place?
(IV.ii.75). Another similarity is TOAS: Tailor. Item a loose bodied gowne./
Sander. Maister if euer I sayd loose bodies gowne,/ Sew me in a seame and beate
me to death,/ With a bottome of browne thred (1092-5) vs. TOTS: Taylor.
Imprimis. A loose-bodied gown./ Grumio. Master, if ever I said loose-bodied
gown, sew me in the skirts of it and beat me to death with a bottom of brown
thread (IV.iii.132-5). Source: The Taming of a Shrew: The 1594 Quarto, ed.
Stephen Roy Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 94 n 23-7
and 101 n 25-6.
2
Compare TOAS: My selfe will fraught them with Arabian silkes,/ Rich affrick
spices Arras counter poines,/ Muske Cassia: sweet smelling Ambergreece (12957), to A Knack to Know a Knave: And all my chamber shall be richly [missing
word],/ With Aras hanging, fetcht from Alexandria,/ Then will I haue rich
Counterpoints and muske,/ Calamon, and Casia, sweet smelling Amber Greece
(Sc. xii.1453-6).
3
Helping us date A Knack to the spring of 1592 are the facts that it contains
coneycatching, a word originated by Greene in a work registered in December
1591, and includes the character Cuthbert Coney-Catcher from Defense of ConeyCatching, an anonymous work attributed to Greene that was registered on April 21,
1592. TOTS contains conycatching and conycatched (IV.i.38 and V.i.91).
4
TOAS parallels to Tamburlaine: 1. TOAS: Eternall heauen sooner be
dissolude,/ And all that pearseth Phebus siluer eie,/ Before such hap befall to
Polidor (593-5) vs. 1T: Eternal heaven sooner be dissolved,/ And all that
pierceth Phoebes silver eye,/ Before such hap fall to Zenocrate! (III.ii.18-20).
2. TOAS: Ile fetch you lustie steedes more swift of pace/ Then winged Pegasus
in all his pride (125-6) vs. 1T: Mounted on steeds swifter than Pegasus
(I.ii.94). 3. TOAS: Whose eies are brighter then the lampes of heaven,/ Fairer
then rocks of pearle and pretious stone (197-9) vs. 1T: Fairer than rocks of
64
Chapter Three
pearl and precious stone,/ The only paragon of Tamburlaine,/ Whose eyes are
brighter than the lamps of heaven (III.iii.118-20). 4. TOAS: Or were I now
but halfe so eloquent,/ To paint in words what ile performe in deedes/ I know
your honour then would pittie me (148-50) vs. 2T: Ah, were I now but half so
eloquent/ To paint in words what Ill perform in deeds/ I know thou wouldst
depart from hence with me (I.ii.9-11). 5. TOAS: The image of honor and
Nobilitie,/ In whose sweet person is comprisde the somme/ Of natures skill
and heauenlie maiestie (237-9) vs. 1T: Image of honour and nobility,/ For
whom the powers divine have made the world/ And on whose throne the holy
Graces sit,/ In whose sweet person is comprised the sum/ Of natures skill and
heavenly majesty (V.i.75-9). 6. TOAS: O might I see the center of my soule/
Whose sacred beautie hath inchanted me,/ More faire then was the Grecian
Helena/ For whose sweet sake so many princes di[e]de,/ That came with thousand
shippes to Tenedos (256-60) vs. 2T: Whose darts do pierce the centre of my
soul./ Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heaven,/ And, had she lived before the
siege of Troy,/ Helen, whose beauty summoned Greece to arms/ And drew a
thousand ships to Tenedos (II.iv.84-8). 7. TOAS: As was the Massie Robe
that late adornd,/ The stately legate of the Persian King (661-2) vs. 1T: And
show your pleasure to the Persian,/ As fits the legate of the stately Turk
(III.i.43-4), and 2T: And I sat down, clothed with the massy robe/ That late
adorned the Afric potentate (III.ii.123-4). 8. TOAS: Whiter then are the
snowie Apenis (680) vs. 1T: Fairer than whitest snow on Scythian hills
(I.ii.89), and 2T: That rests upon the snowy Apennines (I.i.111). 9. TOAS:
Father I sweare by Ibis golden beake (682) vs. 1T: A sacred vow to heaven and
him I make,/ Confirming it with Ibis holy name (IV.iii.36-7). 10. TOAS: Thou
shalt haue garments wrought of Median silke,/ Enchast with pretious Iewells
fecht from far/ By Italian Marchants that with Russian stemes,/ Plo[w]s up
huge forrowes in the Terren Maine (687-90) vs. 1T: Thy garments shall be
made of Median silk,/ Enchased with precious jewels of mine own, and And
Christian merchants that with Russian stems/ Plough up huge furrows in the
Caspian Sea (I.ii.95-6 and 194-5), and 2T: The Terrene main (I.i.37). 11.
TOAS: Were she as stubborne or as full of strength/ As were the Thracian horse
Alcides tamde,/ That King Egeus fed with flesh of men (896-8) vs. 2T: The
headstrong jades of Thrace Alcides tamed,/ That King Aegeus fed with human
flesh/ And made so wanton that they knew their strengths (IV.iii.12-4).
TOAS parallels to Doctor Faustus: Parallels are to the 1604-A version unless
otherwise stated. Parallels to the B (1616) version are from W.W. Greg, Marlowes
Dr Faustus 1604-1616: Parallel Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950):
1. TOAS: My Lord, we must/ Haue a shoulder of mutton for a propertie,/ And a
little vinegre to make our Diuell rore (98-100) vs. DF: I know he would give his
soul to the devil for a shoulder of/ mutton (Sc. iv.8-9). 2. TOAS: Wel
sirha leaue your iesting and go to Polidors house (381) vs. DF: Go to, sirrah!
Leave your jesting, and tell us where he is, and But sirrah, leave your jesting,
and bind yourself presently unto me (Sc. ii.9-10 and Sc. iv.24-6). 3. TOAS: For
trust me I take no great delight in itIf that sweet mistresse were your harts
65
content,/ You should command a greater thing then that (530, 536-7) vs. DF:
But it may be, madam, you take no delight in thisWere it a greater thing
than this, so it would content you, you/ should have it (Sc. xii.4, 15-6). 4. TOAS:
To seeke for strange and new found pretious stones,/ and diue into the sea to
gather pearle (605-6) vs. DF: Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,/ And search
all corners of the new-found world (Sc. i.85-6). 5. TOAS: Boy. Come hither,
sirha boy./ Sander. Boy; oh disgrace to my person, souns boy/ Of your face,
you haue many boies with such/ Pickadeuantes I am sure (698-701) vs. DF:
Wagner. Sirrah boy, come hither./ Robin. How, boy? Swounds, boy! I
hope your have seen/ many boys with such pickadevants as I have. Boy,
quotha? (Sc. iv.1-3); DF-B: Wagner. Come hither, sirrah boy./ Clown. Boy!
Oh disgrace to my person, zounds boy/ In your face. You have many boys with
beards, I am sure (341-3). 6. TOAS: And rauishing sound of his melodious
harpe (1170) vs. DF: With ravishing sound of his melodious harp (Sc.
vii.29). 7. TOAS: This angrie sword should rip thy hatefull chest,/ And hewd thee
smaller then the Libian sandes (1346-7) vs. DF-B: And had you cut my body
with your swords,/ Or hewed this flesh and bones as small as sand (1449-50).
TOAS parallels to Dido, Queen of Carthage: 1. TOAS: Al fellowes now, and
see you take me so (46) vs. Dido: All fellows now, disposed alike to sport
(III.iii.5). 2. TOAS: Importune Neptune and the watry Gods,/ To send a guard of
siluer scaled Dolphyns,/ With sounding Tritons to be our conuoy,/ And to
transport vs safe vnto the shore (1180-83) vs. Dido: Or else Ill make a prayer
unto the waves/ That I may swim to him like Tritons niece./ O Anna, fetch
Arions harp,/ That I may tice a dolphin to the shore/ And ride upon his back unto
my love! (V.i.246-50). 3. TOAS: And now my liefest loue, the time drawes nie
(1203) vs. Dido: Save, save Aeneas, Didos liefest love (V.i.256). Sources of the
parallels: The Taming a Shrew, ed. F. S. Boas (London: Chatto and Windus, 1908),
Appendix 1; The Taming of a Shrew 1594 (Oxford: Printed for the Malone Society
by the Oxford University Press, 1998), xii; The Taming of a Shrew. The 1594
Quarto, ed. Stephen Roy Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),
various footnotes; plus a few I noticed.
5
The Taming of a Shrew, ed. Graham Holderness and Bryan Loughsey (Lanham,
MD: Barnes and Noble Books, 1992), 24.
6
Marion Bodwell Smith, Marlowes Imagery and the Marlowe Canon
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1940; Norwood Editions Reprint,
1977), 148-9.
7
Roy Eriksen, The Taming of a Shrew: Composition as Induction to Authorship,
Nordic Journal of English Studies 4 (2005): 41-63.
8
Eriksen, 53.
9
Eriksen, 53.
10
Eriksen, 57-8.
11
Miller, 81n.
12
Louis Ule, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1607). A Biography (New York: Carlton
Press Corp., 1995), 27-32, 106-13, 173-80.
66
13
Chapter Three
David Wiles, Shakespeares Almanac: A Midsummer Nights Dream, Marriage

and the Elizabethan Calendar (Cambridge: Brewer, 1993).
14
David Riggs, The World of Christopher Marlowe (New York: Faber & Faber,
2004), 349.
15
An Almond for a Parrot appeared in 1590. The work is thought to have been a
response to The Protestation of Martin Marprelate, Sept., 1589, and Almonds
author describes it as having stayed for a good wind ever since the beginning of
winter, so the conventional wisdom is that it was written in late 1589 and
published in early 1590. If this is the case, then the reference to Davy dancing at
a wedding in Canterbury cannot have been about Margaret Marlowes marriage.
An Almond for a Parrot was not listed in the Stationers Register, however, and all
we know for certain about its date is that it was published during Julian calendar
year 1590. Another reference to Davies is found prefacing Strange News when
Nashe states, I beseech thee, by John Davies soule. Grosart suggested that Nashe
meant Davies Nosce Teipsum, 1599, under the assumption that it was then
circulating in manuscript. The Complete Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. Alexander B.
Grosart (London: Printed for private circulation only, 1883-1885), vol. 2, 179.
16
Thomas Bastards Christoleros, Seven Bookes of Epigrams Book I, no. 22, cited
in Bakeless, vol. 2, 172.
17
For a discussion of the parallels in A Knack to Know a Knave, see Ann
Thompson, Dating Evidence for The Taming of the Shrew, Notes & Queries 29
(1982): 108-9.
18
According to its title page, The Cobbler of Canterbury, 1590, was an invective
against Tarltons News, which was registered on June 26, 1590. Greenes Vision
reacts to an already-published Cobbler, and gives readers advanced notice of his
Mourning Garment, licensed on November 2, 1590. The Cobbler of Canterbury
was therefore written between those two dates.
19
Isabel Gortzar, The Clue in the Shrew.
http://www.marloweshakespeare.org/files/jl06_01_gortazar_shrew.pdf. Accessed
on August 7, 2013.
20
Ule, 176. I double-checked the chronicles and corroborated Ules finding.
21
Ecce signum also appears in humorous scenes in Robert Greene and Thomas
Lodges A Looking-Glass for London and England; in Wood. (III.iii.16-7); and
Shakespeares 1H4 (II.iv.190).
22
Leah S. Marcus, Unediting the Renaissance; Shakespeare, Marlowe and Milton
(London: Routledge, 1996), 121.
23
Marcus, 121.
24
Frederick Gard Fleay, A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama 15591642 (London: Reeves and Turner, 1891), vol. 1, 257-8.
25
Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Poems and Translations, ed. Stephen Orgel
(New York: Penguin Books, 2007), 78.
26
Brian Morris, Comic Method in Marlowes Hero and Leander, in Christopher
Marlowe, ed. Brian Morris (London: Ernest Bern, 1968), 115-131, 131.
27
Harold R. Walley, Shakespeares Debt to Marlowe in Romeo and Juliet,
Philological Quarterly 21 (1942): 257-67, 262 and 262 n. 11.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE CONTENTION AND II HENRY VI
An early quarto version of 2H6, entitled The First Part of the

Contention Betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster,
appeared in 1594. One year later, an early version of 3H6 was printed in
octavo, called The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York. Both works
were anonymous, and Francis Meres did not name any parts of the Henry
the Sixth trilogy in his 1598 list of plays by Shakespeare. The plays were
first attributed to Shakespeare when Thomas Pavier printed The
Contention and True Tragedy together as The Whole Contention Between
the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster in a 1619 version that
differed from both the 1594/1595 and Shakespeares First Folio editions of
the plays, but was far closer to the 1594/1595 ones.
Several early scholars thought The Contention and True Tragedy
involved the hand of Marlowe due to various parallels between them and
his known work, with C. F. Tucker Brooke publishing the lengthiest
argument on Marlowes behalf.1 The ground gave way beneath them,
however, with the publication of Peter Alexanders book in 1929 which
maintained that both texts were memorial reconstructionsprobably by
actorsof Shakespeare plays that were later correctly printed in the First
Folio.2 According to this theory, the memorial reconstructors accidentally
mixed in lines by Marlowe. Alexanders views held sway for over half a
century. Forceful push-back began in the late 1980s. Steven Urkowitz
argued that The Contention and True Tragedy were first drafts of plays by
Shakespeare, and Laurie Maguire concluded they were not memorial
reconstructions in her comprehensive study of the subject, Shakespearean
Suspect Texts.3
In the current century, Barbara Kreps analysis showing how the
character of Margaret demonstrably changes between The Contention and
2H6, indicating authorial choice, supports the theory that the Folio version
was a rewrite of the quarto, while The Contentions the Sosetus lake is
an obvious corruption of the name of the underworld body of water, called
the Cocitus lake in, for example, 1T (it is called the burning lake in
2H6). As for True Tragedy and 3H6, Randall Martin effectively made the
68
Chapter Four
case that both sides were right when it came to whether True Tragedy was
corrupt, and whether 3H6 was a rewrite of an earlier version. He noted, for
example, that the historical Lord Bonvill named in 3H6 was reported as
the fictional Lord Bonfield in True Tragedy, likely because that was the
name of a character in the play George a Greene. Someone familiar with
both shows probably misremembered the name. Given the frequent
reference in the plays we are examining to tigers that lived in Hyrcania
(3H6: tigers of Hyrcania I.iv.156), True Tragedys Tygers of Arcadia
(B3r) does appear to be a corruption. Martin also found, however, that
3H6 was a revised version of True Tragedy due to the two plays use of
sources: the reviser responsible for 3H6 made an interpretive shift away
from use of the chronicle by Hall toward use of the chronicle by
Holinshed.4
For the purposes of this book, my viewpoint will be that The
Contention and True Tragedy are both, at least to some extent, corrupt
versions of the original plays, which were then rewritten as the 2H6 and
3H6 included in Shakespeares First Folio. When language between the
1594/1595 and First Folio versions differs, I hold open the possibility that
both versions are accurate renditions of what the author(s) wrote, but when
it comes to my list of Matches/Near Matches to works solely involving
Marlowe, I report only those which occur between Marlowes works and
the First Folio versions, relegating those occuring between Marlowe and
The Contention, but that do not occur in 2H6, to this footnote.5 When a
similarity occurs exactly or inexactly in both The Contention and 2H6, line
numbers are provided for both works.
Within the changed environment since Alexanders bad quarto
theory came under question, a few scholars have again asked whether
Christopher Marlowe might have been involved in the penning of The
Contention, 2H6, True Tragedy, or 3H6. Stylometrists Thomas Merriam
and Robert Matthews trained a multi-layer perceptron neural network to
discriminate between works by Marlowe and Shakespeare, and found that
Marlowe was more likely the author of The Contention, True Tragedy, and
3H6 than Shakespeare, while Shakespeare was more likely the author of
2H6 than Marlowe. They added that the finding regarding 3H6 supported
Tucker Brookes claim that 3H6 was a Shakespearean revision of a
Marlowe original.6 Hugh Craig ran a series of tests based on lexical words
and function words for various playwrights on 2000-word segments of
2H6 and 3H6, and concluded that there were insufficient grounds to doubt
that Shakespeare wrote 3H6, but that Marlowe may have written portions
of 2H6.7 Craigs findings were the opposite of Merriam and Matthews
results.
69
The Taming of a Shrew and The Contention/II Henry VI

Let us now return to TOAS which, I have proposed, was a self parody
of work involving Marlowe and Nashe. Following are intriguing
similarities, often to language in The Contention which is somewhat
different than 2H6.
1. The Contention:
Fill all the pots again, for before we fight, looke you, I will tell
you my minde, for I am come hither as it were of my mans
instigation (875-7)
2H6:
Heres a pot of good double beer, neighbour (II.iii.64-5)
Masters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my
mans instigation (II.iii.91-2)
TOAS:
Tapster Ile fese you anon.
Fils the tother pot and alls paid for, looke you
I doo drinke it of mine owne Instegation (Induction.8-10)
TOAS parallels a segment in The Contention; in both instances we hear
the raw voice of the commoner. The corresponding language in 2H6 lacks
the order to fill the pot. The wording flows naturally from the situation in
The Contention/2H6: The Armorer has come forward to fight his man
Peter because Peter has accused him of treason. He therefore comes
forward at his mans instigation. In TOAS, the words occur at the
beginning of the play, are unrelated to anything, and are utterly
unnecessary. Just after the above verbiage is the quote from DF that
begins: Now that the gloomy shadow of the night. As that quote would
have been hilarious to audience members who had seen DF, so would the
mine own instigation quote have been humorous to those who had seen
The Contention. The language in TOAS is therefore more likely a parody
of The Contention rather than that The Contention is a corrupt
remembrance of TOAS.
Chapter Four
70
2. The Contention:
Base fearfull Henry that thus dishonorst me (2044)
2H6:
Never yet did base dishonour blur our name (IV.i.40)
TOAS:
Base villaine that thus dishonorest me (1315)
The Contention quote is uttered by York regarding his enemy, King
Henry, immediately before warfare. In TOAS, it is said by the Duke of
Cestus to the man who is impersonating his son. The line is more
appropriate to The Contention and less so to TOAS, given an expectation
that the Duke should have said something about impersonation or fraud.
Again, it may well have been placed in TOAS as a joke for those who had
seen The Contention.
3. The Contention:
Could I come neare your daintie vissage with my nayles,
Ide set my ten commandments in your face. (446-7)
2H6:
Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
Id set my ten commandments in your face. (I.iii.144-5)
TOAS:
Hands off I say, and get you from this place;
Or I wil set my ten commandments in your face. (331)
Both speeches stem naturally from the action. In The Contention,
however, it is pronounced as a serious threat the Duchess makes to Queen
Margaret, who has just boxed her on the ear, while in TOAS, Kate
threatens Ferando with these words, which would have been particularly
funny if spectators heard the phrase from a previous play. Ten
commandments referring to a womans fingernails is proverbial (Tilley
71
C553) and found in comic portions of three other late-16th century plays,
all anonymous ones that have been associated with Robert Greene, who
died in September, 1592: Locrine, Selimus, and John of Bordeaux.8 The
first two were written after TOAS, according to my chronology, while the
date of John of Bordeaux is unknown, but written after Greenes Friar
Bacon and Friar Bungay, to which it is a sequel. Dekker echoed the
sentiment years later in a comic section he wrote in Westward Ho, a
collaboration with John Webster: Your Harpy that set his ten
commandements vpon my backe (I1r).
Logic indicates that the nails/ten commandments reference occurred in
The Contention first, because it appears there in a dramatic passage. An
audience would not have taken the lines about a womans fingernails
seriously after they had recently heard them spoken comically.
4. 2H6 (not in The Contention):
Bollingbroke. Madam, sit you, and fear not. Whom we raise
We will make fast within a hallowed verge.
Here do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle. Southwell
reads Coniuro te, &c. It thunders
and lightens terribly, then the spirit Asnath riseth
Asnath. Adsum. (I.iv.22-4)
TOAS:
Ferando. Now welcome, Kate: wheres these villains
Here, what? not supper yet vppon the borde:
Nor table spred nor nothing don at all,
Wheres that villaine that I sent before.
Sanders. Now, adsum, sir. (861-5)
In 2H6 adsum, a Latin word meaning I am present, is uttered
under mysterious and exciting circumstances: the first word of a spirit who
has just been conjured up. In TOAS, it is said by a servant announcing his
presencethe same type of joke we heard with ecce signum. Set against
a previous occurrence in 2H6, it would have been hilarious. I found
adsum in but one other play in English in EEBO, the anonymous How a
Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, pr. 1605.
Chapter Four
72
5. 2H6 (not in The Contention):

This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf (IV.i.64)
TOAS:
Kate. Let go my hand, for feare it reach your eare.
Ferando. No [K]ate, this hand is mine and I thy loue. (334-5)
Those who had heard the phrase this hand of mine in 2H6 would
have smiled when Ferando said, This hand is mine in TOAS. A series of
phrases based upon thishand of mine appears in the works under
discussion in this book starting, if my timeline is correct, with the above
occurrence in 2H6. Note also 3H6: This strong right hand of mine/ Can
pluck the diadem from faint Henrys head (II.i.152-3, TT B5v); E3:
What if I swear by this right hand of mine (II.i.352); Tit.: This poor
right hand of mine/ Is left to tyrannize upon my breast (III.ii.7-8); and
Jn.: This hand of mine/ Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand
(IV.ii.252-3).
This series of connections indicates that The Contention was written
before TOAS, i.e. before the wedding of Marlowes sister in June 1590.
Biographical Connection to Marlowe

The conjuring scene, which occurs in both The Contention and 2H6,
was drawn from the history books. During the 20th year of Henry VIs
reign, the Duchess of Gloucester was accused of witchcraft, along with
three scholars: Roger Bolingbroke, John Hume, and Thomas Southwell,
and a woman of low birth who was known as a witch. The witchs name is
spelled Margerie Iourdayne and Iordayne in Halls Chronicles, and
Iordeine in Holinsheds Chronicles, while in Fabyans Chronicles it is
Iourdemayne. Her name is spelled Margery Iourdaine and Iordaine
in The Contention, and Margerie Iordane and Iordan in 2H6.
A playwright employing the chronicles as his source must sift through
lengthy histories and pick and choose what to dramatize. Having made that
decision, he chooses whom to place on the stage. In this case,
Bolingbroke, the main conjurer, would have been sufficient, but The
Contention also includes Hume and Jordan. 2H6 adds a fourth person,
Southwell. One can picture Marlowe coming across the witchs name and
making sure he brought her on-stage as an inside joke regarding his
familys upcoming wedding. As John Baker pointed out, when Marlowes
73
sister Margaret married in Canterbury on June 15, 1590, she became

Margaret Jordan.9
I proposed that TOAS was a co-authorship between Marlowe and
Nashe, and will now propose that Marlowe and Nashe co-authored The
Contention, with Nashe responsible for the humorous scenes involving
Jack Cade and his band of rebels. For those who would accept this, yet
claim that a different author (a flesh and blood Shakespeare) rewrote it,
although of course we cannot tell exactly what was in the authorial version
of The Contention, many of the striking similarities to Marlowes work
noted below occur in 2H6, and not The Contention. In addition, 2H6
contains two additional lines complimenting Kent, Marlowes home
county, not contained in The Contention (Cont.): Sweet is the country,
because full of riches;/ The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy
(IV.vii.67-8). It is far more likely that Marlowe performed the rewrite.
Rare Scattered Word Clusters in Marlowe

plus Julius Caesar
1. Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 2H6 and JM for
raven(s) near.100 dismal* near.100 comfort* near.100 hollow*. Both
passages also share the words eyes, shade(s), and comfort.
2H6:
What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
Came he right now to sing a ravens note
Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;
And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,
By crying comfort from a hollow breast
Can chase away the first-conceivd sound?
Hide not thy poison with such sugared words:
Lay not thy hands on meforbear, I say!
Their touch affrights me as a serpents sting.
Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!
Upon thy eyeballs murderous tyranny
Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world.
Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding
Yet do not go away. Come, basilisk,
And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight.
For in the shade of death I shall find joy;
Chapter Four
74
In life, but double death, now Gloucesters dead. (III.ii.39-55; lines

39-40, 42-3, 48-9, and 52-3 are exactly or inexactly found in Cont.
1215-23)
JM:
Thus like the sad presaging raven that tolls
The sick mans passport in her hollow beak,
And in the shadow of the silent night
Doth shake contagion from her sable wings,
Vexed and tormented runs poor Barabas
With fatal curses towards these Christians.
The incertain pleasures of swift-footed time
Have taen their flight and left me in despair,
And of my former riches rests no more
But bare remembrancelike a soldiers scar,
That has no further comfort for his maim.
O Thou, that with a fiery pillar ledst
The sons of Israel through the dismal shades,
Light Abrahams offspring, and direct the hand
Of Abigall this night! Or let the day
Turn to eternal darkness after this.
No sleep can fasten on my watchful eyes,
Nor quiet enter my distempered thoughts,
Till I have answer of my Abigall. (II.i.1-19)
The soliloquies in both 2H6 and JM showcase cascading similes and
metaphors. In 2H6, Suffolk is a raven and a wren, and his touch is like a
serpents sting. Indeed, he is a basilisk whose eyes wound, and tyranny,
anthropomorphized, sits upon his eyeballs. In JM, Barabas is like a raven,
and his former riches are like a soldiers scar. Time, anthropomorphized, is
swift-footed.
Moreover, an EEBO Match appears between part of the same passage
in JM and a different portion of 2H6 for Night* near.30 wing* near.30
contag*:
2H6:
The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day
Is crept into the bosom of the sea;
And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades
75
That drag the tragic melancholy night;

Who, with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings
Clip dead mens graves, and from their misty jaws
Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air. (IV.i.1-7; not in Cont.)
JM:
Thus like the sad presaging raven that tolls
The sick mans passport in her hollow beak,
And in the shadow of the silent night
Doth shake contagion from her sable wings (II.i.1-4)
Lastly, we find echoes of the longer JM passage in a later Shakespeare
work.
R2:
Even through the hollow eyes of death
I spy life peering; but I dare not say
How near the tidings of our comfort is
If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping countrys broken wing
Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh. (II.i.271-3, 293-4, 298)
2. The first passage above from 2H6 shares a Rare Scattered Word Cluster
with Dido for Hollow breast* near.100 serpent*:
2H6:
Hide not thy poison with such sugared words:
Their touch affrights me as a serpents sting. (III.ii.43-8)
Dido:
Breaking a spear upon his hollow breast,
Was with two wingd serpents stung to death. (II.i.165-6)
Chapter Four
76
3. Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 2H6 and 2T for

Porcupine*/porpentine* near.100 quill* near.100 caper*. Both employ the
porcupine in a simile with like, and both also juxtapose hair*.
2H6:
And fought so long till that his thighs with darts
Were almost like a sharp-quilled porpentine;
And in the end, being rescued, I have seen
Him caper upright like a wild Morisco,
Shaking the bloody darts as he his bells.
Full often, like a shag-haired crafty kern (III.i.362-7)
2T:
Their hair as white as milk and soft as down,
Which should be like the quills of porcupines,
As black as jet, and hard as iron or steel,
Bewrays they are too dainty for the wars.
Their fingers made to quaver on a lute,
Their arms to hang about a ladys neck,
Their legs to dance and caper in the air (I.iii.25-31)
4. Below is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 2H6 and MP for
Pope* near.100 triple crown* near.100 your highness. The two plays also
share a collocation of not brook, haughty, and insolence within the
same act. MP is an abbreviated, notoriously corrupt text which Laurie
Maguire has termed a memorial reconstruction, so when discussing it we
should tread lightly.10 The similarities below do not, however, appear to be
one text imitating the other.
2H6:
Cardinal. This weighty business will not brook delay
Somerset. Yet let us watch the haughty Cardinal;
His insolence is more intolerable (I.i.168, 172-3)
Queen Margaret. I would the college of the cardinals
Would choose him [King Henry] Pope, and carry him to Rome,
And set the triple crown upon his head
That were a state fit for his holiness.
77
Suffolk. Madam, be patientas I was cause

Your highness came to England, so will I (I.iii.64-9)
MP:
Guise. And know, my lord, the Pope will sell his triple crown,
Ay, and the Catholic Philip, King of Spain,
Ere I shall want, will cause his Indians
To rip the golden bowels of America.
Navarre, that cloaks them underneath his wings,
Shall feel the house of Lorraine is his foe.
Your highness needs not fear mine armys force;
Tis for your safety, and your enemies wrack.
Henry. Guise, wear our crown, and be thou king of France,
And, as dictator, make or war or peace,
Whilst I cry placet like a senator.
I cannot brook thy haughty insolence: (Sc. xix.46-57)
Note that in 2H6 above, Queen Margaret sarcastically suggests that the
very Catholic English King Henry become Pope, while in the MP passage,
the French King Henry sarcastically suggests that the very Catholic Duke
of Guise become king.
5. Rare Scattered Word Cluster for Ungentle queen* near.200 come* in
2H6, E2, and Dido:
2H6:
Queen Margaret. O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk.
King Henry VI. Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk.
No more, I say! If thou dost plead for him
Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.
Had I but said, I would have kept my word;
But when I swear, it is irrevocable.
(To Suffolk) If after three days space thou here beest found
On any ground that I am ruler of,
The world shall not be ransom for thy life.
Come, Warwick; come, good Warwick, go with me.
I have great matters to impart to thee. (III.ii.293-303; lines 294, 299
and 302-3 are in Cont. 1349, 1351-3)
Chapter Four
78
E2:
Edward. Fawn not on me, French strumpet; get thee gone.
Queen. On whom but on my husband should I fawn?
Gaveston. On Mortimer; with whom, ungentle queen
I say no more; judge you the rest, my lord.
Queen. In saying this, thou wrongst me, Gaveston.
Ist not enough that thou corrupts my lord
And art a bawd to his affections,
But thou must call mine honour thus in question?
Gaveston. I mean not so, your grace must pardon me.
Edward. Thou art too familiar with that Mortimer,
And by thy means is Gaveston exiled;
But I would wish thee reconcile the lords,
Or thou shalt neer be reconciled to me.
Queen. Your highness knows, it lies not in my power.
Edward. Away, then! Touch me not. Come, Gaveston. (Sc. iv.14659)
Dido:
Iarbus. Come, Dido, leave Ascanius! Let us walk!
Dido. Go thou away, Ascanius shall stay.
Iarbus. Ungentle queen, is this thy love to me?
Dido. O stay, Iarbas, and Ill go with thee.
Cupid. And if my mother go, I'll follow her.
Dido. Why stayst thou here? Thou art no love of mine.
Iarbus. Iarbas die, seeing she abandons thee!
Dido. No, live Iarbas; what hast thou deserved,
That I should say Thou art no love of mine?
Something thou hast deserved. Away, I say!
Depart from Carthage! Come not in my sight! (III.i.34-44)
The phrase ungentle queen found in all three excerpts occurs only
once elsewhere in EEBO: James Shirleys play Narcissus, pr. 1646. Note,
too, that it is followed on the next line in E2 by I say no more, and in
2H6 by No more, I say, while Dido juxtaposes Away, I say. All three
have one character telling another to come; all showcase rhetorical skills
involving repetition; and all highlight complicated romantic relationships.
In 2H6 the wife of the weak King Henry, Queen Margaret, is attracted to
Suffolk, who is exiled. In E2, the weak King Edward is attracted to
79
Gaveston, who is exiled. In venting his anger against his wife Queen
Isabella, King Edward rightly implies that she is attracted to Mortimer.
Meanwhile, in Dido, Cupids arrow has caused Dido to be attracted to
Aeneas, rather than to her suitor, Iarbus.
6. Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 2H6 and
Shakespeares Julius Caesar (JC) for Aeneas* near.100 old Anchises*
near.100 shoulder*. In both cases the juxtaposition occurs in an analogy
that also collocates bear, upon, as, did, and so.
2H6:
As did Aeneas old Anchises bear,
So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders. (V.iii.62-3)
(Cont. has And thus as old Ankyses sonne did beare/ His aged
father on his manly backe 2178-9)
JC:
Ay, as Aeneas, our great ancestor
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tird Caesar. (I.ii.114-5)
In Dido II.i, Aeneas recounts the story of escaping Troy with his father
Anchises on his back
Strong Parallels Between Cont./2H6

and Marlowes Works
1. 2H6:
Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
The time of night when Troy was set on fire (I.iv.17-18, variation
of I.iv.17 in Cont. 499)
Was I for this nigh wrecked upon the sea
And twice by awkward wind from Englands bank
What did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts
And he that loosed them forth their brazen caves,
And bid them blow towards Englands blessd shore,
Chapter Four
80
Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock.

Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,
But left that hateful office unto thee
To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did,
When he to madding Dido would unfold
His fathers acts, commenced in burning Troy! (III.ii.82-3, 8893, 116-8; lines 82-3 are in Cont. 1232-3)
Dido:
Into the windy country of the clouds,
Where, finding Aeolus entrenched with storms
And guarded with a thousand grisly ghosts,
She humbly did beseech him for our bane,
And charged him drown my son with all his train.
Then gan the winds break ope their brazen doors,
And all Aeolia to be up in arms
Poor Troy must now be sacked upon the sea,
And Neptunes waves be envious men of war;
Epeus horse, to Aetnas hill transformed,
Prepard stands to wrack their wooden walls (I.i.57-67)
With balls of wildfire in their murdering paws,
Which made the funeral flame that burnt fair Troy (II.i.217-18)
Both 2H6 and Dido accuse the Greek god Aeolus of employing his
winds to cause harm, juxtaposing the words Aeolus, wind(s), sea,
brazen, and wrecked/wrack. Immediately thereafter, 2H6 mentions
three main characters in the play Dido (Dido, Ascansius, and his father,
Aeneas) as well as the tale of the burning of Troy told at length in Dido
II.i.
His fathers acts, commenced at 2H6 III.ii.118 (not in Cont.) uses
language employed at Cambridge, which Marlowe attended. According to
the Master of Jesus College:
From the earliest days to times comparatively recent a candidate for a
degree at Cambridge was required to maintain a syllogistical dispute in the
schools, which disputation was called The Act. If he was successful and
admitted to the full privileges of a graduate, he was said to commence in
Arts or a Faculty.11
81
Thus, in his opening soliloquy, Doctor Faustus tells himself, Having

commenced, be a divine in show,/ Yet level at the end of every art (Sc.
i.3-4).
2. Given Marlowes penchant for combining heavenly and horrible
images, it is not surprising that he juxtaposed Heaven*, mover*, and
poison* in 1T. It would be surprising, however, if an entirely different
author thought to do the same in 2H6.
2H6:
Cardinal. Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.
King. O Thou eternal Mover of the heavens. (III.iii.18-9, not in
Cont.)
1T:
Bajazet. Make heaven to frown, and every fixd star
To suck up poison from the moorish fens
And pour it in this glorious tyrants throat!
Tamburlaine. The chiefest God, first mover of that sphere (IV.ii.58)
Other Similarities to Marlowe

Scholars have noted other similarities which support Marlowes
authorship of both The Contention and 2H6. In 2H6 Gloucester states:
Now, lords, my choler being overblown/ With walking once about the
quadrangle (I.iii.155-6, not in Cont.). According to Lisa Hopkins, this
sounds like a reminiscence of university days, characteristic and
widespread in Marlowe but absent perforce in Shakespeare, who did not
go to university.12
Charles R. Forker discussed correspondences between characters and
their behavior in E2 and 2H6:
Marlowes Isabella, for instance, coldly consents to the murder of her
husband under Mortimers domination, just as Shakespeares Margaret, for
equally political reasons and with Suffolk at her side, counsels the
elimination of Duke Humphrey. Moreover the policy meeting in which
Margaret, Suffolk, and their allies discuss the best means of liquidating
Humphrey (2 Henry VI, III.i) could have prompted Marlowes similar
scene in which Isabella persuades Mortimer to agree to Gavestons recall
82
Chapter Four
from banishmentthe better to greet his lordship with a poniard
(Edward II, I.iv.266). In this episode Mortimer speaks of a hypothetical
situation that might provide some color (I.iv.279), or justification, for
rising in arms against the king; in the corresponding Shakespearean scene
Winchester suggests that the conspirators against Duke Humphrey want a
color for his death (III.i.236). Both queens, too, are warlike, being
actively engaged in military campaigns.13
From all that we know, Marlowe was a trend-setter on the Elizabethan

stage. Scholars generally believe that the first versions of 2H6 and 3H6
were penned before E2.14 The view that 2H6/ Cont. and E2 were by two
separate playwrights, then, asks us to believe that Marlowe experienced a
shift in personality: that he copied not only numerous plot elements but
also the very language of someone elses play in English. It is also asking
us to believe that Shakespeare picked up the phrase ungentle queen
from Dido for 2H6, and that Marlowe lifted it back again for E2.
Andrew S. Cairncross suggested that Suffolks line Gelidus timor
occupat artusIt is thee I fear [Frozen fear seizes my joints almost
entirely] (2H6 IV.i.118-9, not in Cont.) was Possibly a confused and
inaccurate recollection of AEneid, 7.446 (cf. 11.424): subitus tremor
occupat artus and Lucan, Pharsalia, 1.246: gelidos pavor occupat
artus.15 Cairncrosss proposal makes sense in light of the fact that 2H6
quotes the Aeneid at II.i.24: Tantaene animis caelestibus irae? [Is there
so much anger in the minds of the gods?] Marlowe employed Virgils
Aeneid as his main source for Dido, and translated the first book of
Lucans Pharsalia. We previously noted that Shakespeare employed
Lucan as a source for JC; the author of these lines in 2H6 consulted
Pharsalia far earlier. Indeed, Emrys Jones found that in Yorks line Thus
war hath given thee peace, for thou art still (2H6 V.ii.29, W. J. Craig
edition, not in Cont.), Shakespeare is perhaps remembering a phrase from
Marlowes version (still unprinted) of Lucans first book: War only gives
us peace (669)The war-peace antithesis is Marlowes not Lucans,
though it is in Lucans manner.16 The sentiment also appears in CR: Of
warrs thus peace insues (III.Chorus.1167).
Clifford Ronan noted that in E2, the supposedly Medieval
Frenchman Gaveston defines himself as a trendy Italianate Elizabethan
waterfly, modishly affecting the Italian word tanti (so many). Ronan
then remarked regarding the Duke of Suffolk in 2H6: Interestingly, the
duke names Ciceros murderer a bandetto [IV.i.137, Cont. 1538], a term
that conjures Italian rather than Roman associations, just as the
exclamation Tanti! did for Marlowes Gaveston.17
83
The Faerie Queene

After Marlowe paralleled The Faerie Queene extensively in the
Tamburlaine plays and, I have maintained, Caesars Revenge, the known
echoes of Spenser in Marlowes other works are far fewerDF: Now
that the gloomy shadow of the earth/ And dims the welkin with her
pitchy breath (Sc. iii.1, 4) vs. FQ: Now gan the humid vapour shed the
ground/ With perly deaw, and thEarthes gloomy shade/ Did dim the
brightnesse of the welkin round (III.10.46); HL: Sylvanus weeping for
the lovely boy (Sestiad I.154) vs. FQ: Syluanusthe louely boy
(I.6.16-17); the rare drowsy couch in MP (Sc. xvi.40) and FQ (II.3.1);
and JMs crazd vessel (I.i.79) vs. FQs vessell crazd (III.4.9).
Douglas Bush identified the probable source of Dido: Which he
disdaining whisked his sword about,/ And with the wind thereof the king
fell down (II.i.253-4), as FQ: That with the wind it did him ouerthrow,/
And all his sences stound, that still he lay full low (I.7.12). Bush found
that this was reconfigured in Hamlet as: But with the whiff and wind of
his fell sword/ The unnerved father falls (II.ii.503-4).18
J. B. Lethbridge pointed out Marlowes tendency to borrow from
passages which Spenser repeated in FQ.19 Spensers repetition apparently
acted to sear the words into the young playwrights brain.
Following are passages Marlowe employed that Spenser repeated. 2T:
At every little breath that thorough heaven is blown (IV.iii.124) stems
from FQ: At euery little breath, that vnder heauen is blowne (I.7.32),
reinforced by That euery breath of heauen shaked it (I.4.5); 1T: Ah,
shepherd, pity my distressd plight (I.ii.7) draws from FQ: To comfort
me in my distressed plight (III.5.35), reinforced by Into most deadly
daunger and distressed plight (II.12.11; FQ and 1T contained the first
appearances of distressed plight in EEBO); while Marlowes multiple
lovely boy(s) in 2T (I.iii.37, 96; V.iii.159) and HL (Sestiad I.154) appear
to reflect the repetition of this word pairing in FQ (I.6.17, III.9.36 and
III.12.7). An example of this propensity from CR is More bright then are
the Lamps of Ioues high house (I.iii.423-4), reflecting FQ: That shyning
lampes in Ioues high house were light (I.5.19), reinforced by When she
does ride/ To Ioues high house (I.4.17).
2H6 (but not Cont.) also echoes passages which repeat in FQ. Its
flagging wings (IV.i.5) appears to be a remembrance of flaggy wings
in FQ I.11.10 and III.6.39, the only earlier occurrences (according to my
timeline) of flag* wing* in EEBO. 2H6s lays strong siege (III.iii.22)
echoes another EEBO first: lay strong siege in FQs II.11.5 and II.11.9.
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Chapter Four
Targeting Religious Hypocrisy

In Marlowes early works, we find an emphasis on devine retribution
for the blasphemous: Tamburlaine sickens, then dies after burning the
Koran; Doctor Faustus is carried off to eternal damnation in hell after
signing a pact with the devil. MP features a divide between Catholics vs.
Protestants, with the Protestants portrayed as piously religious, and the
Catholics hypocritically so: Anjou. I swear by this cross, well not be
partial,/ But slay as many as we can come near (Sc. v.51-2), and Guise.
What I have done, tis for the Gospel sake. /Epernoun. Nay, for the Popes
sake, and thine own benefit (Sc. xix 21-2).
In JM, however, Marlowes target shifted to Christian rather than
Catholic hypocrisy. After learning that the governor will confiscate half of
all the Jews estates to pay a tribute demanded by the Turks, Barabas asks
the Christians, Will you then steal my goods?/ Is theft the ground of your
religion? When told that payment of the tribute falls upon Jews because
of their inherent sin, Barabas replies, What? Bring you scripture to
confirm your wrongs?/ Preach me not our of my possessions. Another
Christian tells the rich Jew, Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness,/
And coveteousness, O, tis a monstrous sin, to which Barabas tersely
responds, Ay, but theft is worse. He later utters the famous line, A
counterfeit profession is better/ Than unseen hypocrisy (I.ii.95, 110-2,
124-6, 291-2).
A focus on religious hypocrisy is also on display in 2H6 when
Gloucester tells Cardinal Beaufort, What, Cardinal? Is your priesthood
grown peremptory?/ Tantaene animis caelestibus irae? [Is there so much
anger in the minds of the gods?]/ Churchmen so hot? Good uncle, hide
such malice/ With some holinesscan you do it? (II.i.23-5, Cont. has
only Church-men so hote 572). After the Cardinal and Suffolk secure
Duke Humphreys murder, Beaufort himself is stricken with a deadly
illness during which he blasphemes God and curses men on earth, and
offers Death the treasure of England to let him livethe opposite of
Christ-like behavior. The theme carries forward to 1H6, thought to have
been written as a prequel after 2H6, where this time it is King Henry VI
who accuses Cardinal Beaufort of hypocrisy: Fie, uncle Beaufort! I have
heard you preach/ That malice was a great and grievous sin;/ And will not
you maintain the thing you teach,/ But prove a chief offender in the
same? (III.i.130-3).
Meanwhile, King Henry VI is extremely religious, but his piety is
presented as a liability. He is a weak and ineffective king who issues
religious platitudes instead of orders. At this point in history, of course, all
85
English were Catholics, including Cardinal Beaufort and Henry VI. But
the main author of 2H6 provides no counterbalance, no heroic voices
espousing faith, as is the case with the Good Angel in Doctor Faustus or
the Protestants in The Massacre at Paris. This authors sharp quill appears
to be directed at negative aspects of religion rather than at the Catholic
faith.
The Merchant of Venice reflects a similar line of thinking as JM: The
devil can cite Scripture for his purpose./ An evil soul producing holy
witness/ Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,/ A goodly apple rotten at the
heart./ O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! (I.iii.97-101). The first
line in this excerpt mirrors Barabas Bring you scripture to confirm your
wrongs? The Jewish Shylock, too, rants against Christians, after first
offering Antonio a loan at no interest if he will be Shylocks friend, and
being rebuffed: O father Abram, what these Christians are,/ Whose own
hard dealings teaches them suspect/ The thoughts of others! (I.iii.159-61).
Anger over religious hypocrisy fits better with the biography of
Christopher Marlowe, who by 1593 had been accused of heresy. While the
accusations that survive were made by unreliable correspondents, since
Richard Baines was his enemy and Thomas Kyd might have told
authorities what they wanted to hear in an effort to save his own skin,
Marlowe certainly had run afowl of the Church of England. A motivation
for William Shakspere spotlighting such hypocrisy is less easy to divine.
Image Cluster
As for Image Clusters, 2H6 contains a detailed discussion of falconry
and birds mounting and soaring to a high pitch, with analogies to human
beings. Related language recurs throughout the Marlowe and Shakespeare
canons. Of special note is that TOAS, TOTS, E2, and R3 make use of the
fact that mew means both the molting of birds and imprisonment. Also,
E2 and Oth. both employ figuratively the hawking term jess, a short
strap of leather that tethers a bird.
2H6:
King Henry. But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,
And what a pitch she flew above the rest!
To see how God in all his creatures works!
Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.
Suffolk. No marvel, an it like your majesty,
My Lord Protectors hawks do tower so well;
Chapter Four
86
They know their master loves to be aloft,

And bears his thoughts above his falcons pitch.
Gloucester. My lord, tis but a base ignoble mind
That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
Cardinal. I thought as much; hed be above the clouds (II.i.5-15,
Cont. 558-65)
CR:
To what a pitch would this mans vertues sore,
Did not ambition clog his mounting fame (I.i.210-11)
1T:
Nor by princely deeds
Doth mean to soar above the highest sort (II.vi.72-3)
Making thee mount as high as eagles soar! (V.i.224)
2T:
And raise our honours to as high a pitch...
For so hath heaven provided my escape (III.i.31, 33)
Over whose zenith, clothed in windy air
And eagles wings joined to her feathered breast,
Fame hovereth, sounding of her golden trump (III.iv.61-3)
TOAS:
Ile mew her vp as men do mew their hawkes,
And make her gentlie come vnto the lure...
Yet would I pull her downe and make her come
As hungry hawkes do flie vnto the[ir] lure. (894-5, 899-900)
E2:
I am that cedar. Shake me not too much.
And you the eagles, soar ye neer so high,
I have the jesses that will pull you down (Sc. vi.38-40)
Should drink his blood, mounts up into the air;

And so it fares with me, whose dauntless mind
The ambitious Mortimer would seek to curb,
And that unnatural queen, false Isabel,
That thus hath pent and mewed me in a prison.
For such outrageous passions cloy my soul
As with the wings of rancour and disdain
Full often am I soaring up to heaven (Sc. xxi.14-21)
3H6:
The proudest he that holds up Lancaster
Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells. (I.i.46-7, TT A3r)
E3:
Fly it a pitch above the soar of praise (II.i.87)
1H6:
Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch (II.iv.11)
Tit.:
The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not careful what they mean thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wings
He can at pleasure stint their melody. (IV.iv.83-6)
Ven.:
As falcon to the lure, away she flies. (1027)
R3:
More pity that the eagles shoud be mewed
where kites and buzzards prey at liberty. (I.i.133-4)
TOTS:
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,
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88
And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged,

For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keepers call (IV.i.176-80)
Luc.:
This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,
Which, like a falcon towring in the skies
Coucheth the fowl below with his wings shade
Whose crooked beak threats, if he mount he dies.
So under his insulting falchion lies
Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells
With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcons bells. (505-11)
R2:
How high a pitch his resolution soars! (I.i.109)
As confident as is the falcons flight
Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight. (I.iii.61-2)
Rom.:
I am too sore empiercd with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe; (I.iv.19-21)
Hist, Romeo! Hist! O, for a falconers voice
To lure this tassel-gentle back again. (II.i.203-4)
AYL:
As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his
curb, and the falcon her bells (III.iii.72-3)
JC:
These growing feathers pluckd from Caesars wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men (I.i.72-4)
89
Oth.:
If I do prove her haggard,
Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings
Id whistle her off and let her down the wind
To prey at fortune. (III.iii.265-7)
Mac.:
Tis unnatural...
A falcon, towring in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed. (II.iv.10, 12-3)

Following are Matches, Near Matches, and other similarities beween
2H6/The Contention and the acknowledged works of Marlowe and
Shakespeare plus CR, except that in most cases, similarities to works
treated later in this bookIII Henry VI, Edward III, Thomas of
Woodstock, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and I Henry IVare
presented in those later discussions. All in all, 2H6/The Contention tips
closer to Marlowe than Shakespeare along their continuum.
1. 2H6: And humbly now upon my bended knee,/ In sight of England
and her lordly peers (I.i.10-11, Cont. 59 has lordly peers but
not knee) vs. E2: Farewell, base stooping to the lordly peers;/
My knee shall bow to none but to the king (Sc. 1.18-9)EEBO
Match: Lordly peer* near.30 knee*.
2. 2H6: Cousin of York,/ We here discharge your Grace from being
regent/ Ith parts of France (I.i.62-4, Cont. 88-9) vs. 1H6:
Cousin of York, we institute your grace/ To be our regent in
these parts of France (IV.i.162-3)EEBO Match: Cousin* of
York near.30 part* of France*.
3. 2H6: O peers of England, shameful is this league,/ Fatal this
marriage, cancelling your fame (I.i.95-6, Cont. 111) vs. MP:
These are the cursed Guisians, that do seek our death./ Oh, fatal
was this marriage to us all (Sc. iii.36-7)EEBO Match: Fatal
near.10 this marriage.
4. 2H6: And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west (I.i.152) vs. 2T:
Than all the wealthy kingdoms I subdued (I.iii.19)EEBO
Match: All the wealthy kingdom*.
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Chapter Four
5. 2H6: Let not his smoothing words/ Bewitch your hearts (I.i.1545) vs. R3: My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word
(I.ii.169)EEBO: Smoothing word*. The collocation also occurs
in Greenes Groatsworth of Wit, 1592.
6. 2H6: For the public goodAnd common profit of his country
(I.i.199, 206) vs. MP: And tell him that tis for his countrys
good,/ And common profit of religion (Sc. xiv.58-9)EEBO:
Good* near.100 common profit of near.100 country*.
7. 2H6: Away, base cullions! Suffolk, let them go (I.iii.43) vs. E2:
With base outlandish cullions at his heels (Sc. iv.408)EEBO:
Base* near.20 cullion*. Elsewhere among playwrights, we find the
juxtaposition in Ben Jonsons Every Man in his Humor, pr. 1601;
and George Peeles The Old Wives Tale, pr. 1595.
8. 2H6: I tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours/ Thou rannst a-tilt
in honour of my love/ And stolst away the ladies hearts of
France (I.iii.53-5, Cont. 358-9) vs. E2: Tell Isabel the queen I
looked not thus,/ When for her sake I ran at tilt in France (Sc.
xxv.68-9)EEBO Match: Tell* fby.20 run [all forms] fby.20 tilt.
9. 2H6: She bears a dukes revenues on her back (I.iii.83) vs. E2:
He wears a lords revenue on his back (Sc. iv.406)EEBO:
Revenue* on near.20 back. Note also E2: And, could my crowns
revenue bring him back (Sc. iv.307).
10. 2H6: Then, Simon, sit thou there the lyingst knave in
Christendom (II.i.130-1, Cont. 655-6) vs. TOTS: Score me up
for the lyingst knave in Christendom (Induction.ii.22-3)
EEBO Match: Lyingest knave in Christendom.
11. 2H6: King Henry. What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?/
Buckingham. Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold (II.i.1667) vs. LFB: Cried out, O gods! I tremble to unfold/ What you
intend (630-1); and JM: Friar Jacomo. Why? What has he
done?/ Friar Barnardine. A thing that makes me tremble to
unfold (III.vi.47-8)EEBO Match: Tremble* to unfold*.
12. 2H6: That erst didst follow thy proud chariot wheels/ When thou
didst ride in triumph through the streets (II.iv.14-15, Cont.
901-2) vs. 2T: And, as thou ridst in triumph through the
streets,/ The pavement underneath thy chariot wheels, and Have
rode in triumph, triumphs Tamburlaine,/ Whose chariot wheels
have burst th Assyrians bones (I.ii.41-2 and V.i.70-1); and CR:
Captiue to followe Caesars Chariot wheeles/ Riding in triumph
to the Capitol (I.i.116-7)EEBO Match: Rid*/Rode in triumph*
near.30 chariot wheel*.
13. 2H6: And fly thou how thou canst, theyll tangle thee./ But fear
not thou, until thy foot be snared (II.iv.56-7) vs. 1H6: Stands
with the snares of war to tangle thee...flight (IV.ii.22, 24)
EEBO Match: Tangle* thee near.20 snare*.
14. 2H6: With what a majesty he bears himself (III.i.6) vs. 1T:
With what a majesty he rears his looks (I.ii.165)EEBO: With
what a majesty he. The phrase occurs among playwrights in
Richard Bromes The Antipodes, pr. 1640; James Shirleys The
Opportunity, pr. 1640; and John Fletchers The Island Princess, pr.
1647.
15. 2H6: Virtue is choked with foul ambition (III.i.143) vs. 1H6:
Go forward, and be choked with thy ambition, and Choked
with ambition of the meaner sort (II.iv.112 and II.v.123)
EEBO: Choke* with near.20 ambition*, a juxtaposition which also
occurs in Thomas Heywoods Apology for Actors, 1612.
16. 2H6: Ah, uncle Humphrey, in thy face I see/ The map of honour,
truth and loyalty (III.i.202-3) vs. R2: Thou map of honour, thou
King Richards tomb (V.i.12)EEBO: Map(s) of honour. The
phrase appears elsewhere in works by playwrights in Anthony
Mundays Palmerin DOliva, 1588; and R. A.s play The Valiant
Welshman, pr. 1615.
17. 2H6: Suffolk. Seeing the deed is meritorious,/ And to preserve
my sovereign from his foe,/ Say but the word and I will be his
priest (III.i.270-2) vs. MP: Friar. O, my lord, I have been a great
sinner in my days,/ and the deed is meritorious (Sc. xxiii.27-8)
EEBO Match: Deed is meritorious. Note the pairing of the phrase
with priest and friar. The phrase also occurs in the anonymous
The Troublesome Reign of King John, Part II, paired with abbot.
18. 2H6: Was I for this nigh wrecked upon the sea,/ And twice by
awkward wind from Englands bank/ Drove back again unto my
native clime? (III.ii.82-4, Cont. 1232-3) vs. E2: With awkward
winds and sore tempests driven,/ To fall on shore and here to pine
in fear (Sc. xx.34-5)EEBO Match: Awkward near.20 wind*.
The juxtaposition also appears in playwright Michael Draytons
Englands Heroicall Epistles, 1597.
19. 2H6: Even thus two friends condemned/ Embrace and kiss, and
take ten thousand leaves,/ Loather a hundred times to part than
die./ Yet now farewell, and farewell life with thee (III.ii.356-60)
vs. 1T: Theridamas. Then now, my lord, I humbly take my leave./
Mycetes. Theridamas, farewell ten thousand times! (I.i.81-2)
EEBO Match: Take* near.30 ten thousand near.30 farewell*.
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Chapter Four
Among playwrights, the juxtaposition appears in John Drydens

The Mall, pr. 1674. Note also E2: Father, farewell. Leicester, thou
stayst for me,/ And go I must. Life, farewell, with my friends
(Sc. xx.97-8).
20. 2H6: Jove sometime went disguised, and why not I? (IV.i.48,
W. J. Craig edition has sometimes; Cont. 1499) vs. 1T: Jove
sometimes maskd in a shepherds weed (I.ii.199)EEBO: Jove
sometime*, also occurring among playwrights in Thomas
Heywoods Loves Mistress, pr. 1636, and poetry by John Dryden,
pr. 1682. Both 2H6 and 1T refer to Jove sometimes disguising
himself.
21. 2H6: Because my book preferred me to the King (IV.vii.71) vs.
E2: And would have once preferred me to the King (Sc.
v.14)EEBO Match: Prefer* me to the king*.
22. 2H6: Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse? (V.i.92) vs. E2:
Ah, Leicester, weigh how hardly I can brook/ To lose my
crown (Sc. xxi.51-2)EEBO Match: Hardly I can brook.
23. 2H6: Edward. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve./
Richard. And if words will not, then our weapons shall (V.i.1378, Cont. 2078-9) vs. E2: Queen. Forbear to levy arms against the
King./ Mortimer. Ay, if words will serve; if not, I must (Sc. ii.823)EEBO Match: If fby.3 words will serve. The phrase occurs
among playwrights in William Rowleys play Alls Lost by Lust, pr.
1633. Note also 2T: If words might serve, our voice hath rent the
air (II.iv.121); and Dido: If words might move me, I were
overcome (V.i.154).
24. 2H6: Old Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair/ And shame thine
honourable age with blood? (V.i.160, 168) vs. 1T: Pity old age,
within whose silver hairs/ Honour and reverence evermore have
reigned! (V.i.81-2)EEBO: Silver hair* near.100 honor*
near.100 age near.100 old. Among playwrights, the juxtaposition
occurs in Thomas Lodges The Wounds of Civil War, pr. 1594;
William Sampsons The Vow Breaker, pr. 1636; and a prose piece
by the Duchess of Newcastle, pr. 1655.
25. 2H6: O, let the vile world end,/ And the premisd flames of the
last day/ Knit earth and heaven together (V.ii.40-2) vs. 2T:
Meet heaven and earth, and here let all things end!/ For earth
hath spent the pride of all her fruit,/ And heaven consumed his
choicest living fire./ Let earth and heaven his timeless death
deplore (V.iii.249-52)EEBO: Earth and heaven near.40 let fby.5
end*. These speeches occur near or at the end of each play.
93
Similarity: 2H6: Why are thine eyes fixed to the sullen earth?
(I.ii.5) vs. 1T: His fiery eyes are fixed upon the earth, and The
frowning looks of fiery Tamburlaine (I.ii.158 and IV.i.13); and Ham.:
What looked he? Frowningly?...And fixed his eyes upon you?
(I.ii.229, 231).
Similarity: 2H6: Hanging the head at Ceres plenteous load?/ Why
doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,/ A frowning at the favours
of the world?/ Why are thine eyes/ sight (I.ii.2-7; Cont. has Deepe
trenched furrowes in his frowning brow,/ Presageth warlike humors in
his life 2023-4) vs. 1T: And he with frowning brows and fiery looks/
Spurning their crowns from off their captive heads (I.ii.56-7), and The
frowning looks of fiery Tamburlaine,/ That with his terror and imperious
eyes (IV.i.14-5); 2T: Sends lightning from his eyes/ And in the furrows
of his frowning brows/ Harbours revenge, war, death, and cruelty
(I.iii.76-8), and With furious words and frowning visages (V.i.78);
AYL: As fast as she answers thee with frowning looks,/ Ill sauce her
with bitter words (III.v.69-70); PPilg.: What though her frowning
brows be bent,/ Her cloudy looks will calm ere night (18.25-6); Jn.:
Drawn in the flattering table of her eye,/ Hanged in the frowning
wrinkle of her brow (II.i.505-6); Rom.: The grey-eyed morn smiles on
the frowning night (II.ii.1); and R2: And frowning brow to brow
(I.i.16).
Similarity: 2H6: Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night...The
time when screech-owls cry and bandogs howl (I.iv.17, 19; Cont. has
silence of the Night 499) vs. OE: In nights deep silence why the bandogs bark (Book II Elegia XIX.40).
Similarity: 2H6: You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly
(II.i.163, Cont. 690-1) vs. 2T: And make whole cities caper in the air
(III.ii.61).
Similarity: 2H6: Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent/ From
meaning treason to our royal person/ As is the sucking lamb or harmless
dove/Is he a lamb? His skin is surely lent him,/ For hes inclined as is
the ravenous wolf (III.i.69-71, 77-8) vs. JM: We Jews can fawn like
spaniels when we please,/ And when we grin, we bite; yet are our looks/
As innocent and harmless as a lambs (II.iii.20-2); and R3: O
Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog./ Look when he fawns, he bites
(I.iii.287-8).
Similarity: 2H6: That drag the tragic melancholy night;/ Who, with
their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings/ Clip dead mens graves, and from
their misty jaws/ Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air (IV.i.4-7)
vs. HL: The air with sparks of living fire was spangled,/ And night,
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deep-drenched in misty Acheron,/ Heaved up her head, and half the world
upon/ Breathed darkness forth (dark night is Cupids day) (Sestiad
I.188-91).
Similarity: 2H6: A heart unspotted is not easily daunted./ The
purest spring is not so free from mud (III.i.100-1) vs. 1H6: Yes, my
good lord: a pure unspotted heart (V.v.138).
Similarity: 2H6: Richard. For you shall sup with Jesu Christ tonight
(V.i.212, Cont. 2107) vs. R3: Hastings. Nay, like enough, for I stay
dinner there [at the tower of London]./ Buckingham (aside). And supper
too, although thou knowst it not (III.ii.116-7). In both excerpts, the talk
about sup or supper means that the speaker expects that the person he
is addressing will die. This is a reference to the heavenly supper promised
in Revelation, according to Naseeb Shaheen.20 The exchange between the
soon-to-be-murdered Hastings and Buckingham in R3 is reminiscent of
one noted earlier in CR between the about-to-be-murdered Pompey and
Sempronius: Pompey. I am come to shore:/ In Egipt heere a while to
make aboade./ Sempromius. Fayth longer Pompey then thou dost expect
(II.i.685-7).
Similarity: 2H6: If not in heaven, youll surely sup in hell (2H6
V.i.214, Cont. 2109) vs. R3: If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell
(V.vi.43).
Thomas Nashe and 2H6/The Contention

As the work of Nashe appears in the voices of the lower-class
characters Robin and Rafe in DF, and the lower-class Sly, Sander, and the
Boy in TOAS, so, I propose, we hear him again in the low-life characters
of Jack Cade and his band of rebels in The Contention. The corresponding
scenes in 2H6 are IV.ii, iii, vi, vii (except for Lord Saye), viii (except for
Buckingham and Clifford), and x (except for Iden), in the W. J. Craig
edition, an edition which contains the same Act/Scene divisions as the
version of 2H6 hosted online by MIT at http://shakespeare.mit.edu/. The
exceptions in these scenes are the voices of upper-class characters which
sound Marlovian and, I propose, were penned by him.
It is unclear whether Nashe was involved in the rewriting of The
Contention into 2H6, or exactly what the original version included, and no
one has proposed that if The Contention were a memorial reconstruction,
the reconstructor(s) included snippets not only from plays but also from
Nashes prose pieces. Since there are various germaine differences
between the quarto and First Folio versions, I will report similarities to
Nashe in The Contention which are and which are not also in 2H6.
95
Scholars widely acknowledge that the character Moth in LLL is a

portrayal of Thomas Nashe, while Chris Fitter and Alex Jack adroitly
argue that the wounded deer in AYL represents Nashe, who had recently
been wounded by Archbishop Whitgift when he burned Nashes works
and banned him from all future publication.21 Why was Shakespeare so
concerned with the humorist? There is no known connection between
Stratford actor Shakspere and Nashe, while there was one, of course,
between Marlowe and Nashe.
Following is an example of witty, Nasheian writing:
The Contention:
Cade. Therefore am I honourably borne.
Harry. I for the field is honourable, for he was borne
Vnder a hedge, for his father had never a house but the Cage.
Cade. I am able to endure much.
George. Thats true, I know he can endure any thing,
For I haue seene him whipt two market daies togither.
Cade. I feare neither sword nor fire.
Will. He need not feare the sword, for his coate is of proofe.
Dicke. But mee thinkes he should feare the fire, being so often
burnt in the hand for stealing of sheepe
Cade. There shalbe no laws but such as comes from my mouth.
Dicke. We shall haue sore laws then, for he was thrust into the
mouth the other day.
George. I and stinking law too, for his breath stinks so, that one
cannot abide it.
(1579-88, 1596-1601; 2H6 with variations: IV.ii.51-65; IV.vii.511)
Nashe & Dekker discussed Jack Cade in three pieces:
1. Sir, this tedious dead vacation is to me as unfortunate as a term
at Hertford or St. Albans to poor country clients, or Jack Cades
rebellion to the lawyers, wherein they hanged up the Lord Chief
Justice. (1596 Letter to William Cotton)
J. D. Wilson noted that in his letter to Cotton, Nashe confused the 1450
Jack Cade rebellion with the 1580 Jack Straw uprising. It was during the
Jack Straw rebellion that peasants attacked lawyers and beheaded (not
hanged) the Lord Chief Justice. Wilson added that strict adherence to
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sources was not Nashes strong suit. He then remarked that 2H6 made the
same mistake in confusing the two rebellions, and that Nashes history
error cannot have been caused by viewing the play, since it does not
discuss the Lord Chief Justices murder. According to Wilson:
For that detail Nashe must at some point or other have gone to the
chronicles. In other words, he, like the man who drafted Act 4 of 2 Henry
VI, had read the chroniclers accounts of both rebellions and had fused the
two into one. No doubt with the dramatist of 1591-2 the fusion was
conscious; with Nashe in 1596 or later, unconscious. Yet a conscious
process might easily become unconscious after the lapse of four or five
years. A mere coincidence! Our objector will persist. But there are other
coincidences to be reckoned with; and when coincidences accumulate they
become persuasive.22
Wilson went on to list other similarities between Nashe and 2H6 to

argue his case that Nashe had written the Jack Cade scenes in their first
form, including the following one:
2. The rebel Iacke Cade was the first that deuised to put redde
herrings in cades, and from hym they haue their name. Nowe as
wee call it the swinging of herrings when wee cade them, so in a
halter was hee swung, and trussed vppe as hard and round as any
cade of herring he trussed vppe in his tyme, and perhappes of his
being so swung and trussed vp, hauyng first found out the tricke to
cade herring, they woulde so much honour him in his death as not
onely to call it swinging, but cading of herring also. (Lenten K3v)
In the Lenten Stuff excerpt, Nashe punned about Cades namecade
means barreland about hanging, as also occurs in 2H6:
Cade. We John Cade, so termed of our supposed father
Butcher. (to his fellows) Or rather of stealing a cade of herrings.
(IV.ii.33-5, Cont. 1571-2)
Saye. Long sitting to determine poor mens causes
Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.
Cade. Ye shall have a hempen caudle, then, [his medicine will be
death by hanging] (IV.vii.85-7, not in Cont.)
3. You shall see more rogues than ever were whipped at a carts
arse through London, and more beggars than ever came dropping
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out of Ireland. If you look upon them, you would think you lived in
Henry the Sixths time, and that Jack Cade and his rebellious
ragamuffins were there mustering. (Dekkers OP L3v).
Rare Word and Nashe

Burly-bone* appears in the Nasheian portion of 2H6:
Cade. (to his sword) Steel, if thou turn the edge or cut not out the
burly-boned clown in chines of beefe (2H6 IV.ix.56-7, Cont.
1952-3)
EEBO Match: Burly-bone*
Burly-bone* was a favorite expression for Nashe, occuring in his
Almond, Pierce, and Unfortunate. It is also a rare one, appearing only once
elsewhere in all of EEBO, a poem by John Taylor, pr. 1617.
Pierce:
The Danes: who stand so much vpon their vnwildy burliboand
souldiery, that they account of no man that hath not a battle axe at
his girdlecheekes that sag like a womans d[u]gs ouer his chinbone, his apparel is so puft vp with bladders of Taffetie, and his
back like biefe stuft with Parsly (C1v)
Chines of beefe (D2v)
Unfortunate:
Are huge burlybond butchers like Aiax, good for nothing but to
strike right downe blowes on a wedge with a cleaning betle (C1v)
Almond:
Yet these are nothing in comparison of his auncient burlibond
adiunctes, that so pester his former edition with their vnweldie
phrase (B3r)
In both 2H6 and Pierce, burly-boned is associated with beef, chins, and
weapons, while in Unfortunate, the association is with a butcher, the
Chapter Four
98
warrior Ajax, and striking a blow with a cleaning beetle. This appears to
indicate the same, quirky thought patterns.
Rare Scattered Word Clusters, a Strong Parallel,

and Nashe
1. Quart pots were banded at equal intervals with hoops, and a hoop was
the amount of alcohol between two consecutive hoops (OED def. 1.4). In
the OED, the occurrences below are two out of three examples listed for
this definition, the other one being in Dekkers The Gulls Hornbook. Here
is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster for Penny* near.100 hoop* near.100
pot(s) which also includes drink.
2H6:
There shall be in England seven halfpenny
loaves sold for a penny, the three-hooped pot shall have
ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer. (IV.ii.679, Cont. 1590-2)
Pierce:
To stinte euery man how much he should drinke: and he that went
beyond one of those pinnes forfeited a penny for euery draught.
And if Stories were well searcht, I beleeue hoopes in quart-pots
were inuented to that ende, that euery man should take his hoope,
and no more. (E4v)
2. Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between a Nasheian portion
of 2H6 and Nashes Strange News for Meat* near.100 dead as a doornail.
2H6:
Look on me wellI
have eat no meat these five days, yet come thou and
thy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead as a
doornail I pray God I may never eat grass more. (IV.ix.36-40,
Cont. 1044-6)
99
Strange:
Weele strike it as dead as a doore naile; Haud teruntij estimo, we
haue cattes meate and dogges meate inough for these mungrels
(A4r)
Gabriel Harvey repeated this verbiage when mocking Nasheian language
in Pierces Supererogation, and in discussing Harvey in Saffron, Nashe
repeated it again (T1v).
Strong Parallel
A Strong Parallel occurs in the following excerpts from The
Contention and Strange, which share keep/kept, house, and red
letters. In early use, red letters designated a saints day or other Christian
festival on an ecclesiastical calendar, but came to be used to draw attention
to important information (OED def. 1a).
The Contention:
Thou kepst men in thy house that daily reades of bookes with red
letters (1796-7, not in 2H6)
Strange:
An honest man of Saffron Walden kept three sonnes at the
Vniuersitie together a long time; and you kept three maides
together in your house a long time. A charitable deed, & worthie
to be registred in red letters. (A2v)
Nasheian Matches, Near Matches, and Other Similarities

2H6/The Contention and the works of Nashe & Dekker.
1. 2H6: First Rebel. And set a new nap upon it./ Second Rebel. So he
had need, for tis threadbare (IV.ii.6-8, Cont. 1554-5) vs.
Strange: That would set a new nappe of an olde threedbare
Cloake (H3r)EEBO Match: Set* a new nap near.20 threadbare.
The collocation occurs in Henry Chettles play The Tragedy of
100
Chapter Four
Hoffman, pr. 1631. Note also Terrors: Set a new nap on an old
occupation (E1r).
2. Cont.: Twas neuer merry world with vs, since these gentle men
came vp (1556; 2H6 has It was never merry world in England
since gentlemen came up IV.ii.9-10) vs. OF: Twas never merie
world with vs, since purses and bags were inuented (C1r); NG:
Its a merry world with them, but some-body payes for it (B4r);
and OA: It is a merry world with you when many mourne
(F1r)EEBO: Merry world with.
3. 2H6: Stealing a cade of herrings (IV.ii.34-5, Cont. has cade of
sprats 1572) vs. Saffron: A Cade of Herring and three Holland
Cheeses (F2v); and Lenten: The rebel Iacke Cade was the first
that deuised to put redde herrings in cadesas any cade of herring
he trussed vppe in his tyme (K3v)EEBO Match: Cade* of
herring*.
4. 2H6: The three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it
felony to drink small beer (IV.ii.68-9, Cont. 1591-2) vs. Strange:
Ile be your daily Orator to pray thatyou may tast[e] till your last
gaspe, and liue to see the confusion of both your speciall enemies,
Small Beere and Grammar rules. It is not vnknowne to report, what
a famous potle-pot Patron you haue beene (A2r)EEBO: Small
beer near.20 pot(s). Note the similarity in humor: Jack Cade
declares it illegal to drink small (weak) beer, and later orders a man
to be executed because he knows how to write his own name. In
Strange, Nashe jokes that his dedicatees special enemies are small
beer and grammar rules.
5. 2H6: The Pissing Conduit run nothing but claret wine this first
year of our reign (IV.vi.3-4, Cont. 1748-9) vs. SH: The pissing
conduit leakes nothing but pure mother Bunch [i.e., some type
of alcohol, since Mother Bunch ran an alehouse] H2v)EEBO
Match: Nothing near.30 pissing conduit*. Jack Cades command
parodies the historical celebration of Henry VIs coronation, when
the conduits in Cheapside ran with wine. The Little Conduit was
called the pissing conduit due to its small stream of water. Note
also Unfortunate: I haue wept so immoderately and lauishly, that I
thought verily my palat had bin turned to pissing conduit in
London. My eies haue bin dronk, outragiously dronke, with giving
but ordinary entercourse (B3r), where Nashe associates the
pissing conduit with being drunk and the word ordinary, a type of
tavern that sold alcohol.
101
6. 2H6: It will be stinking law, for his breath stinks with eating
toasted cheese (IV.vii.10-11) vs. WY: Stinking Tabacco breath,
and For such a strong breath haue thesee che[e]se-eaters (A3r,
A4r)EEBO: Breath* near.20 cheese* near.20 eat*.
7. 2H6: Saye. Hath made me full of sickness and diseases./ Cade. Ye
shall have a hempen caudle, then, and the health oth hatchet
(IV.vii.86-8) vs. OA: Fatall chords will be busily set on worke,
and hempen caudles will be common physicke for desperate
persons (F3r)EEBO Match: Hempen caudle*. The pun in both
excerpts is the same: that instead of the warm drink typically given
to sick people called a caudle, the cure will be a hanging.
8. 2H6: Ill make thee eat iron like an ostrich and swallow my
sword like a great pin (IV.ix.28-9, Cont. 1937-8) vs. Unfortunate:
And as the Estrich wil eat iron, swallow anie hard mettall
whatsoeuersword (H4v)EEBO: Ostrich* near.20 eat* near.20
iron*. Note also WY: Rapiersso hungry is the Estridge disease
[the plague], that it will deuoure euen Iron (D2v).
9. Cont.: Now sword, if thou doest not hew this burly-bon[e]d churle
into chines of beef (1952-3; 2H6 has cut instead of hew,
IV.ix.56-7) vs. Saffron: Nor Dick Smash nor Desperate Dick, thats
such a terrible cutter at a chynne of beefe, and deuours more
meate at Ordinaries in discoursing of his fraies and deep acting of
his slashing and hewing (A2v)EEBO Match: Hew* near.30
chin* of beef*. This also occurs in playwright Gervase Markams A
health to the gentlemanly profession of servingmen, 1598.
Similar pun: 2H6: For his father had never a house but the cage
(IV.ii.53, Cont. 1581) vs. KC: Euery roome of the house was a Cage full
of such wilde fowle [men] (D4r). A cage was a prison for petty
malefactors, a lock-up (OED def. 2a).
Similarity: 2H6: Is not this a lamentable thing that of the skin of an
innocent lamb should be made parchment? (IV.ii.79-81, Cont. 1775-6).
Nashe & Dekker empathized with animals killed for the purposes of
humans, which he thought of as innocent. Compare to Wood., speaking
of blank charters men will be forced to sign: King Richard. Lets know
the meansTresilian. See here, my lord, only with parchment, innocent
sheepskins (III.i.10-11, Nasheian portion); OF: To be lapped up in
lambskins, as if the innocency of those leather prisons should dispense
with the cheveril consciences of the iron-hearted gaolers (C1r); FHT:
And now I talke of Calves-skin, tis great pittie, Lady Nightingale, that
the skins of harmlesse and innocent Beasts, should be as Instruments to
102
Chapter Four
worke uillainy upon (C4v); PG: You weare silkes, and wee
sheepeskinnes, innocence caries it away in the world to come (K1v); and
Pierce: We delight in the murder of innocent mutton, and Sheep in
the shambles when the innocent was done to death (E2v and C3v).
Similarity: 2H6: Fellow-kings, I tell you that that Lord Saye hath
gelded the commonwealth, and made it an eunuch (IV.ii.162-3) vs.
Unfortunate: As Ouid said of Eunuchs...So would he that first gelt
religion or Church-liuings haue bin first gelt himselfe or neuer liued,
Cardinal Wolsey is the man I aim at (E1v). In both cases, a public
official is accused of having gelded an institution and turned it into a
eunuch.
Notes
1
C. F. Tucker Brooke, The Authorship of the Second and Third Parts of King
Henry VI, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 17
(1912): 141-211. For a detailed history of the debate, in particular relating to The
Contention and 2H6, see Barbara Kreps, Bad Memories of Margaret? Memorial
Reconstruction versus Revision in The First Part of the Contention and 2 Henry
VI, Shakespeare Quarterly 51 (2000): 154-80, 155-63.
2
Peter Alexander, Shakespeares Henry VI and Richard III (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1929).
3
Steven Urkowitz, If I Mistake in Those Foundations Which I Build Upon: Peter
Alexanders Textual Analysis of Henry VI Parts 2 and 3, English Literary
Renaissance 18 (1988): 230-56; Steven Urkowitz, Good News about Bad
Quartos, in Maurice Charney, ed., Bad Shakespeare. Revaluations of the
Shakespeare Canon (Rutherford, NJ: Farleigh Dickenson University Press, 1988),
189-206; Steven Urkowitz, Texts with Two Faces. Noticing Theatrical Revisions
in Henry VI, Parts 2 and 3, in Thomas A. Pendleton, ed., Henry VI. Critical
Essays (New York: Routledge, 2001), 27-37; and Laurie E. Maguire,
Shakespearean Suspect Texts: The Bad Quartos and Their Contexts (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), 237-8, 319-20.
4
Randall Martin, The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York and 3Henry VI:
Report and Revision, The Review of English Studies 53 (2002): 8-30.
5
Parallels that occur only between the 1594 version of 2H6 and Marlowes works
include: 1. The Contention: The wilde Onele my Lords, is vp in Armes,/ With
troupes of Irish Kernes that vncontrold/ Doth plant themselues within the English
pale (1125-7) vs. E2: The wild ONeill, with swarms of Irish kerns,/ Lives
uncontrolled within the English pale (Sc. vi.163-4). 2. The Contention: Then is
he gone, is noble Gloster gone, (972) vs. E2: O, is he gone? Is noble Edward
gone, (Sc. xx.99). 3. The Contention: Euen to my death, for I haue liued too
long (815) vs. E2: Nay, to my death, for too long have I lived (Sc. xxvi.83). 4.
Both occurring in conjuring scenes: The Contention: Now Bullenbrooke what
wouldst thou haue me do? (508) vs. DF: Now, Faustus, what wouldst thou have
103
me do? (Sc. iii.36). 5. The Contention: Despight of all that seeke to crosse me
thus (253) vs. E2: Nay, all of them conspire to cross me thus (Sc. vi.95). 6. The
Contention: To leauy Armes against his lawfull King (2073) vs. E2: And levy
arms against your lawful king (Sc. xii.24). 7. The Contention: But haue you no
greater proofes then these? (1268) vs. E2: But hath your grace no other proof
than this? (Sc. xxvi.43). 8. The Contention: Darke Night, dread Night, the silence
of the Night,/ Wherein the Furies maske in hellish troupes,/ Sent vp I charge you
from Sosetus lake (499-501) vs. 1T: Ye Furies, that can mask invisible, and
Furies from the black Cocytus lake (IV.iv.17 and V.i.218).
6
Thomas V. N. Merriam and Robert A. J. Matthews, Neural Computation in
Stylometry II: An Application to the Works of Shakespeare and Marlowe,
Literary and Linguistic Computing 9 (1994): 1-6. A stylometric multi-layer
perceptron consists of a set of m input neurons, each one of which represents the
numerical value of a stylometric characteristic (discriminator) capable of
distinguishing between the works of Shakespeare and Marlowe. Each of these
inputs is then connected to a second layer of neurons, the so-called hidden layer,
the strength of connection being dictated by trainable weights and biasses. The
hidden layer is, in turn, connected to an output layer, consisting of just two
neurons, corresponding to the two authors, 1.
7
Hugh Craig, The three parts of Henry VI, in Shakespeare, Computers, and the
Mystery of Authorship, ed. Hugh Craig and Arthur F. Kinney (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), 40-77. This study is critiqued in Brian
Vickers, Shakespeare and Authorship Studies in the Twenty-First Century,
Shakespeare Quarterly 62 (2011): 106-42, 121-6.
8
Now although I trembled fearing she would set her ten commandements in my
face (Locrine, c. 1591, IV.iii.1616-18); I would set a tap abroach, and not live in
daily feare of the breach of my wives ten-commandements (The Tragicall Raigne
of Selimus, c. 1592, Sc. xx.1880-1); and Com[e] away or Ill set my ten
commaundments in your face (John of Bordeaux, 34). Pagination is from the
Malone Society reprints of all three plays. Both Locrine and Selimus were penned
after the appearance of Spensers Complaints in 1591, from which they import
wording. Selimus, viewed as the later of the two plays, contains the word coneycatcher and is therefore dated after the registration of the first of Greenes coneycatcher pamphlets in December, 1591. On Locrine and Selimus involving the hand
of Robert Greene, see Murphy, Locrine, Selimus, Robert Greene and Thomas
Lodge. On Greene as the author of John of Bordeaux, a sequel to his Friar Bacon
and Friar Bungay, see Waldo F. McNeir, Robert Greene and John of
Bordeaux, PMLA lxiv (1949), 781-801.
9
Margarets husbands name was spelled Jordane, Jorden, and Jurden in
various records. Bakeless, vol.1, 15-16. John Baker made the point on his now
defunct Web site.
10
Maguire, Shakespearean Suspect Texts, 279-81.
11
The Master of Jesus College, Shakespeare and Cambridge, in The Book of
Homage to Shakespeare, quoted in Frederick S. Boas, Shakespeare & the
Universities (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1923), 48.
104
12
Chapter Four
Lisa Hopkins, Christopher Marlowe. A Literary Life, 10.

Charles R. Forker, Marlowes Edward II and its Shakespearean Relatives: the
Emergence of Genre, Shakespeares English Histories: A Quest for Form and
Genre, ed. John W. Velz (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts &
Studies, 1996), 55-90, 71-2.
14
For reasoning as to why E2 was composed after the initial versions of 2H6 and
3H6, see Edward II, ed. H. B. Charton and R. D. Waller (London: Methuen, 1933);
and Forker, 55-90.
15
William Shakespeare, The Second Part of King Henry VI, ed. Andrew S.
Cairncross (London: Methuen, 1957), quoted in George F. Butler, Frozen with
fear: Virgils Aeneid and Act 4, scene 1 of Shakespeares The Second Part of King
Henry VI, Philological Quarterly 79 (2000): 145-52, 145.
16
Emrys Jones, The Origins of Shakespeare (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 273.
17
Ronan, 158-9.
18
Douglas Bush, Marlowe and Spenser, Times Literary Supplement Jan. 1, 1938,
12.
19
J. B. Lethbridge, Introduction: Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare:
Methodological Investigations, in Shakespeare and Spenser. Attractive Opposites,
ed. J. B. Lethbridge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), 31-2.
20
Naseeb Shaheen, Biblical References in Shakespeares Plays (Newark, N. J.:
Univ. of Delaware Press, 1999), 320.
21
On Nashe as Moth in LLL see Frances Yates, A Study of Loves Labours Lost
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936, 2013), 5; and Charles Nicholl, A
Cup of News: The Life of Thomas Nashe (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1984), 212-3. On Nashe as the deer in AYL, see Chris Fitter, The Slain Deer and
Political Imperium: As You Like It and Andrew Marvells Nymph Complaining
for the Death of Her Fawn, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 98
(1999): 193-218; and Alex Jack, As You Like It. Christopher Marlowe and William
Shakespeare (Becket, MA: Amber Waves, 2013), 172-5.
22
The Works of Shakespeare, ed. J. D. Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1952, 1965), xxxviii-xxxix.
13
CHAPTER FIVE
THE TRUE TRAGEDY AND III HENRY VI
The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (TT) transitions smoothly

in terms of plot and characters from The Contention. There is every reason
to believe it was written by the same author, and in the case of The True
Tragedy by a single author, as it contains no trace of Nashes style. That
the same mind was behind 2H6 and 3H6/TT is suggested by the following
linguistic similarities. As with The Contention and 2H6, when a similarity
occurs exactly or inexactly in both True Tragedy and 3H6, citations are
provided for both works.
1. 2H6:
But all his mind is bent to holiness,
To number Ave-Maries on his beads.
His champions are the prophets and apostles,
His weapons holy saws of sacred writ,
His study is his tilt-yard (I.iii.58-62)
3H6:
Shall we go throw away our coats of steel,
And wrap our bodies in black mourning gowns,
Numbring our Ave-Maries with our beads?
Or shall we on the helmets of our foes
Tell our devotion with revengeful arms? (II.i.160-4, TT B5v)
The 2H6 passage specifically describes the weak King Henry VI, while
the 3H6/TT excerpt occurs just after King Henry is mentioned. Not only
do the two constitute an EEBO Match for Number* fby.5 ave* fby.5
bead*, but they contrast this devotional imagery with that of fighting, 3H6
with actual warfare, and 2H6 with battling at a jousting tournament.
Chapter Five
106
2. 2H6:
Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,
Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,
I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,
And all to have the noble duke alive. (III.ii.60-4)
3H6:
Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear
And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,
Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown
King Edwards fruit, true heir to thEnglish crown. (IV.v.21-4, a
variant of line 24 is in TT D7r)
Both excerpts express the old belief that every sigh cost the heart a
drop of blood, and both relate to life and death.1 In 2H6, Queen Margaret
wishes that tears and sighs could recall life again, while in 3H6, Queen
Elizabeth suppresses tears and sighs lest they kill the baby in her womb.
JM expresses the same wish as 2H6, that tears and sighs could restore life
to the dead: O, that my sighs could turn to lively breath,/ And these my
tears to blood, that he might live! (III.ii.18-9).
3. 2H6:
Their softest touch as smart as lizards stings!
Their music frightful as the serpents hiss (III.ii.329-30, Cont.
2040-1)
3H6:
Marked by the destinies to be avoided,
As venom toads or lizards dreadful stings. (II.ii.137-8; TT has As
venome Todes, or Lizards fainting lookes B8v)
In both 3H6 and 2H6, lizards stings denote something loathsome and are
employed in a series of similes.
107
4. 2H6:
Hold, Warwickseek thee out some other chase,
For I myself must hunt this deer to death. (V.iii.15-6, Cont. 21478)
3H6:
Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase
For I myself will hunt this wolf to death. (II.iv.12-3)
Both speeches occur during battle when an ally attempts to help the
speaker fight a foe.
5. 2H6:
Call hither to the stake my two brave bears [Warwick and
Salisbury],
That with the very shaking of their chains (V.i.142-3)
3H6:
With them, the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,
That in their chains fettered the kingly lion (V.vii.10-11)
Rare Scattered Word Clusters Between 3H6/True Tragedy

and Works Involving Marlowe
1. Charles R. Forker has identified various instances where 3H6/True
Tragedy and E2 share plot and language similarities. In 3H6/TT, Clarence
teams up with the enemies of his brother, Edward IV. He then reverts back
to his brothers side and justifies his return to Warwick. In E2, Kent joins
league with the enemies of his brother, Edward II, then changes his mind
and switches back, rebuking both the traitor Mortimer and himself. In
Clarences and Kents speeches below, we find a Rare Scattered Word
Cluster for Lawful king* near.100 against near.100 brother* near.100
unnatural, in addition to the word proud.
Chapter Five
108
3H6:
Clarence. Why, trowst thou, Warwick,
That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,
To bend the fatal instruments of war
Against his brother and his lawful king?...
And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee (V.i.88-91, 101 TT
E2r)
E2:
Kent. Proud traitor, Mortimer, why dost thou chase
Thy lawful king, thy sovereign, with thy sword,
Vile wretch, and why hast thou, of all unkind,
Borne arms against thy brother and thy king?
Rain showers of vengeance on my cursd head,
Thou God, to whom in justice it belongs
To punish this unnatural revolt! (Sc. xix.3-9)
Forker also noted the similarity between the following passages, which
grimly pun that a head chopped off from a body shall overlook others:
3H6:
Off with his head and set it on York gates;
So York may overlook the town of York. (I.iv.180-1 TT B3r)
E2:
Poor Piers, and headed him against law of arms?
For which thy head shall overlook the rest
I charge you roundly: off with both their heads. (Sc. xiii.18-9, 27)
When Edward IV is proclaimed king in 3H6, the trumpets sound, the
people shout Long live Edward the Fourth! and Montgomery
ceremoniously announces he will challenge to single fight anyone who
gainsays the kings right (IV.viii.69-75). When Edward III becomes king
in E2, trumpets sound, The Archbishop of Canterbury says Long live
King Edward, and an unnamed champion ceremoniously states that if any
Christian, Heathen, Turk, or Jew dares to affirm Edward is not the true
king, he will combat him (Sc. xxiv.71-8).2
109
2. Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 3H6, Dido, and

OE for Night* near.100 soldier* near.100 Rhesus*. During the Trojan
War, on the basis of information Ulysses and Diomede coerced from
Dolon, whom they later killed, the pair snuck into the enemies camp,
surprised the sleeping King of Rhesus, and stole his horses. 3H6, Dido,
and OE all employ the incident in a metaphor about stealing forth into the
night, clustering similar words. 3H6 and Dido also collocate surprise*,
Ulysses, steeds, and tents. 3H6 and OE additionally juxtapose
town* and Thracian, while Dido and OE share the word fierce:
3H6:
And now what rests but in nights coverture,
Thy brother being carelessly encamped,
His soldiers lurking in the towns about,
And but attended by a simple guard,
We may surprise and take him at our pleasure?
Our scouts have found the adventure very easy;
That, as Ulysses and stout Diomed
With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus tents
And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,
So we, well covered with the nights black mantle (IV.ii.13-22, not
in TT)
Dido:
And Aeolus, like Agamemnon, sounds
The surges, his fierce soldiers, to the spoil.
See how the night, Ulysses-like, comes forth,
And intercepts the day as Dolon erst!
Ay me! The stars surprised, like Rhesus steeds
Are drawn by darkness forth Astraeus tents (I.i.68-73)
OE:
Who but a soldier or a lover is bold
To suffer storm-mixed snows with nights sharp cold?
One as a spy doth to his enemies go,
The other eyes his rival as his foe.
He cities great, this thresholds lies before;
This breaks town gates, but he his mistress door.
Chapter Five
110
Oft to invade the sleeping foe tis good,

And armd to shed unarmd peoples blood.
So the fierce troops of Thracian Rhesus fell,
And captive horses bade their lord farewell. (Book I Elegia IX.1524)
3. Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 3H6 and Dido for Split* near.100
rock* near.100 anchor* near.100 tackling*. The cluster also includes
ship*, mast*, wind*, and shelves.
3H6:
Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock
Which industry and courage might have saved?
Ah, what a shame; ah, what a fault were this.
Say Warwick was our anchorwhat of that?
And Montague our top-mastwhat of him?
Our slaughtered friends the tackleswhat of these?
Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?
And Somerset another goodly mast?
The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?
And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
For once allowed the skilful pilots charge?
We will not from the helm to sit and weep,
But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,
From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck. (V.iv.10-23)
Dido:
Yet, Queen of Afric, are my ships unrigged,
My sails all rent in sunder with the wind,
My oars broken, and my tackling lost,
Yea, all my navy split with rocks and shelves;
Nor stern nor anchor have our maimd fleet;
Our masts the furious winds struck overboard (III.i.104-9)
4. A Rare Scattered Word Cluster occurs in 3H6, 1T, and CR for Steed*
near.100 check* near.100 ground*.
111
3H6:
O Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent
That Phaton should check thy fiery steeds,
Thy burning car never had scorched the earth!
And, Henry, hadst thou swayd as kings should do,
Or as thy father and his father did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York
(II.vi.11-16; the passage in TT C3v-C4r is similar but has the word
foot instead of ground)
1T:
For every fell and stout Tartarian steed,
That stamped on others with their thundring hoofs,
When all their riders charged their quivering spears,
Began to check the ground and rein themselves (V.i.330-3)
CR:
The wrathfull steeds do check their iron bits,
And with a well gracd terror strike the ground (V.i.2247-8)
5. Below is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 3H6 and CR for
Thirst* near.100 broach* near.100 point*.
3H6:
Thy brothers blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,
Broachd with the steely point of Cliffords lance (II.iii.15-6, not
in TT)
CR:
If it be true that furies quench-les thirst,
Is pleasd with quaffing of ambitious bloud,
Then all you deuills whet my Poniards point,
And I wil broach you a bloud-sucking heart (III.vi.1577-80)
Chapter Five
112
Other Similarities to Marlowe

A particular passage in TT is closely connected to passages in both 2T
and Dido. It represents an EEBO Match with 2T for Thickest throng*
near.30 wound*, and an EEBO Match with Dido for Thickest throng*
near.30 sword*.
TT:
Thy noble father in the thickest thronges,
Cride still for Warwike his thrise valiant son,
Vntill with thousand swords he was beset,
And manie wounds made in his aged brest (C1v, not in 3H6)
2T:
But then run desperate through the thickest throngs,
Dreadless of blows, of bloody wounds and death (III.ii.141-2)
Dido:
Ran in the thickest throngs, and with this sword
Sent many of their savage ghosts to hell. (II.i.211-2)
Both The Contention and The True Tragedy contain Marlovian
Caesarisms, with The True Tragedy possessing a line not found in 3H6
that points backward to Caesars Revenge and forward to Julius Caesar.
Thinking he has been betrayed by his brother Clarence, in TT Edward
says, Et tu Brute, wilt thou stab Caesar too? (E2r).3 This harkens back to
Caesars Revenge, when Caesar says, What Brutus too? nay nay, then let
me die,/ Nothing wounds deeper then ingratitude (III.viii.1727-8). The
line is ahistorical: Caesar said nothing as he died. Geoffrey Bullough
thought that it was originally inspired by And thou, my son? in
Suetonius Julius Caesar.4 Its most famous expression is in the Bards
Julius Caesar: Et tu Brute? Then fall, Caesar (III.i.77).
Yorks derogatory remarks about Queen Margaret in 3H6: O tigers
heart wrapped in a womans hide!, and But you are more inhuman, more
inexorable,/ O, ten times more than tigers of Hyrcania (I.iv.138, TT B2v
and I.iv.155-6) seem to be related to Marlowes Dido: O love! O hate! O
cruel womens hearts, and Tigers of Hyrcania gave thee suck (III.iii.66
and V.i.159).
113
3H6 contains connections to The Faerie Queene, as do 2H6 and

Marlowes acknowledged works. 3H6s Lest thou be hated both of God
and man (I.iii.9) appears to be a remembrance of FQs Whom God and
man does hate (I.1.13). 3H6 seems to have taken the noun/verb pairing
furnace, burning from FQs Vpon a mighty furnace, burning [w]hot
(II.9.29, first EEBO occurrence of furnace* burning*) and shifted it to an
adjective: Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart (II.i.80; TT
B4r).
Rare Scattered Word Clusters Between True Tragedy/3H6

and the Canon of Shakespeare
1. A Rare Scattered Word Cluster appears between 3H6 and Luc. for
Lurking serpent* near.100 mortal sting*, also collocating dove*.
3H6:
Who scapes the lurking serpents mortal sting?
Not he that sets his foot upon her back.
The smallest worm will turn being trodden on,
And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood. (II.ii.15-18, TT
B6v)
Luc.:
The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch.
Thus treason works ere traitors be espied.
Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside;
But she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing,
Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting. (360-4)
2. Below is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 3H6 and JC for Press*
near.100 redress* near.100 Caesar* near.100 humbl*. Both works also
juxtapose bend*and suit*.
3H6:
No bending knee will call thee Caesar now,
No humble suitors press to speak for right,
No, not a man comes for redress of thee (III.i.18-20, TT has first
1.5 lines C5v)
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Chapter Five
JC:
Decius Brutus. And presently prefer his suit to Caesar.
Brutus. He is addressed. Press near, and second him.
Cinna. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand.
Caesar. Are we all ready? What is now amiss
That Caesar and his senate must redress?...
An humble heart...
If thou doest bend and pray and fawn for him (III.i.28-32, 35, 45)

Matches, Near Matches, and other similarities support Marlowes hand
in True Tragedy and 3H6, along with an onward continuity to the works of
Shakespeare.
1. 3H6: And die in bands for this unmanly deed (I.i.187, TT A5v)
vs. E2: Weaponless must I fall, and die in bands? (Sc. x.3)
EEBO Match: Die in band(s).
2. 3H6: Stern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas (I.i.240, TT
A6r) vs. E2: The haughty Dane commands the narrow seas (Sc.
vi.167)EEBO Match: Command* a/the narrow.
3. 3H6: How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,/ Within whose
circuit is Elysium/ And all that poets feign of bliss and joy
(I.ii.29-31) vs. 1T: Cannot compare with kingly joys in earth:/ To
wear a crown, plus That perfect bliss and sole felicity,/ The
sweet fruition of an earthly crown (II.v.59-60 and II.vi.68-9); and
HL: Their first nights meeting, where sweet kisses/ Are thonly
crowns of both their blisses (The argument of the Second
Sestiad)EEBO: Sweet near.20 crown* near.20 bliss*. The
juxtaposition appears in three other plays in EEBO: The Spanish
Tragedy, attrib. Thomas Kyd, pr. 1592; The Swaggering Damsell
by Robert Chamberlain, pr. 1640; and Loves Triumph by Edmund
Cooke, pr. 1678.
4. 3H6: York. Why come you not? Whatmultitudes, and fear?/
Clifford. So cowards fight when they can fly no further;/ So doves
do peck the falcons piercing talons (I.iv.40-2, TT B1r) vs. Ant.:
To be furious/ Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood/ The
dove will peck the estridge (III.xiii.197-9)EEBO: Dove*
near.30 peck* near.30 fear*.
5. 3H6: That beggars mounted run their horse to death (I.iv.128, TT

B2v) vs. E2: Theres none here but would run his horse to death
(Sc. iv.207)EEBO: Run/ran near.10 horse* near.10 to fby.2
death*. The juxtaposition also appears in the anonymous play
King Leir, reg. 1594.
6. 3H6: But you are more inhuman, more inexorable,/ O, ten times
more than tigers of Hyrcania (I.iv.155-6, TT has tigers of
Arcadia B3r) vs. Dido: But thou art sprung from Scythian
Caucasus,/ And tigers of Hyrcania gave thee suck (V.i.158-9)
EEBO: Tiger* of Hyrcania. Note also CR: What Hyrcan tygar, or
wild sauage bo[a]reDurst do so vilde and execrate a deede
(III.viii.1750, 1752); and Mac.: The armed rhinoceros, or
thHyrcan tiger (III.iv.100). Didos wording comes from Virgils
Aeneid: Sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens/ Caucasus,
Hyrcanaeque admorunt ubera tigres [frightful Caucasus brought
you forth among its hard rocks, and the Hyrcanian tigers gave you
suck]5 (IV.366-7). The Romany and Lindsey edition of Dido
emended Hyrcania to Hercynia.
7. 3H6: Not separated with the racking clouds (II.i.27, TT B3v) vs.
2T: My chariot swifter than the racking clouds (IV.iii.21)
EEBO: Racking cloud*. Among playwrights, the juxtaposition also
occurs in Thomas Heywoods Troia Britanica, 1609, and Dekkers
Dekker his Dream, 1620.
8. 3H6: Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,/ Now thou art
gone, we have no staff, no stay (II.i.68-9, TT B4r) vs. MP: Sweet
Duke of Guise, our prop to lean upon,/ Now thou art dead, here
is no stay for us (Sc. xxiii.4-5)EEBO Match: Our prop to lean.
9. 3H6: Richard, I bear thy name; Ill venge thy death/ Or die
renownd by attempting it (II.i.87-8) vs. MP: I am thy brother,
and Ill revenge thy death,/ And root Valois his line from forth of
France (Sc. xxiii.6-7)EEBO: Ill/I will revenge/venge thy death.
Note that both occurrences are preceded with a statement regarding
family connections. The phrase appears among playwrights in
Thomas Heywoods comedy The Fair Maid of the West, pr. 1631.
10. 3H6: And therefore comes my brother Montague./ Attend me,
lords. The proud insulting Queen,/ With Clifford and the haught
Northumberland (II.i.167-9 TT B5v) vs. R3: And the Queens
sons and brothers haught and proud (II.iii.28)EEBO Match:
Queen* near.30 haught near.30 proud*.
11. 3H6: King. Was ever king so grieved for subjects woe?/ Much is
your sorrow; mine ten times so much./ First Soldier. Ill bear thee
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Chapter Five
hence, where I may weep my fill (II.v.111-3, TT C3r) vs. E2:

Was ever king thus overruled as I? (Sc. iv.38); and 2H6: Was
ever King that joyed an earthly throne/ And could command no
more content than I? (IV.viii.1-2)EEBO: Was ever king near.20
I. The juxtaposition is also found in the anonymous play The
Troublesome Reign of King John, Part II.
12. 3H6: These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet (II.v.114)
vs. JM: These arms of mine shall be thy sepulchre (III.ii.11)
EEBO Match: These arms of mine shall.
13. 3H6: King Henry [speaking to himself]. Thy balm washed off
wherewith thou wast anointed (III.i.17) vs. R2: Can wash the
balm from an anointed king (III.ii.51)EEBO: Wash* near.30
balm* near.30 anoint*. The juxtaposition also appears in Thomas
Dekkers Whore of Babylon, pr. 1607.
14. 3H6: Your highness shall do well to grant her suit;/ It were
dishonour to deny it her (III.ii.8-9, TT has Your highnesse shall
doe well to grant it then C6r) vs. JM: Your lordship shall do
well to let them have it (I.ii.44)EEBO: Your fby.2 shall do well
to fby.5 it.
15. 3H6: And Ilike one lost in a thorny wood,/ That rents the
thorns and is rent with the thorns, plus Brave followers, yonder
stands the thorny wood [soldiers]/ Which, by the heavens
assistance and your strength,/ Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere
night (III.ii.174-5 and V.iv.67-9, TT E4r) vs. 1T: [Soldiers]
shaking their swords, their spears, and iron bills,/ Environing their
standard round, that stood/ As bristle-pointed as a thorny wood
(IV.i.25-7); and TOTS: Or Daphne roaming through a thorny
wood,/ Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds
(Induction 2.56-7)EEBO: Thorny wood, excluding instances
where it is the name of a town. In both 1T and 3H6, thorny wood
refers to an army. The phrase also appears in playwright George
Chapmans poem Euthymiae Raptus, 1609.
16. 3H6: Yield not thy neck/ To fortunes yoke, but let thy dauntless
mind/ Still ride in triumph (III.iii.16-18) vs. E2: And so it fares
with me, whose dauntless mind/ The ambitious Mortimer would
seek to curb (Sc. xxi.15-16); and CR: Let not the change of this
succesles fight,/ (O noble Lords,) dismay these daunteles mindes,
plus Nor of vnconquered Paulus dauntles minde (I.i.99-100 and
III.ii.1231)EEBO: Dauntless mind(s). The first two excerpts refer
to an attempt to restrain a dauntless mind, and the third to dismay
it. Among playwrights, the phrase also appears in a show by
Thomas Hughes for Grays Inn, 1587; George Chapmans

translation of Homer, 1611; Thomas Mays translation of Lucan,
1630; Aston Cokains A Chain of Golden Poems, 1658; and John
Drydons Fables, 1700. Note also 2T: Daunt my dreadless mind
(V.i.113).
17. 3H6: Even in the downfall of his mellowed years,/ When nature
brought him to the door of death (III.iii.104-5, TT D1v) vs. 1T:
And fall like mellowed fruit, with shakes of death (II.i.47); and
R3: So now prosperity begins to mellow/ And drop into the rotten
mouth of death (IV.iv.1-2)EEBO: Mellow* near.20 death*.
Among other dramatists, the juxtaposition occurs in Robert
Wilmonts The Tragedy of Tancred and Gismond, pr. 1591; and
John Marstons Antonios Revenge, pr. 1602.
18. 3H6: And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds
(IV.ii.21) vs. CR: And Mars high mounted on his Thracian
Steede (I.Chorus.2)EEBO Match: Thracian near.5 steed*.
19. 3H6: Thus yields the cedar to the axes edge,/ Whose arms gave
shelter to the princely eagle,/ Under whose shade the ramping lion
slept,/ Whose top-branch overpeered Joves spreading tree
(V.ii.11-14, TT E2v) vs. E2: A lofty cedar tree, fair flourishing,/
On whose top branches kingly eagles perch (Sc. vi.16-17)
EEBO Match: Eagle* near.30 top branch*.
20. 3H6: Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,/ And we are
graced with wreaths of victory (V.iii.1-2, TT C4r) vs. MP: The
Duke is slain and all his power dispersed,/ And we are graced
with wreaths of victory (Sc. xviii.1-2)EEBO Match: And we
are graced with wreaths of victory. Note also JC: Did I not meet
thy friends, and did not they/ Put on my brows this wreath of
victory (V.iii.80-1).
21. 3H6: Great lords, wise men neer sit and wail their loss,/ But
cheerly seek how to redress their harms (V.iv.1-2 not TT) vs. R2:
My lord, wise men neer sit and wail their woes,/ But presently
prevent the ways to wail (III.ii.174-5, W. J. Craig edition)EEBO
Match: Wise men never/neer sit and wail* their. The sentiment is
proverbial, Tilley M999a.
22. 3H6: Gloucester. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,/
That taught his son the office of a fowl!/ And yet, for all his wings,
the fool was drowned./ King Henry VI. I, Daedalus; my poor boy,
Icarus;/ Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;/ The sun that
seared the wings of my sweet boy (V.vi.18-23) vs. 1H6: Then
follow thou thy desprate sire of Crete,/ Thou Icarus; thy life to
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Chapter Five
me is sweet./ If thou wilt fight, fight by thy fathers side

(IV.vi.54-6)EEBO: Crete* near.30 Icarus* near.30 father*.
23. 3H6: Whatwill the aspiring blood of Lancaster/ Sink in the
ground? I thought it would have mounted (V.vi.61-2, TT E6r) vs.
E2: Frownst thou thereat, aspiring Lancaster?, plus And,
highly scorning that the lowly earth/ Should drink his blood,
mounts into the air (Sc. i.92 and Sc. xxi.13-14)EEBO: Aspiring
near.10 Lancaster.
24. 3H6: Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat/ And made
our footstool of security (V.vii.13-4, TT E7v) vs. MP: But he
doth lurk within his drowsy couch/ And makes his footstool on
security (Sc. xvi.40-1)EEBO Match: Footstool* near.20
security*.
Similarity: 3H6: I wonder how the king escaped our hands? (I.i.i,
TT A2r) vs. E2: I wonder how he scaped?, and I have escaped your
hands (Sc. viii.22 and Sc. ix.1).
Similarity: 3H6: The trembling lamb environd with wolves, and
Or as a bear encompassed round with dogs (I.i.243 and II.i.15) vs. E2:
For hes a lamb encompassd by wolves (Sc. xxi.41).
Similarity: 3H6: Biddst thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy
wish./ Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will (I.iv.144-5,
TT B2v) vs. Son. 135: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will (1).
Similarity: 3H6: If we should recount/ Our baleful news, and at each
words deliverance/ Stab poniards in our flesh till all were told,/ The
words would add more anguish than the wounds (II.i.96-9, TT B4v) vs.
Ado: She speaks poniards, and every word stabs (II.i.231-2); and
Ham.: I will speak daggers to her, but use none (III.ii.385).
Similarity: 3H6: Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart/ To hold
thine own (II.ii.41-2) vs. R2: That had not God, for some strong
purpose, steeled/ The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted
(V.ii.34-5).
Similarity: 3H6: Why, then I would not fly. Ah, Montague,/ If thou
be there, sweet brother, take my hand,/ And with thy lips keep in my soul
a while (V.ii.33-5) vs. 2H6: To have thee with thy lips to stop my
mouth,/ So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul (III.ii.400-1); and
DF: Her lips suck forth my soul, see where it flies! (Sc. xiii.93).
Similarity: 3H6: The bird that hath been limd in a bush/ With
trembling winds misdoubteth every bush (V.vi.13-4) vs. 2H6: Madam,
myself have limed a bush for her,/ And placed a choir of such enticing
119
birds (I.iii.91-2); and Luc.: Birds never limed no secret bushes fear
(88).
Similarity: 3H6: But wherefore dost thou come? Ist for my life?
(V.vi.29, Wherefore come you in armes? TT D7v) vs. E2: Wherefore
comes thou?/...Villain, I know thou comst to murder me (Sc. xxv.42,
45); and R3: Wherefore do you come?...To murder me (I.iv.168-9).
Greenes Groatsworth of Wit

If Marlowe wrote 3H6/TT, it is all the less likely that the following
lines from Greenes Groatsworth of Wit are about William Shakespeare:
Yes trust them not: for there is an vpstart Crow, beautified with our
feathers, that with his Tigers hart wrapped in a Players hyde, supposes he
is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing
an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shakescene in a countrey (1592 ed., F1r)
In the passage from which this is excerpted, Robert Greene was

complaining about actors who employed the feathers or words of the
playwrights to earn a good living, yet did not come to their assistance in
their times of need. Most scholars accept it as fact that the upstart Crow
was Shakespeare due to his status as an actor/playwright, the word
Shake-scene, and the paraphrase of O tigers heart wrapped in a
womans hide from 3H6 (I.iv.138)/TT (B2v).
Others have maintained, however, that the subject of Greenes tirade
was Edward Alleyn, whom Greene had sarcastically called Aesops crow,
being pranked with the glory of others feathers in his Francescos
Fortunes, 1590 (see my discussion of Edward III).6 Alleyn might have
shaken the stage (Shake-scene) when, for example, acting the title role in
Tamburlaine, and as an actor, musician, usurer, sharer, and possibly by
then stage manager, could readily be described as a jack of all trades
(Iohannes fac totum).
But did Alleyn write any plays (bombast out a blanke verse)? Peter
Farey has proposed that Alleyn penned the anonymous Faire Em, and A.
D. Wraight and Daryl Pinksen that Alleyn created the lost play
Tambercam.7 Indeed, the character of the Player in Groatsworth has much
more in common with Alleyn than Shakespeare, according to Ros Barber.8
Marlowes authorship of TT bolsters their argument. The first definite
mention of any connection between Shakespeare and the theater is a
March 15, 1595 record of payment to him, Will Kemp, and Richard
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Chapter Five
Burbage for a performance of the Lord Chamberlains Men before the

Queen in December 1594.
Notes
1
The Second Part of King Henry VI, ed. Andrew S. Cairncross (London: Methuen
& Co. Ltd, 1957, 1965), 82 n. 60.
2
Forker, 77-8.
3
Of TTs Et tu, Brute! wilt thou stab Caesar too? Andrew Cairncross wrote,
There can be little doubt that the passage peculiar to Q is authentic in The Third
Part of King Henry VI (London: Methuen Press, 1964), 122 n. 80-2.
4
Geoffrey Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), vol. 5, 43. See also Daniel E. Gershenson,
Caesars Last Words, Shakespeare Quarterly 43 (1992): 218-9.
5
Translation from Virgil, The Works of Virgil, ed. J. G. Cooper (NY: Robinson,
Pratt and Co., 1841), 201.
6
A. D. Wraight, Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn (Chichester: Adam
Hart, 1993); Jay Hoster, What Really Happened in the Groats-worth of Wit
Controversy of 1592 (Columbus, OH: Ravine Books, 1993); Daryl Pinksen, Was
Robert Greenes Upstart Crow the Actor Edward Alleyn?, and Peter Farey,
The Batillus, the Player, and the Upstart Crow, both articles in The Marlowe
Society Research Journal 6 (2009),
http://www.marlowe-society.org/pubs/journal/journal06.html. Accessed on August
7, 2013.
7
Peter Farey, The Batillus, the Player, and the Upstart Crow, 1-9; A. D.
Wraight, Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn, 218, and Daryl Pinksen, Was
Robert Greenes Upstart Crow the Actor Edward Alleyn? 5-6.
8
Ros Barber, Writing Marlowe as Writing Shakespeare: Exploring Biographical
Fictions, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Sussex, 2010, 95-6.
http://rosbarber.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/RBarber-DPhil-Thesis-Chapter5.pdf, Accessed on August 7, 2013.
CHAPTER SIX
DATING THE PLAYS VIA KYDS
SOLIMAN AND PERSEDA
AND LYLYS THE WOMAN IN THE MOON
We have so far dated CR as c. 1586-7, 1T and 2T as c. 1587, and TOAS

as 1590. In Appendix A, I argue in favor of DF having been produced by
March 1588. As for Dido, Martin Wiggins proposed a date of 1588 in a
Hoffman Prize award-winning essay.1 Douglas Bushs previously cited
identification of FQ as the probable source for two lines in Dido, versus
the extensive borrowing from FQ by CR, 1T and 2T, tends to support the
1588 datean author who had moved on from Spenser yet remembered
him. The author of Dido was still maturing, though, in the sense that he
sometimes closely paraphrased his source, Virgils Aeneid, although he
added new scenes to Virgils story. Let us now turn to The Contention,
True Tragedy, MP, E2, and JM.
Given The Contentions echoes in TOAS and the theory about TOAS
having been written for Margaret Marlowes wedding, I would place
composition of The Contention prior to June 1590. The Contention and
True Tragedy appear to have been written, however, after MP, whose
terminus a quo is August 2, 1589, the date of the assassination of French
King Henry III, which it dramatizes.
It was formerly believed that MP dated to 1593 because Henslowe
annotated it ne, thought to stand for new, when he entered its January
26, 1593 performance by Lord Stranges Men in his diary. Winifred
Frazer, however, found that Henslowe designated as ne plays that had
already been performed, and that ne likely referred to plays acted in
Newington Butts.2 Indeed, it would have been to Marlowes advantage to
churn out MP as soon as possible after King Henrys assassination while
public interest was still high. Later dramatists did this. An interlude
capitalizing upon the murder of The Marquesse dAncre in 1617 was
written and being acted less than two months after the fact, while the
Kings Men were ready with John Fletcher and Philip Massingers 1619
play about Dutch patriot Sir John van Olden Barnavelt a month after news
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Chapter Six
of his execution arrived in London.3 In another example of timeliness,

William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, and John Fords The Witch of
Edmonton was acted at court eight months after the events it dramatized
took place.
As indicated in previous chapters, there are several uncommon
resemblances between MP, The Contention/2H6, and True Tragedy/3H6.
In at least three instances, it is logical that the similarities between these
plays appeared in MP first.
The Catholic League habitually called the Duke of Guise Caesar.4
Reflecting this historical fact, the Duke of Guise compares himself to
Caesar three times in MP: As Caesar to his soldiers, so say I:/ Those that
hate me will I learn to loathe (Sc. ii.98-9); Yet Caesar shall go forth
(Sc. xxi.65); and Thus Caesar did go forth, and thus he died (Sc. xxi.86).
We may posit that plays in which characters rhetorically compare
themselves to Caesar, when no particular historic basis exists, were
influenced by MP and written after it2H6: Suffolk. Brutus bastard
hand/ Stabbed Julius Caesar; savage islanders/ Pompey the Great; and
Suffolk dies by pirates (IV.i.138-40, Cont. 1541-2); 3H6: King Henry
[speaking to himself]. No bending knee will call thee Caesar now
(III.i.18; TT C5v); and TT: King Edward [speaking of himself]. Et tu
Brute, wilt thou stab Caesar too? (E2r). Queen Margaret compares her
dead son Prince Edward to Caesar in 3H6: Queen Margaret (speaking of
her deceased son). They that stabbed Caesar shed no blood at all (V.v.52,
TT E5r); and Henry V is associated with him in 1H6: Henry the FifthA
far more glorious star thy soul will make/ Than Julius Caesar (I.i.52, 556).
Secondly, in MP the Admiral says, These are the cursed Guisians, that
do seek our death./ Oh, fatal was this marriage to us all (Sc. iii.36-7). He
is speaking of the marriage between the Protestant King of Navarre and
the Catholic Margaret, followed less than a week later by the Admirals
assassination, then the French Catholics massacre of Protestants. The
marriage was fatal to over 3,000 people. In 2H6 Gloucester says, O peers
of England, shameful is this league,/ Fatal this marriage, cancelling your
fame (I.i.95-6; Cont. has Ah Lords, fatall is this marriage canselling our
states 111). Here the marriage in question is the one between King Henry
VI and the French Queen Margaret. Henry ceded to France the English
duchies of Anjou and Maine in order to cement the match. In the eyes of
Gloucester, the marriage is fatal to the fame of the peers of England, who
had fought so hard to gain this territory on the European mainland. I would
maintain that the reference to a truly fatal marriage in MP predates the
figurative employment of fatal marriage in 2H6 and The Contention.
Dating the Plays via Soliman and Perseda and The Woman in the Moon
123
Tucker Brooke thought a parallel between MP and 3H6/TT likely

would have appeared in MP first. Near the end of MP, Dumaine laments
the death of his brother: Sweet Duke of Guise, our prop to lean upon,/
Now thou art dead, here is no stay for us (Sc. xxiii.4-5). Well should
Dumaine rue the Guises demise: the Guises party is crushed, and
Dumaine faces imminent death. When Edward laments the death of his
father in 3H6/TT: Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,/ Now thou
art gone, we have no staff, no stay (II.i.68-9, TT B4r), the loss is personal,
notes Tucker Brooke, but the situation is not dire. In Edwards next speech
to his brother Richard, he is decidedly hopeful: His name that valiant
Duke hath left with thee,/ His dukedom and his chair with me is left 3H6
II.1.89-90, TT B4r).5 The prop to lean upon speech is more appropriate
in MP, where it probably appeared before 3H6/TT. Thus, the order of
plays is apparently MP, The Contention, True Tragedy, and E2, with MP
and The Contention appearing before June 1590. Let us now work to better
pin down the date of E2.
Soliman and Perseda

The anonymous The Tragedy of Soliman and Perseda (Sol.) was
entered in the Stationers Register on November 20, 1592, and two
editions are extant, one undated, and the other dated 1599. No acting
company was associated with it on the title page, nor is the drama
mentioned in Henslowes Diary. It has long been known that Sol. bears a
special relationship to Arden of Faversham, The Spanish Tragedy,
3H6/TT, E2, 1T, and Dido, often quoting them verbatim in a manner
reminiscent of TOAS (see footnote).6
Helen Gardner discovered a reference in a poem by John Donne
pointing to Thomas Kyds authorship of Soliman and Perseda. She
suggested that the starting point of Donnes poem The Bracelet. Upon the
losse of his Mistresses Chaine, for which he made satisfaction was the
impulse to mock a foolishly romantic play, Soliman and Perseda.7 In
Sol., Perseda gives her lover Erastus a gold chain which he loses, a loss
which catalyzes a string of tragic events after Fernando finds it and gives it
to his own mistress. At one point Erastus has his servant hire a cryer to
advertise the loss of the chain, and at the end of the play the villain
Soliman is murdered after kissing the poisoned lips of the dying Perseda.
In The Bracelet, Donne bemoans the loss of his mistress chain and tells
her to be content that a loud-squeaking Cryer may roar the loss through
every street. Donne curses whoever found the chain: May the next
thinge thou stoopst to reach containe,/ Poyson, whose nimble fume rot thy
Chapter Six
124
moist braine,/ Or libells, or some interdicted thinge,/ Which negligently

kept thy ruine bringe.8
Thomas Kyd was ruined after libelous papers were found in his
lodgings that he said belonged to Christopher Marlowe, with whom he had
previously shared a room in which to write. Kyd was arrested and tortured,
he lost the patronage of his lord, and he died the following year.
According to Gardner, It is difficult not to see a reference in Donnes
lines to Kyds negligent keeping of a dangerous document, forging a
connection between Kyd and the authorship of Sol., the play Gardner
found to have inspired Donnes poem.9
Close parallels in wording between Sol., The Spanish Tragedy, Arden
of Faversham, and The True Chronicle History of King Leir have been
employed to advance the theory that Thomas Kyd wrote all four
anonymous plays. Since Kyd did not, however, write E2, 1T, Dido, or
3H6/TT, other plays that Sol. closely parallels, a different dynamic seems
to be at work. That dynamic does not appear to be memorial
reconstruction; Sol. lacks the telltale signs of marked abbreviation and
internal anticipation and recollection. Laurie Maguire did not mention Sol.
in her comprehensive study of bad quartos.
F. S. Boas noted a parody of 2T in Soliman and Perseda:
Sol.:
Why, sawst thou not how Cupid, God of loue,
Not daring looke me in the marshall face,
Came like a coward stealing after me,
And with his pointed dart prickt my posteriors? (IV.ii.43-6)
2T:
See where my slave, the ugly monster Death,
Shaking and quivering, pale and wan for fear,
Stands aiming at me with his murdering dart,
Who flies away at every glance I give,
And when I look away, comes stealing on. (V.iii.67-71)10
Moreover, Ernest Gerard found a spirit of mockery in Sol.:
Instead of being ferociously intense it is filled with a spirit of mockery, as
if the Tragic muse had her tongue in her cheek. The horrors are not real,
the roaring is feigned. The lines are not filled out with redundant
125
adjectives, and, although there are some ands, there are few ifs. It rather
seems to be a caricature of the old tragedy of blood such as Kyd wrote.11
We see this type of mockery at the end of Sol., where the rhetorical
devise of epistrophe (the repetition of a word at the end of two or more
consecutive lines), so effectively employed in The Spanish Tragedy, is
ridiculed via overuse.
The Spanish Tragedy:
Behooves thee then, Hieronimo, to be revengd.
The plot is laid of dire revenge:
On then, Hieronimo, pursue revenge,
For nothing wants but acting of revenge. (IV.iii.27-30)
Sol.:
Where is Erastus now, but in my triumph?
Where are the murtherers, but in my triumph?
Where Iudge and witnesses, but in my triumph?
Wheres falce Lucina, but in my triumph?
Wheres faire Perseda, but in my triumph?
Wheres Basilisco, but in my triumph?
Wheres faithfull Piston, but in my triumph?
Wheres valiant Brusor, but in my triumph?
And wheres great Soliman, but in my triumph? (V.v.17-25)
I propose, in fact, that Sol., like TOAS, was written as a parody of other
plays. Perhaps Kyd did so under the influence of TOAS, although Sol.
lacks the wry irony associated with its exact quotations, or perhaps he did
so on a dare to see how many lines from other plays he could include. Sol.
is not a mean-spirited parody; it would have made Kyds fellow
playwrights laugh. Perhaps Marlowe even provided advice. Noting that
both Sol. and 2T employ as a source the very same page of Franois de
Belleforests edition of Cosmographie Universelle by Sebastian Mnster,
Lucas Erne wrote, Marlowes being the earlier of the two plays, it does
not seem implausible that Kyds handling of Persedas end is a result of
his acquaintance with Marlowe.12 By the way, Shakespeare later parodied
Soliman and Perseda. Sol.s line uttered by Basilisco: Knight, good
fellow, Knight, Knight (I.iii.169) appears in King John as Knight,
knight, good mother, Basilisco-like (I.i.244).
126
Chapter Six
Chronology
The key point to this theory is that plays which Sol. repeatedly mirrors
linguistically were already in existence when it was written: The Spanish
Tragedy, Arden of Faversham, TT, E2, Tamburlaine, and Dido.13 Perhaps
Kyd penned it when he and Marlowe were writing in the same room c.
May 1591, where he presumably had access to Marlowes manuscripts
(only the Tamburlaine plays had been published by 1592). Interestingly,
three of the close parallels are to True Tragedy rather than to 3H6,
supporting the theory that True Tragedys were the original lines, later
rewritten in 3H6. No parallel is solely to 3H6.
Lukas Erne provided evidence that Sol. was, on the other hand, written
before JM. Regarding the siege of Rhodes, JM states:
Small though the number was that kept the town,
They fought it out, and not a man survived
To bring the hapless newes to Christendom. (II.ii.49-51)
Erne noted that this was historically inaccurate. Quoting JM editor N.
W. Bawcutt:
In fact the Knights surrendered on terms and were allowed to leave by the
Turks. There were literally dozens of accounts of these events available to
Marlowe, in several languages, and he can hardly have failed to know the
truth.14
Erne maintained that JM took after Sol., the final scene of which
dramatizes Rhodes refusal to give in to the Turks. In Sol., Turkish
Emperor Soliman, who is dying, commands, Souldiers, assault the towne
on every side;/ Spoile all, kill all; let none escape your furie (V.iv.121-2).
JM was first mentioned in Henslowes Diary as being acted on February
26, 1592, but was almost certainly produced before then because Marlowe
was in Flushing as of January 26, 1592. The JM clue dates Sol.s
composition, and therefore the composition of E2 which Sol. parrots, to
1591 or earlier. This accords with the commonly held notion that a play
would have been written a year or more before it was released for
publication, to allow for exclusive use of the script by the acting company
that initially performed it, and since Sol. was entered into the Stationers
Register in 1592, it would likely not have been penned later than 1591. It
therefore appears that the order of composition was E2, then Sol., then
JM.15
127
The Woman in the Moon

An allusion in John Lylys The Woman in the Moon offers another clue
to the date of E2. Lylys play was entered into the Stationers Register on
September 22, 1595, and published in 1597. While noting that its date of
composition and acting company are unknown, The Woman in the Moons
recent editor, Leah Scragg, thought that its casting requirements indicated
the play had been written for the company that performed Lylys seven
other plays, The Children of Pauls. This acting company was banned
from public performance during c. 1590-1600. Scraggs cited other factors
strengthening the case that The Woman in the Moon was penned c. 1590,
and was the last written of Lylys published plays. It was his first and only
work in verse, and the first without traces of his customary euphuism,
indicating he had begun heading in a different direction.16
In E2, the cunning, villainous Mortimer sends a letter to those he wishes
to murder King Edward that can be construed two different ways, depending
on the pointing, or punctuation in a Latin sentence: whether a comma falls
after nolite or timere. By sending the letter unpointed, it allows him to
be absolved of blame should the letter be discovered after the deed is done
he could say he meant not to kill the king rather than to kill him:
E2:
The King must die, or Mortimer goes down.
The commons now begin to pity him;
Yet he that is the cause of Edwards death
Is sure to pay for it when his son is of age,
And therefore will I do it cunningly.
This letter, written by a friend of ours,
Contains his death, yet bids them save his life.
Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est,
Fear not to kill the king, tis good he die.
But read it thus, and thats another sense:
Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est,
Kill not the king, tis good to fear the worst.
Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go,
That, being dead, if it chance to be found,
Matrevis and the rest may bear the blame
And we be quit that caused it to be done. (Sc. xxiv.1-16)
Marlowe got this story about the pointing straight from historical
accounts about King Edward.
Chapter Six
128
In The Woman in the Moon, a piece influenced by Marlowes writing

style, Lyly engages in a similar type of word play which has no particular
source. In the excerpt below, the first Latin sentence is ambiguous when
read forward or backward. In the second Latin sentence, the meaning is
clearer forwards and backwards, the pointing only changed.
The Woman in the Moon:
Pandora. Peace man. With reverence hear and note my words,
For from Pandora speaks the laureate god.
Utopiae Stesias Phoenici solvit amorem,
Numina caelorum dum pia praecipiunt.
And backward thus the same, but double sense:
Praecipiunt pia dum caelorum numina amorem
Solvit Phoenici Stesias Utopiae.
[While heavens sacred eyes instruct him, Stesias shall direct his
love toward (or withdraw his love from) the Utopian Phoenix.
(Either forward or backward, the lines are ambiguous, the crucial
ambiguity lying in the word solvit, which can mean either release
to or release from.)]17
[Steisias soberly repeats these verses, first forward and then
backward.]
Stesias. If solvere amorem signify to love,
Then means this prophecy good to Stesias.
But if it signify to withdraw love,
Then is it ill abodement to us both.
But speak, Pandora, while the god inspires.
Pandora. Idaliis prior hic pueris est; aequoris alti
Pulchrior haec nymphis et prior Aoniis.
And backward thus, but still all one in sense.
Aoniis prior, et nymphis haec pulchrior alti
Aequoris est; pueris hic prior Idaliis.
[This girl is better than the Muses, and more beautiful than the
nymphs of the deep sea; this boy is better than the youths of
Idalium.]18
[Stesias soberly repeats these verses, first forward and then
backward.]
Stesias. Forward and back, these also are alike,
And sense all one, the pointing only changed.
They but import Pandoras praise and mine. (III.i p. 334)
129
Since the Latin connection to ambiguity and pointing has a clear

source in E2, but not in The Woman in the Moon, I propose that Lyly got
the idea from an already existing E2. If so, then E2 would likely have been
written before the banning of The Children of Pauls, c. 1590.
The order of composition appears to be: MP, The Contention, True
Tragedy, E2, Kyds Sol., then JM, with the first four plays on-stage by
some point in 1590, and the final two by 1591. The main reason for the
numerous linguistic similarities between MP, The Contention, True
Tragedy, and E2 is probably that Marlowe wrote them in fairly quick
succession, and revised Cont. and TT into 2H6 and 3H6 not long after
having first written them.
For those who view Shakespeare as an entirely different playwright
than Marlowe, the dating of E2 after 2H6 and 3H6 has generated the view
that, while Marlowes early plays influenced Shakespeare, Shakespeare
influenced Marlowes E2.19 By the early 1590s, this thinking goes, a great
dramatist was taking lessons from an even greater one. If Marlowe coauthored The Contention/2H6 with Nashe, and wrote True Tragedy/3H6,
however, then it was always Marlowes works which influenced the
Shakespeare canon with, for example, Tamburlaine affecting Henry V;
Edward II helping to shape Richard II; The Jew of Malta inspiring The
Merchant of Venice; Hero and Leander impacting upon Romeo and Juliet;
Dido, Queen of Carthage remembered in A Midsummer Nights Dream;
Doctor Faustus influencing The Tempest; and, as the current book
maintains, TOAS sparking The Taming of the Shrew; and Caesars
Revenge influencing Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. Those who
believe that Marlowe employed Shakspere as a front man view this as the
forward progress of an author who continually refined and improved upon
his craft, building some of his later plays upon the foundations of his early
ones.
Notes
1
Wiggins, When Did Marlowe Write Dido, Queen of Carthage? 521-41.

Winifred Frazer, Henslowes ne, Notes & Queries 38 (1991): 34-5.
3
Gerald Eades Bentley, The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeares Time
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), 176-8.
4
Bakeless, vol. 2, 85.
5
C. F. Tucker Brooke, 174.
6
Soliman and Perseda parallels to Arden of Feversham (Ard.): 1. Sol.: Then be
not nice, Perseda, as women woont (I.ii.23) vs. Ard.: Then be not nice, but here
deuise with vs (961). 2. Sol.: Leaue protestations now, and let vs hie/ To tread
lauolto (I.iv.30-1) vs. Ard.: Mosbie leaue protestations now,/ And let vs
2
130
Chapter Six
bethinke vs what we haue to doo (1710-1). 3. Sol.: It was worth more then thou
and all thy kin are worth (I.iv.74) vs. Ard.: Would mount to a greater somme
of money,/ Then either thou, or all thy kinne are worth (1452-3). 4. Sol.: Why
then, by this reckoning, a Hackney man should/ haue ten shillings for horsing a
Gentlewoman (I.iv.83-4) vs. Ard.: Why then by this reconing, you
som[e]times/ Play the man in the Moone (1744-5). 5. Sol.: You paltrie knaue,
how durst thou be so bould (I.iv.103) vs. Ard.: Why you paltrie knaue,/ Stand
you here loytering, knowing my affaires (802-3). 6. Sol.: A common presse of
base superfluous Turkes/ May soon be leuied for so slight a taske (I.v.27-8) vs.
Ard.: Zounds I was nere so toylde in all my lyfe,/ In following so slight a taske as
this (1810-1). 7. Sol.: Lucina. What ailes you, madam, that your colour
changes?/ Perseda. A suddaine qualme (II.i.49-50) vs. Ard.: Francklin. What
ailes you woman, to crie so suddenly./ Ales. Ah neighbors a sudden qualm came
ouer my hart (2330-1). 8. Sol.: Which if I doe, all vengeance light on me
(II.i.114) vs. Ard.: Hell fyre and wrathfull vengeance light on me,/ If I dishonor
her or iniure thee (347-8). 9. Sol.: Ah, how thine eyes can forge alluring lookes,/
And feign deep oathes to wound poor silly maides (II.i.117-9) vs. Ard.: To
forge distressefull looks, to wound a breast (1322). 10. Sol.: God sends fortune
to fooles. Did you euer see wise man/ escape as I have done? (II.ii.1-2) vs. Ard.:
Arden thou hast wondrous holye luck,/ Did euer man escape as thou hast done
(1575-6). 11. Sol.: My heart had armd my tongue with iniury,/ To wrong my
friend, whose thoughts were euer true (II.ii.30-1) vs. Ard.: Thou drewst thy
sword inraged with Ielousy,/ And hurte thy freende,/ Whose thoughts were free
from harme (1931-3). 12. Sol.: The least of these surpasse my best desart,/
Vnlesse true loyaltie may seeme desart (III.i.101-2) vs. Ard.: But my deserts,
or your deserues decay,/ Or both, yet if trew loue may seeme desert (1615-6).
13. Sol.: And is she linkt in liking with my foe? (IV.ii.70) vs. Ard.: Ah me
accurst/ To lincke in lyking with a frantick man (1944-5). 14. Sol.: Lord
marshall, see you handle it cunningly (V.ii.1) vs. Ard.: But Michaell see you
doo it cunningly (169). 15. Sol.: For be it spoke in secret heere, quoth he
(V.ii.58) vs. Ard.: Ah M. Greene be it spoken in secret heere (509). 16. Sol.:
Come, Brusor, helpe to lift her bodie vp (V.iv.94) vs. Ard.: Come [S]usan
help to lift his body forth (2364).
Sol. parallels to The Spanish Tragedy (ST): 1. Sol.: Soliman. See where he
comes, my other best beloued./ Perseda. My sweete and best beloued (IV.i.1556) vs. ST: And with their blood, my joy and best belovd,/ My best belovd, my
sweet and only son (I.iii.37-8). 2. Sol.: What bootes complaining wheres no
remedy? (V.ii.87) vs. ST: What boots complaint, when theres no remedy?
(I.iv.92). 3. Sol.: Ah no; my nightly dreames foretould me this (V.iii.25) vs.
ST: Ay, ay, my nightly dreams have told me this (I.iii.76). 4. Sol.: Faire
springing Rose, ill pluckt before thy time (V.iv.81) vs. ST: Sweet, lovely rose,
ill-pluckt before thy time (III.v.100).
Sol. parallels to 3H6/TT: 1. Sol.: To win thy life would Soliman be poore/
And liue in seruile bondage all my dayes (I.v.91-2) vs. 3H6: Ah! let me live in
prison all my days (I.iii.44, TT A8v). 2. Sol.: Dasell mine eyes, or ist Lucinas
131
chaine? (II.i.244) vs. 3H6: Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns? (II.i.25,
TT B3r). 3. Sol.: Ah stay, no more; for I can heere no more (II.ii.28) vs. TT:
O speake no more, for I can heare no more (B3v, 3H6 has: O, speak no more,
for I have heard too much II.i.48). 4. Sol.: Their horse, I deeme them fiftie
thousand strong (III.i.48) vs. TT: Their power I gesse them fifty thousand
strong (B5v, 3H6 has Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong II.i.177). 5.
Sol.: From East to West, from South to Septentrion (III.iv.5) vs. 3H6: As the
antipodes are unto us,/ Or as the south to the septentrion (I.iv.136-7, TT B2v). 6.
Sol.: I, saist thou so? why, then it shall be so (IV.i.242) vs. TT: I, saist thou
so boie? why then it shall be so (A7r, 3H6 has no equivalent).
Sol. parallels to E2: 1. Sol.: And, sweet Perseda, accept this ring/ To equall
it: receiue my hart to boote (I.ii.39-40) vs. E2: Thy worth, sweet friend, is far
above my gifts,/ Therefore, to equal it, receive my heart (Sc. i.160-1). 2. Sol.:
Come therefore, gentle death, and ease my griefe (I.iv.126) vs. E2: Then
come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief (Sc. xxvi.92). 3. Sol.: It is not
meete that one so base as thou/ Shouldst come about the person of a King
(I.v.71-2) vs. E2: I tell thee tis not meet that one so false/ Should come about
the person of a prince (Sc. xxii.103-4). 4. Sol.: When Erastus doth forget this
fauor,/ Then let him liue abandond and forlorne (IV.i.198-9) vs. E2: And
when this favour Isabel forgets,/ Then let her live abandoned and forlorn (Sc.
iv.296-7). 5. Sol.: Ah heauens, that hitherto have smilde on me,/ Why doe you
unkindly lowre on Solyman? (V.iv.82-3) vs. E2: O my stars!/ Why do you lour
unkindly on a king? (Sc. xx.62-3). 6. Sol.: This day shall be the peryod of my
blisse (V.iv.155) vs. E2: O, must this day be period of my life?/ Centre of all
my bliss! (Sc. x.4-5).
Sol. parallels to Tamburlaine: 1. Sol.: For by the holy Alcaron I sweare
(I.v.7) vs. 1T: And by the holy Alcaron I swear (III.iii.76). 2. Sol.: And then
and there fall downe amid his armes,/ And in his bosome there power foorth my
soule (II.ii.42-3) vs. 1T: I may pour forth my soul into thine arms (V.i.279).
3. Sol.: That faint hearted run away (III.ii.33) vs. 1T: Cowards and fainthearted runaways (I.ii.130).
Sol. parallels to Dido: 1. Sol.: As the aire to the fowle, or the marine
moisture/ To the red guild fish (I.iii.80-1) vs. Dido: Where thou shalt see the
red-gilled fishes leap,/ White swans, and many lovely water-fowls (IV.v.10-11).
2. Sol.: Desire should frame me winges to flie to him (V.i.33) vs. Dido: Ill
frame me wings of wax like Icarus (V.i.243).
Sources of most of the parallels: Lukas Erne, Beyond the Spanish Tragedy
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 162-3, who credits Alfred Hart,
Stolne and Surreptitious Copies (Melbourne, 1942), 352-90; and Brian Vickers,
Thomas Kyd, Secret Sharer, Times Literary Supplement, April 18, 2008, 13-15.
7
John Donne, The Elegies and The Songs and Sonnets, ed. Helen Gardner
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 112.
8
Gardner, 3-4.
9
Gardner, 118. Gardner is quoted in Erne, Beyond the Spanish Tragedy, 161-2.
132
10
Chapter Six
Thomas Kyd, The Works of Thomas Kyd, ed. Frederick S. Boas (Oxford: The
Clarendon Press, 1901), 443. Lukas Erne agrees that Sol. parodies 2T in Erne, 158.
11
Ernest Gerard, Elizabethan Drama and Dramatists 1583-1603 (New York:
Cooper Square Publishers, 1972), 178.
12
Erne, 164-6.
13
The similarities between Sol. and King Leir are inexact and infrequent, perhaps
telling us more about shared authorship than a chronology based upon parody.
14
Erne, 159, quoting Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, ed. N. W. Bawcutt
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1978), 5.
15
Josie Shumake dated E2 to 1592 on the basis of her view that the play more
likely employed the second edition of Stowes chronicles, dedicated in May, 1592,
than the first edition, 1580. The E2/Sol./JM chronology refutes her argument.
Christopher Marlowe. The Plays and their Sources, ed. Vivan Thomas and
William Tydeman (London: Routledge, 1994), 343; and Josie Slaughter Shumake,
The Sources of Marlowes Edward II (University of South Carolina Ph.D.
dissertation, 1984), clxii-clxxvi. Shumakes dissertation is unpublished, and so far
as I know, she did not publish any articles or books in an effort to further
disseminate her views regarding the date of E2s authorship.
16
John Lyly, ed. Leah Scraggs, The Woman in the Moon (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2006), 3-9.
17
Translation and explanation from The Plays of John Lyly, ed. Carter A. Daniel
(Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1988), 383.
18
Translation from The Plays of John Lyly, 383.
19
Peter Alexander, Shakespeare, Marlowes Tutor, The Times Literary
Supplement April 2, 1964, 280.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EDWARD III
The Raigne of King Edward the Third (E3) was registered on

December 1, 1595, and printed anonymously the following year. The title
page stated As it had bin sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London,
but provided no acting company information. The 1998 New Cambridge
edition of Shakespeares plays added E3 to his canon, and the 2005 second
edition of the Oxford Shakespeare followed suit. This decision, however,
is still controversial, since others find the hand of Christopher Marlowe or
Thomas Kyd in the play. My view is that Marlowe wrote the initial version
of the play, then later rewrote it, reflecting a changed political landscape.
Authorship
E3 has a long and checkered history as to theories about who penned it
and whether it was a co-authored play. Mary Bell maintained that the even
distribution of compound words indicated a single author.1 Karl
Wentersdorf argued for Shakespeare as E3s sole author on the basis of
imagery, as did Fred Lapides due to parallel language. Alfred Hart found
for Shakespeare as E3s sole author based upon vocabulary tests, while
Eliot Slater did so due to rare words, and Eric Sams on the basis of a host
of factors including compound words, imagery, and parallel passages.2
Stylometric analysis led M. W. A. Smith and Jonathan Hope to posit
single authorship by Shakespeare, while MacDonald P. Jackson thought
there were excellent reasons for believing that [Shakespeare] wrote it
all, including the Wentersdorf and Hart studies, and similarities in
phrasing between E3 and the early and folio editions of 2H6 and 3H6.3
E3 may be divided, however, into the Countess scenes that are
widely attributed to Shakespeare, in which King Edward courts the already
married, virtuous Countess of Salisbury (I.ii, II.i and II.ii), and the rest of
the play, during which he wages war against France. Timothy Irish Watts
research on function words supported a division of labor between
Shakespeare and another author, as did Kenneth Muirs study on the
incidence of new words (he also gave IV.iv to Shakespeare), while
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Giorgio Melchiori viewed E3 as a multiple authorship play involving

Shakespeare.4 Elliott and Valenza subjected sections of E3 to a battery of
stylometric tests, and were able to validate only IV.v-IV.ix as
Shakespeares.5
Richard Proudfoot, who favored Shakespeares sole authorship,
warned:
Critics who believe in collaborative authorship, particularly those who
want to assign to Shakespere the countess scenes and little more, have
seriously understated the extent to which those scenes owe their
metaphoric richness to material derived from the military action. To cite
one clear instance: the kings line, Ah but alas she winnes the sunne of
me (iii [II.ii]. 66), uses a military image that would have been strongly
impressed on the mind of any poet who had just read Froissart. Both at
Sluys and at Crcy, the English tactics included winning the sun of the
French. Conversely, the military action contains images drawn from love
and marriage, notably Prince Edwards plea to Audley:
Thou art a married man in this distresse,
But danger wooes me as a blushing maide:
Teach me an answere to this perillous time.
(xi [IV.iv]. 130-2)6
Robert A. H. Smith noted that Edward III is full of Marlovian

echoes, while J. A. Symonds thought the play was written by some
imitator of Shakespeares Marlowesque manner.7 Thomas Merriam found
that E3s Act III scenes i and ii emulated Marlowes Tamburlaine with
regard to twelve stylometric variables and literary similarities. Merriam
argued for Marlowes co-authorship of these scenes, and for his influence
over Shakespeare in others, before backing away the following year and
terming E3 a play written by Shakespeare under considerable influence
from Marlowe.8 Sir Brian Vickers has argued that Thomas Kyd wrote
about 60 percent of E3, and Shakespeare, 40 percent (including three
unspecified scenes near the beginning), on the basis of a study employing
plagiarism-detection software which locates occurrences of three or more
words in a row in 64 plays performed between 1580 and 1596.9 In
response to Vickers, Merriam maintained that the least Shakespearean
parts of E3, which he identified as I.i, III, and V, were more likely to be by
Marlowe than by Kyd.
None of these commentators has mentioned a point made by J. O.
Halliwell-Phillips, F. G. Fleay, A. D. Wraight, Daryl Pinksen, and Ros
Barber: that in between-the-lines fashion, Robert Greene stated that
Christopher Marlowe wrote at least Act I Scene i of the play.10 In
Edward III
135
Francescos Fortunes, 1590, Robert Greene lambasted actors who had

become not only excellent, but also rich and insolent. Both S.
Schoenbaum and Peter Alexander identified Roscius, the target of
Greenes tirade, as actor Edward Alleyn:11
Why Roscius, art thou proud with Esops Crow, being pranct with the
glorie of others feathers? of thy selfe thou canst say nothing, and if the
Cobler hath taught thee to say, Aue Caesar, disdain not thy tutor, because
thou pratest in a Kings chamber: what sentence thou utterest on the stage,
flowes from the censure of our wittes, and what sentence or conceipte of
the inuention the people applaud for excellent, that comes from the secrets
of our knowledge.12
Greene is generally interpreted as having called Marlowe a cobblers

eldest son the previous year in Menaphon; he would have called him a
cobbler in this case to play off the historical fact, not noted by HalliwellPhillips, et al, that a Roman cobbler taught a crow to say Ave Caesar to
impress Caesar Augustus.13 Ave Caesar is a line from E3 uttered by the
Black Prince while standing on-stage with King Edward (I.i.164), and
although no location is specified in the stage directions, it may be
presumed to be the kings chamber.
If Greene had really been discussing Roman history with no betweenthe-lines inference, he ought to have said an emperors chamber, or
Caesars chamber, since Caesar was never a king. Given that Greene
was a playwright, flows from the censure of our wits, directed at an
actor, is a reference to playwriting.14 According to this interpretation,
Marlowe, the cobbler, taught Alleyn to say Ave Caesar by writing his
lines in I.i of E3. Marlowe elsewhere was Alleyns tutor in Doctor
Faustus, Tamburlaine, and The Jew of Malta.
Biographical Connections
E3 ties in to Marlowes biography. After his arrest in Flushing over
charges related to coinage, Marlowe told the English governor that he was
very well known to both Lord Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, and play
patron Lord Strange, the future Earl of Derby (at the time, the title was
held by Stranges father). Indeed, Marlowe wrote JM for Lord Stranges
Men, and may have been linked to the science-oriented Northumberland
via Sir Walter Raleghs so-called School of Night. While others wrote
for Lord Stranges Men, which became known as the Early of Derbys
Men after Sept. 25, 1593, Marlowe had a self-stated relationship with both
Strange and Northumberland. It is noteworthy, then, that Lord Derby and
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Lord Percy turn up as characters in E3. Both are mentioned in E3s source,
Froissarts Chronicles, but Percy fought against the Scottish rather than the
French, as in the play, and Derby was in France, but not at the battle of
Crcy.15 The playwright positioned them ahistorically in order to include
them in the drama.
Since Marlowe had written a play about King Edward II in which he
brought on-stage his son, called Edward III in the final scenes, it is logical
that he would then turn his attention to Edward III. It also makes sense that
he would have included Edward IIIs son, the Black Prince, as a major
character in E3. The impressive, brass-effigy-topped tomb of the Black
Prince is situated in Canterbury Cathedral, and Marlowe had ample
opportunity to view it, in addition to other famous final resting places in
the Cathedral: the tomb of Odet de Coligny, brother of Admiral Gaspard
de Coligny, a character in MP, and also the tomb of King Henry IV. As a
scholar at the Kings School next to the Cathedral, Marlowe attended high
mass in Canterbury Cathedral every morning.16 The Black Prince died
before his father, so the son of the Black Prince, Richard II, succeeded
Edward III.
Additional Connections
1. Marlowe was on a steep upward trajectory in terms of playwriting
ability, and the two passages below may be viewed as one dramatist
revisiting and improving upon a theme he had treated earlier:
E2:
Spencer, I see our souls are fleeted hence;
We are deprived the sunshine of our life.
Make for a new life, man; throw up thy eyes
And heart and hand to heavens immortal throne;
Pay natures debt with cheerful countenance.
Reduce we all our lessons unto this:
To die, sweet Spencer, therefore live we all;
Spencer, all live to die, and rise to fall. (Sc. xx.104-111)
E3:
To die is all as common as to live:
The one in choice, the other holds in chase,
For from the instant we begin to live
Edward III
137
We do pursue and hunt the time to die.

First bud we, then we blow, and after seed,
Then presently we fall, and, as a shade
Follows the body, so we follow death.
If then we hunt for death, why do we fear it?
If we fear it, why do we follow it?
If we do fear, how can we shun it?
If we do fear, with fear we do but aid
The thing we fear to seize on us the sooner.
If we fear not, then no resolvd proffer
Can overthrow the limit of our fate,
For, whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall,
As we do draw the lottery of our doom. (IV.iv.134-49)
Both passages speak of death, but E3 is more moving, profound, and
mature.
2. E3s expression through shot, juxtaposed with arms, can be viewed
as an advancement on a continuum from 2T and MPs juxtaposition of
shot through and arm(s):
2T:
Shot through the arms, cut overthwart the hands (III.ii.104)
MP:
Ah, my good lord, shot through the arm. (Sc. iii.33)
See where my soldier shot him through the arm (Sc. v.36)
E3:
The cranny cleftures of the through-shot planks.
Here flew a head dissevered from the trunk,
There mangled arms and legs were tossed aloft (III.i.164-6)
3. E3 employs the same bag of poetic tricks seen elsewhere in Marlowe in
terms of alliteration, assonance, and the accenting of syllables, in a similar
manner:
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138
E3:
And in their vile uncivil skipping jigs,
Bray forth their conquest and our overthrow (I.ii.12-13)
1T:
From jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay (Prologue.1-2)
The first lines of both excerpts employ a brusque meter, a long i
sound, and two or more short is. Moreover, compare skipping jigs to
jigging veins, conquest to conceits, and bray to pay.
E3:
Look not for cross invectives at our hands,
Or railing execrations of despite (III.iii.97-8)
JM:
Here have I pursed their paltry silverlings.
Fie, what a trouble tis to count this trash! (I.i.6-7)
The first lines both begin with four one-syllable words. The first six
syllables of all four lines above are accented, followed by one unaccented
syllable, then three accented ones. The net effect conveys the power and
energy of the speaker.
4. Marlovian Caesarisms are found throughout E3: It wakened Caesar
from his Roman grave/ To hear war beautified by her discourse (II.i.389); Countess [to King Edward]. That love you offer me, you cannot give,/
For Caesar owes that tribute to his queen (II.i.252-3); King Edward.
What says the more than Cleopatras match,/ To Caesar now? (II.ii.43-4);
Arise, true English lady, whom our isle/ May better boast of than ever
Roman might (II.ii.192-3); Victorious princethat thou art so, behold/
A Caesars fame in kings captivity (IV.vii.37-8); and Triumphant rideth
like a Roman peer,/ And, lowly at his stirrup, comes afoot/ King John of
France together with his son/ in captive bonds (V.i.180-3).
Edward III
139
Rare Scattered Word Clusters Between Edward III,

Marlowe, and Shakespeare
1. Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster for Several* near.100 self
instant* near.100 hand* which also collocates one and heart. It
indicates that the author of E3 IV.iv appeared to think like Marlowe at a
deeply subconscious level.
E3:
When we name a man,
His hand, his foot, his head, hath several strengths,
And, being all but one self instant strength,
Why, all this many, Audley, is but one,
And we can call it all but one mans strength.
He that hath far to go tells it by miles:
If he should tell the steps it kills his heart; (IV.iv.52-8)
HL:
And here and there her eyes through anger ranged.
And like a planet, moving several ways
At one self instant, she poor soul, assays,
Loving, not to love at all, and every part
Strove to resist the motions of her heart.
And hands so pure, so innocent, nay, such
As might have made heaven stoop to have a touch (Sestiad I.360-6)
The passages in E3 and HL are about two different subjects. Both,
however, associate one self instant with the word several and further
juxtapose these words with parts of the body, specifically the heart and the
hand.
2. Rare Scattered Word Cluster for Sun-burned near.100 twist* near.100
yellow* in E3 and CR. The excerpts below also share a clustering of
worm*, eyes, fair, and hair/locks.
E3:
To music every summer-leaping swain
Compares his sun-burnt lover when she speaks
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140
Her hair, far softer than the silkworms twist,

Like to a flattering glass doth make more fair
The yellow amberlike a flattering glass
Comes in too soon; for, writing of her eyes (II.i.108-9, 115-8)
The wealthy tribute of my labouring hands (V.i.80)
CR:
Lord. When as he freed the faire Andromeda.
Caesar. O how those louely Tyranizing eyes...
The sunne burnt Indians, from the east shall bring:
Their pretious store of pure refined gould,
The labouring worme shall weaue the Africke twiste,
And, to exceed the pompe of Persian Queene,
The Sea shall pay the tribute of his pearles.
For to adorne thy goulden yellow lockes (I.iv.505-6, 515-20)
3. An example of a similar subconscious thought process between E3 and
2H6 appears in the Matching Word Cluster for hollow* near.100 serpent*
near.100 sting* near.100 hand*:
E3:
Look not for cross invectives at our hands,
Or railing execrations of despite:
Let creeping serpents hid in hollow banks
Sting with their tongues; we have remorseless swords
And they shall plead for us and our affairs.
Yet thus much briefly, by my fathers leave:
As all the immodest poison of thy throat (III.iii.97-103)
2H6:
And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,
Hide not thy poison with such sugared words.
Their touch affrights me as a serpents sting. (III.ii.42-7, Cont.
1215-6)
Edward III
141
The E3/2H6 Rare Scattered Word Cluster represents a continuity from

the one noted earlier between 2H6 and Dido, in which spear occurs
instead of E3s sword:
Dido:
Breaking a spear upon his hollow breast,
Was with two wingd serpents stung to death. (II.i.165-6)
4. We find a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between E3 and 1T for Clang*
near.100 trump* near.100 shak* near.100 cannon*. Each excerpt contains
both a simile and a metaphor related to animals:
E3:
Or as a bear fast chained unto a stake,
Stood famous Edward, still expecting when
Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh.
Anon the death-procuring knell begins,
Off go the cannons that with trembling noise
Did shake the very mountain where they stood.
Then sound the trumpets clangor in the air (V.i.143-9)
1T:
Awake, ye men of Memphis! Hear the clang
Of Scythian trumpets! Hear the basilisks
That, roaring, shake Damascus turrets down!
The rogue of Volga holds Zenocrate,
The Soldans daughter, for his concubine,
And with a troop of thieves and vagabonds
Hath spread his colours to our high disgrace,
While you faint-hearted base Egyptians
Lie slumbering on the flowry banks of Nile,
As crocodiles that unaffrighted rest
While thundring cannons rattle on their skins. (IV.i.1-11)
5. E3 also contains Matching Word Clusters found only in later works by
the Bard. Following is one for Heaven* near.100 stamp* near.100 forbid*
between E3 and MM. In January 1592, Marlowe was arrested in Flushing
and charged with issuing a counterfeit coin. Marlowe earlier spent a
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142
fortnight in 1589 at Newgate where he met fellow prisoner John Poole, a

counterfeiter and militant Catholic who schemed to mint coins for
dissidents living abroad. It is possible that Marlowes activities in the Low
Countries may have constituted an effort to infiltrate the inner circle of
Catholic traitor Sir William Stanley, Pooles brother-in-law.17 One
wonders whether he had Poole in mind when Marlowe wrote: A
counterfeit profession is better than unseen hypocrisy (JM I.ii.291-2). At
any rate, the association of stamp/metal/heaven/forbid is understandable in
the case of E3 if Marlowe wrote it.
E3:
He that doth clip or counterfeit your stamp
Shall die, my lord; and will your sacred self
Commit high treason against the king of heaven,
To stamp his image in forbidden metal (II.i.256-9)
MM:
That do coin heavens image
In stamps that are forbid: tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put metal in restrained means,
To make a false one. (II.iv.46-50, W. J. Craig edition)
6. E3 and H5 share the Rare Scattered Word Cluster Hid/hide* near.100
spring* near.100 ordure*, with an additional cloak vs. coat,
evidencing a subliminal focus on hiding something with a cloak, in
association with the verb spring, and dung or excrement.
E3:
To spring from ordure and corruptions side.
But, to make up my all too long compare,
These ragged walls no testimony are
What is within, but like a cloak doth hide (I.ii.155-8)
H5:
Covering discretion with a coat of folly,
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
Edward III
143
That shall first spring and be most delicate. (II.iv.38-40)

There is another interesting connection between E3 and H5. Both plays
ahistorically include King David of Scotland as one of Edwards prisoners
in Calais.18
Strong Parallels
1. An uncommon and what I view as a subconscious similarity occurs
between E3 and 2T:
E3:
Overridden jades
A horse laid down to die
He hath my never broken name to show
Characterd with this princely hand of mine,
And rather let me leave to be a prince
Than break the stable verdict of a prince (III.iii.162, IV.v.46, 75-8)
2T:
Harnessed like my horses
And in a stable lie upon the planks
Unruly never-broken jades (III.v.104, 107 and IV.iii.45)EEBO
Match: Never-broken, adjective, modifying subsequent noun.
In 2T, it is a jade or horse that is never broken, while in E3 it is a name,
but the word is juxtaposed with stable, employed elsewhere as the
location where horses sleep in 2T.
2. E3 contains a metaphor from Seneca (see E2 quote below) relating
rising fortunes to a rising sun, and declining fortunes to a setting sun, that
is also found in CR, E2, R2, and JC19:
E3 (said by a citizen facing hanging):
The sun, dread lord, that in the western fall
Beholds us now low-brought through misery,
did in the orient purple of the morn
Salute our coming forth when we were known (V.i.27-30)
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144
CR (said by and of Pompey):

O then I thought whome rising Sunne saw high,
Descending he beheld my misery (I.i.74-5)
The Rising Sunne, not Setting, doth men please (II.iii.983)
E2 (said of King Edward II):
Alas, see where he sits and hopes unseen
Tescape their hands that seek to reave his life.
Too true it is: Quem dies vidit veniens superbum,
Hunc dies vidit fugiens iacentem.
[Whom the rising sun has seen high in pride,
him the setting sun has seen laid low. Senecas Thyestes] (Sc. xx
51-4)
R2:
John Gaunt, speaking on his death bed, compares his situation to the
setting sun:
Gaunt. O, but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention, like deep harmony
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past (II.i.5-6, 12-14)
King Richard, clueless that he is about to be deposed, compares himself to
the rising sun.
King Richard. Who all this while hath revelled in the night
Whilst we were wandring with the Antipodes,
Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day (III.ii.44-8)
JC:
Said of Caesar:
Edward III
145
Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,

Which is a great way growing on the south (II.i.105-6)
Said of Cassius:
O setting sun,
As in thy red rays thou dost sink tonight,
So in his red blood Cassius day is set.
The sun of Rome is set. Our day is gone. (V.iii.59-62)
3. E3 (spoken to the prince of England by a servant of the king of France,
whose troops have surrounded the princes army and are poised to kill
him. The king has cynically bidden the servant to give the prince a prayer
book):
And arm thy soul for her long journey towards.
Thus have I done his bidding, and return. (IV.iv.108-9)
E2 (speaking of death):
Weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and as a traveller
Goes to discover countries yet unknown. (Sc. xxvi.64-6)
Ham. (speaking of death):
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns (III.i.81-2)
The E3 excerpt speaks of death as a journey, and includes the word
return. The ones from E2 and Hamlet speak of the dying person as a
traveler going to discover countries or to an undiscovered country, and
Hamlet also includes the word return.
4. E3 (describing warfare)20:
An unreputed mote, flying in the sun (II.i.437)
Purple the sea, whose channel filled as fast
With streaming gore that from the maimd fell
As did the gushing moisture break into
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146
The cranny cleftures of the through-shot planks.

Here flew a head dissevered from the trunk,
There mangled arms and legs were tossed aloft
As when a whirlwind takes the summer dust
And scatters it in middle of the air. (III.i.161-8)
2T (describing warfare):
For in a field, whose superficies
Is covered with a liquid purple veil
And sprinkled with the brains of slaughtered men,
My royal chair of state shall be advanced,
And he that means to place himself therein
Must armd wade up to the chin in blood. (I.iii.79-84)
Hast thou beheld a peal of ordnance strike
A ring of pikes, mingled with shot and horse,
Whose shattered limbs, being tossed as high as heaven,
Hang in the air as thick as sunny motes
Shot through the arms, cut overthwart the hands (III.ii.98-101,
104)
5. Macbeth famously contains riddles that provide false comfort to the
listener; he thinks he is safe because they seemingly can never be fulfilled,
yet they do come to pass.
Mac.:
Second Apparition. Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth. (IV.i.95-7)
Third Apparition. Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.
Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him. (IV.i.106-10)
E3 contains the same type of clever, riddle-like prophecy that provides
false comfort because it seemingly cannot occur, yet does:
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147
When feathered fowl shall make thine army tremble,

And flintstones rise and break the battle ray,
Then think on him that doth not now dissemble,
For that shall be the hapless dreadful day.
Yet in the end thy foot shalt thou advance
As far in England as thy foe in France. (IV.iii.68-73)
Chronology and Authorship

Since E3 depicts warfare in France, it would have been particularly
relevant to London audiences when English troops were in France during
1589-91. Moreover, note that King Edward is compared to Caesar in E3:
Countess (to King Edward). That love you offer me you cannot giue,/ For
Caesar owes that tribute to his queen (E3 II.i.606-7); and King Edward.
What says the more than Cleopatras match,/ To Caesar now? (E3
II.ii.865-6). I have already proposed that such references would logically
have occurred after MP, which must have appeared after August, 1589.
In fact, I do not think that the original version of E3 was penned earlier
than 1590, the date of publication of one of its sources, Petruccio
Ubaldinos A Discourse Concerninge the Spanishe Fleete Invading
Englande in 1588. A manuscript version of this report about Englands
defeat of the Spanish Armada was written in 1588 by a first-hand
observer, and A. D. Wraight thought Marlowe authored it. The
manuscript, however, twice calls the Nonpariel, an English ship, the
Nonpely (and once the Nonpare[ly], reading uncertain). Ubaldino
called it the Non Pariglia. The name of the ship in E3, Nom per illa, is
closer to Ubaldino, employing the spelling illa to render the Italian
sound iglia.21
Had Marlowe written the manuscript, he almost certainly would have
known enough French not to make the mistake of reporting Nonpariel as
Nonpely, while the Italianate name of the ship indicates that E3s author
was working from Ubaldino. In light of Greenes clue about the cobbler in
Francescos Fortunes, 1590, together with the 1590 publication of
Ubaldinos work, E3 would appear to have been composed during Julian
calendar year 1590 (between March 25, 1590 and March 24, 1591). The
Stationers Register cannot help us narrow the date further because neither
Francescos Fortunes nor A Discourse Concerninge the Spanishe Fleete
Invading Englande in 1588 was registered, although Francescos Fortunes
must have come after Greenes Never Too Late, for which it served as
Part Two. Never Too Late was unregistered and printed in Julian
148
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calendar year 1590. E3 follows in terms of English history after E2, and I
would date it after that play.
E3 appears to have been revised after its initial penning. England was
generally eager to please its trading partner Turkey, so it is anomalous that
E3 contains the lines, I come to aid thee with my countrys force. And
from great Moscow, fearful to the Turk/ and lofty Poland, nurse of hardy
men (III.i.1088-90), and But likewise Spain, Turkey and what countries
else/ that justly would provoke fair Englands ire (V.i.2589-90). Roger
Prior found that these lines made sense only after open war broke out
between Turkey and Austria in June 1593, when Catholics accused Queen
Elizabeth of inciting the Ottoman Empire to attack the Hapsburg Empire.
This Catholic propaganda was damaging to her interests in Germany and
Moscow, and the Queen wrote a letter to Emperor Rudolf disclaiming any
responsibility, in which she expressed anti-Turkish views. The Poles and
Muscovites were potentially Rudolfs most valuable allies against the
Turks, according to Prior, although Rudolfs requests for their help fell on
deaf ears.22 E3 therefore was likely revised at some point between 1593
and 1595, and the revision reflected changed foreign relations.
Philip W. Timberlake noted E3 passages in what he considered to be
an earlier style:23
The most renownd prince King John of France
Doth greet thee, Edward, and by me commands
That, for so much as by his liberal gift
The Guienne dukedom is entailed to thee,
Thou do him lowly homage for the same. (I.i.56-60)
A sudden darkness hath defaced the sky,
The winds are crept into their caves for fear,
The leaves move not, the world is hushed and still,
The birds cease singing, and the wandering brooks
Murmur no wonted greeting to their shores; (IV.v.1-5)
He contrasted them with E3 passages written in a more fluid, breezily
metaphorical style:
Breathes from the wall an angels note from heaven
Of sweet defiance to her barbarous foes.
When she would talk of peace, methinks her tongue
Commanded war to prison; when of war,
It wakened Caesar from his Roman grave
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149
To hear war beautified by her discourse; (II.i.34-9)

The aspiring hill
Shows like a silver quarry, or an orb
Aloft the which the banners, bannerets,
And new-replenishd pendants cuff the air
And beat the winds, that for their gaudiness
Struggles to kiss them. (IV.iv.17-22)
Timberlake suggested that this meant two authors were writing at the
same time, conceivably George Peele and William Shakespeare, but given
the underlying evidence of Marlovian authorship by March 1591 and of
later revision, and that nobodys verse, on the basis of what we see in the
early plays E2, 2H6, 3H6, and Titus Andronicus, had reached the level of
mastery displayed in much of E3 by early 1591, I propose that Marlowe
first wrote the play, then later revised it.
Such a theory accords with Eliot Slaters conclusion, on the basis of
rare words, that Edward III is compatible with authorship by Shakespeare,
and that he wrote the whole play, but at different times.24 Slater viewed
Part A (I.ii, II and IV.iv) as the later work, with the rest written earlier.
Slater ruled out Marlowe as the author of E3, but then he found the
strongest rare-word links between E3 and the three Henry VI plays plus
Richard III, and I have already maintained that Marlowe authored 3H6 and
co-authored 2H6.
I would note that while many of the linkages between Marlowe and E3
set forth in this chapter occur in what Thomas Merriam termed the most
Marlovian segments, I.i, III, and V, some of them occur in the more
Shakespearean I.ii, II.i, and IV.iv. See the Rare Word Cluster between E3
and HL mentioned earlier for Several* near.100 self instant* near.100
hand*, and compare the E3 passage just cited:
The aspiring hill
shows like a silver quarry or an orb
aloft the which the banners, bannerets
and new-replenishd pendants cuff the air
and beat the winds that for their gaudiness
struggles to kiss them. (IV.iv.17-22)
To Marlowes LFB:
Whence the wind blows, still forcd to and fro;
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Chapter Seven
Or that the wandering main follow the moon,

Or flaming Titan (feeding on the deep)
Pulls them aloft, and makes the surge kiss heaven (414-7)
This is an EEBO Match for wind* near.50 aloft near.50 kiss*.
Internal linguistic interconnections indicate a single hand in the version
of E3 that we possess. Note, for example, dear counsel-bearer (II.ii.54)
and good counsel-giver (IV.vii.13); previously discussed Caesarisms at
(II.i.38-9), (II.i.252-3), (II.ii.43-4), (II.ii.192-3), (IV.vii.37-8) and (V.i.1803); Hers more to praise than tell the sea by drops/ Nay, more than drop,
the massy earth by sands,/ And sand by sand print them in memory
(II.i.136-8), and As many sands as these my hands can hold/ Are but my
handful of so many sands:/ Easily taen up, and quickly thrown away./ But
if I stand to count them sand by sand/ The number would confound my
memory (IV.iv.42-7); Flight of ravens (III.i.84), Ravens (III.iii.50),
and Flight of ugly ravens (IV.v.28); The arms of death embrace us
round (IV.iv.1), and My arms shall be thy [quarto: the] grave
(IV.vii.29); The snares of French, like emmets on a bank,/ Muster about
him, whilst he, lion-like,/ Entangled in the net of their assaults,/ Frantically
rends and bites the woven toil (III.iv.41-4), and What bird that hath
escaped the fowlers gin/ Will not beware how shes ensnared again?
(IV.iii.21-2); I do prounounce defiance to thy face (I.i.88), and Return
him my defiance in his face (IV.iv.86); And not a poison-sucking
envious spider/ To turn the juice I take to deadly venom! (II.i.285-6), and
Let creeping serpents hid in hollow banks/ Sting with their tonguesAs
all immodest poison of thy throat/ Is scandalous and most notorious lies
(III.iii.99-100, 103-4).

I ran through EEBO the parallels carefully gathered together by Eric
Sams in his Shakespeares Edward III, in addition to ones that I found.
Matches, Near Matches, and other similarities indicate that E3 as it has
come down to us is further along on the Marlowe-Shakespeare continuum
than other plays we have discussed. In other words, while it contains
connections to 2H6, 3H6, and E2, it has more similarities than they do to
Shakespeare plays and poems written after them, including 1H6, R3, R2,
and Ven.
Edward III
1. E3: Ah, wherein may our duty more be seen/ Than striving to
rebate a tyrants pride (I.i.39-40) vs. CR: I can no longer beare
the Tirants pride/ I cannot heare my Country crie for ayde,/ And
not bee mooued with her piteous mone (III.iv.1411-3); and MP:
Tis war that must assuage this tyrants pride (Sc. xxiii.22)
EEBO: Tyrant* pride.
2. E3: But now doth mount with golden wings of fame (I.i.47) vs.
R3: When I should mount with wings of victory (V.v.59)
EEBO: Mount* with fby.10 wing* of. The juxtaposition is also
found in a non-dramatic piece by playwright Michael Drayton in
1604.
3. E3: Ill take away those borrowed plumes of his (I.i.85) vs. 1H6:
Well pull his plumes and take away his train (III.vii.7)
EEBO: Take* away near.20 plume(s).
4. E3: And him that sent thee like the lazy drone/ Crept up by stealth
unto the eagles nest (I.i.94-5) vs. 2H6: Drones suck not eagles
blood, but rob beehives (IV.i.109)EEBO Match: Drone* near.10
eagle*.
5. E3: King Edward. How stands the league between the Scot and
us?/ Montague. Cracked and dissevered, my renownd lord
(I.i.122-3) vs. H8: For now he has cracked the league,/ Between
us and the Emperor (II.ii.24-5)EEBO Match: Crack* near.30
league* near.30 between.
6. E3: But I will make you shrink your snaily horns (I.i.138) vs.
Ven.: Or as the snail, whose tender horns being hit/ Shrinks
backward (1033-4)EEBO Match: Snail* near.10 shrink*
near.10 horn*. Among playwrights, the juxtaposition occurs in
William DAvenants comedy The Witts, pr. 1636 and John
Drydens play The Spanish Fryar, pr. 1681.
7. E3: As cheerful sounding to my youthful spleen/ This tumult is of
wars increasing broils (I.i.160-1) vs. 1H6: Quickened with
youthful spleen and warlike rage (IV.vi.13)EEBO: Youthful
spleen*.
8. E3: To solicit/ With vehement suit the king in my behalf (I.ii.4-5)
vs. Jn.: By long and vehement suit I was seduced (I.i.254)
EEBO: Vehement suit*.
9. E3: And never shall our bonny riders rest,/ Nor rusting canker have
the time to eat/ Their light-borne snaffles [bridle bits], nor their
nimble spurs/ Nor lay aside their jacks [jackets] of gimmaled mail
(I.ii.26-9) vs. H5: And in their [jades] palled dull mouths the
gimmaled bit (IV.ii.49)EEBO Match: Gimmaled. These are the
151
152
Chapter Seven
only two occurrences in the OED/EEBO of gimmaled. It is worth

noting that the rare word ringled appears in EEBO with a similar,
horse-related meaning to gimmaled only in two worksin
Marlowes HL: For as a hot proud horse highly disdains/ To have
his head controlled, but breaks the reins,/ Spits forth the ringled
bit (Sestiad II.141-3); and John Kirkes 1638 play, The Seven
Champions of Christendom.
10. E3: Their [horse riders] light-borne snaffles nor their nimble
spurs (I.ii.28) vs. Lightborn as the name of King Edwards
murderer in E2EEBO: Lightborn/light born. E3 contains the sole
pre-Restoration EEBO occurrence of Light-born, adjective.
Light born appears once elsewhere as a name, in John Lilburnes
The Christian Mans Triall, 1641, and as a noun/verb combination
appears in works by non-dramatists dated 1560, 1571, 1620, 1655,
and 1659. In Marlowes OE we hear lightly born, again related to
horses: And rough jades mouths with stubburn bits are torn./
But managed horses heads are lightly borne (Book I Elegia
II.15-6), as well as A burden easily born is light (Book I Elegia
II.10).
11. E3: Far from this place let ugly treason lie (I.ii.127) vs. 1H6:
There Minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk (V.v.145); and MV:
None but that ugly treason of mistrust (III.ii.28)EEBO: Ugly
treason*.
12. E3: The ground, undecked with natures tapestry (I.ii.150) vs.
OE: I think what one undecked would be, being dressed (Book
II Elegia IV.37); and R2: Tundeck the pompous body of a king
(IV.i.240)EEBO: Undeck*. OE and E3 are the first two
occurrences of undeck in the OED/EEBO. The adjective mutates
to a verb in R2. The word additionally appears in a 1635 prose
work by playwright Thomas May.
13. E3: These ragged walls no testimony are/ What is within, but like
a cloak doth hide/ From weathers waste the undergarnished pride
(I.ii.157-9) vs. R2: Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;/
And for they cannot, die in their own pride (V.v.21-2)EEBO
Match: Ragged near.30 wall* near.30 pride.
14. E3: His cheeks put on their scarlet ornaments (II.i.10) vs. Son.
142: Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,/ That have profaned
their scarlet ornaments (6)EEBO Match: Scarlet ornament*.
15. E3: If he looked pale, it was with guilty fear (II.i.20) vs. R3:
Think upon Vaughan, and with guilty fear/ Let fall thy pointless
lance (V.v.96-7); and Luc.: He faintly flies, sweating with guilty
Edward III
fear (740)EEBO Match: With guilty fear*. The phrase also

appears in playwright Henry Glapthornes Poems, 1639.
16. E3: Twere requisite that I should know, my lord (II.i.100) vs.
1T: Twere requisite he should be ten times more (III.i.47)
EEBO: Twere requisite. The phrase also occurs in the anonymous
play The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll, pr. 1600; Philip Massingers
drama, The City Madam, licensed 1632; and Restoration-era plays
by William Lower, The Amorous Fantasme, pr. 1661; and George
Powell, The Treacherous Brothers, pr. 1690.
17. E3: That she breeds sweets as plenteous as the sun,/ That she doth
thaw cold winter like the sun,/ That she doth cheer fresh summer
like the sun (II.i.159-61) vs. H5: But freshly looks and
overbears attaint/ With cheerful semblance and sweet majestyA
largess universal, like the sun/ His liberal eye doth give to every
one,/ Thawing cold fear (IV.Chorus.39-40, 43-5)EEBO Match:
Sun near.30 thaw* cold.
18. E3: And peise their deeds with weight of heavy lead (II.i.304)
vs. R3: Lest leaden slumber peise me down tomorrow
(V.v.58)EEBO: Peise* near.10 lead*.
19. E3: My proper harm should buy your highness good (II.i.314)
vs. Cor.: If gainst yourself you be incensed well put you,/ Like
one that means his proper harm, in manacles (I.x.55-6)EEBO
Match: Proper harm.
20. E3: Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds;/ And every
glory that inclines to sin,/ The shame is treble by the opposite
(II.i.452-4) vs. Son. 94: For sweetest things turn sourest by their
deeds:/ Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds (13-14)
EEBO Match: Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
21. E3: Regarding a drum: For now we think it an uncivil thing/ To
trouble heaven with such harsh resounds (II.ii.58-9) vs. R2:
Which, so roused up with boistrous untuned drums,/ With harshresounding trumpets dreadful bray (I.iii.128-9)EEBO Match:
Harsh* resound*.
22. E3: But I will throng a Hellespont of blood/ To arrive at Sestos
where my Hero lies (II.ii.154-5; quarto: Hellie spout) vs. HL:
On Hellespont, guilty of true loves blood (Sestiad I.1); and
Oth.: To the Propontic and the Hellespont,/ Even so my bloody
thoughts (III.iii.459-60)EEBO: Hellespont* near.20 blood*.
We also find this juxtaposition in Ben Jonsons Bartholomew Fair,
performed in 1614.
153
154
Chapter Seven
23. E3: Did break from anchor straight, and, puffed with rage/ No
otherwise than were their sails with wind (III.i.86-7) vs. TOTS:
Have I not heard the sea, puffed up with winds,/ Rage like an
angry boar chafd with sweat? (I.ii.200-1)EEBO Match: Puffed
near.10 rage* near.10 wind. Note also Rom.: And more inconstant
than the wind, who woos/ Even now the frozen bosom of the
north,/ And, being angered, puffs away from thence (I.iv.100-2).
24. E3: Made forth as when the empty eagle flies/ To satisfy his
hungry griping maw (III.i.88-9) vs. 2H6: Weret not all one, an
empty eagle were set/ To guard the chicken from a hungry kite
(III.i.248-9); 3H6: Whose haughty spirit, wingd with desire,/
Will coast my crown, and, like an empty eagle/ Tire on the flesh of
me and of my son! (I.i.268-70); and Ven.: Even as an empty
eagle, sharp by fast,/ Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and
bone,/ Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,/ Till either gorge
be stuffed or prey be gone (55-8)EEBO Match: Empty eagle.
Note also TOTS: My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,/
And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged (IV.i.176-7).
25. E3: And if thou scape the bloody stroke of war (III.i.91) vs. 1T:
Since he is yielded to the stroke of war (II.v.12); 1H6: Free
from oppression or the stroke of war (V.v.111); and Tim.: We
were not all unkind, nor all deserve/ The common stroke of war
(V.iv.21-2)EEBO: Stroke of war. Among dramatists the phrase
occurs in two prose pieces by playwright Thomas May, and plays
by William Chamberlyne in 1658, and Thomas Southerne in 1682.
26. E3: Steer [quarto: stir], angry Nemesis, the happy helm
(III.i.120) vs. 2H6: And you yourself shall steer the happy helm
(I.iii.103)EEBO Match: Happy helm.
27. E3: To show the rancor of their high-swolln hearts (III.i.131)
vs. R3: The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts
(II.ii.105)EEBO Match: Rancour* near.30 high swol* heart*.
28. E3: We cannot tell: tis good to fear the worst (III.ii.29) vs. E2:
Kill not the king, tis good to fear the worst (Sc. xxiv.12)
EEBO Match: Tis good to fear the worst.
29. E3: Shall carry hence the fleur-de-lis of France (III.ii.43) vs.
2H6: On which Ill toss the fleur-de-lis of France (V.i.11)
EEBO: Fleur-de-lis [various spellings] of France.
30. E3: Here am I come, and with me have I brought/ Exceeding
store of treasure, pearl, and coin (III.iii.66-7) vs. JM: Laden with
riches, and exceeding store/ Of Persian silks, of gold, and orient
pearl (I.i.86-7)EEBO Match: Exceeding store* near.20 pearl*.
Edward III
31. E3: So may thy temples, with Bellonas [goddess of war] hand/
Be still adorned with laurel victory (III.iii.189-90) vs. Ant.: And
all the gods go with you. Upon your sword/ Sit laurel victory, and
smooth success/ Be strewed before your feet (I.iii.100-102)
EEBO Match: Laurel victory*.
32. E3: The prince, my lord, the prince! Oh, succour him!/ Hes close
encompassed with a world of oddsWhether a borrowed aid will
serve or no (III.iv.32-3, 57) vs. 1H6: Let not your private discord
keep away/ The levied succours that should lend him aid,/ While
he, renownd noble gentleman,/ Yield up his life unto a world of
odds (IV.iv.22-5)EEBO Match: Succour* near.30 world of
odds. The circumstances in E3 and 1H6 are similar. In E3, the
prince is narrowly beset by the enemy in battle. The speaker tells
the listener that the prince will die unless he sends aid. The listener,
King Edward, refuses to do so, wishing his son either valiant
victory or honorable death in battle. In 1H6, Talbot is ringed
about by the enemy in battle. The speaker complains that Talbot
will die because feuding between the listener (Somerset) and York
has prevented either one from aiding Talbot.
33. E3: My painful voyage on the boistrous sea/ Of wars devouring
gulfs and steely rocks/ I bring my fraught unto the wishd port
(III.v.79-81) vs. CR: I go/ As crazed Bark is tossd in trobled
Seas,/ Vncertaine to ariue in wished port (I.vi.604-6)EEBO:
Sea(s) near.30 wished port(s). The juxtaposition also occurs in the
play A Knack to Know a Knave, pr. 1594.
34. E3: And then new courage made me fresh again (III.v.96) vs.
1H6: Charles. Thy friendship makes us fresh./ Bastard. And doth
beget new courage in our breasts (III.vii.86-7)EEBO Match:
Fresh near.20 new courage.
35. E3: That neither victuals, nor supply of men/ May come to succor
this accursed town (IV.ii.4-5) vs. JM: Ill be revenged on this
accursd town (V.i.62)EEBO Match: Accursed town. Note that
This cursed town is a Match for 2T and 1H6.
36. E3: My tongue is made of steel, and it shall beg/ My mercy on his
coward burgonet (IV.iv.82-3) vs. Dido: A burgonet of steel and
not a crown,/ A sword and not a sceptre fits Aeneas (IV.iv.42-3)
EEBO: Burgonet* near.20 steel*, also found in Ben Jonsons The
Case is Altered, wr. 1598, and John Kirkes The Seven Champions
of Christendom, pr. 1638.
37. E3: Audley. O prince, thy sweet bemoaning speech to me/ Is as a
mournful knell to one dead sick./ Prince Edward. Dear Audley, if
155
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Chapter Seven
my tongue ring out thy end,/ My arms shall be thy [quarto: the]
grave (IV.vii.26-9) vs. JM: There is no music to a Christians
knell./ How sweet the bells ring, now the nuns are dead, and
These arms of mine shall be thy sepulchre (IV.i.1-2 and
III.ii.11)EEBO: Sweet near.30 knell near.30 ring*. This
juxtaposition also appears in the anonymous play Blurt, Master
Constable attributed to Thomas Dekker, pr. 1602; poetry by
Michael Drayton, 1597; and John Fletchers play Bonduca, pr.
1647.
38. E3: Behold/ A Caesars fame in kings captivity (IV.vii.37-8)
vs. E2: I think myself as great/ As Caesar riding in the Roman
street,/ With captive kings at his triumphant car (Sc. i.171-3)
EEBO: Caesar* near.20 captiv* near.20 king*. The juxtaposition
also appears in a 1632 masque by Aurelian Townshed.
39. E3: Your bodies shall be dragged about these walls/ And, after,
feel the stroke of quartering steel (V.i.36-7) vs. 1H6: You tempt
the fury of my three attendants/ Lean famine, quartering steel,
and climbing fire (IV.ii.10-11)EEBO Match: Quartering steel.
40. E3: Kneel therefore down. Now rise, King Edwards knight,/
And to maintain thy state, I freely give/ Five hundred marks a year
to thee and thine (V.i.94-6) vs. 2H6: Iden, kneel down. Rise up a
knight./ We give thee for reward a thousand marks (V.i.78-9,
Cont. 2027, 2030-2)EEBO: Kneel* near.30 rise* near.30 mark*.
41. E3: Shall mourners be, and weep out bloody tears/ Until their
empty veins be dry and sere (V.i.168-9) vs. R3: For tis thy
presence that ex-hales this blood/ From cold and empty veins
where no blood dwells (I.ii.58-9)EEBO: Blood* near.10 empty
vein*. The juxtaposition also appears in Arthur Goldings 1567
translation of Ovids Metamorphosis.
42. E3: How many peoples lives mightst thou have saved/ That are
untimely sunk into their graves? (V.i.205-6) vs. R3:
Thadulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey/ Untimely
smothered in their dusky graves (IV.iv.69-70)EEBO Match:
Untimely fby.3 their fby.3 grave*. The juxtaposition also occurs
in Thomas Nashes The Terrors of the Night, 1594.
43. E3: So that hereafter ages, when they read/ The painful traffic of
my tender youth (V.i.229-30) vs. 1H6: And that hereafter ages
may behold/ What ruin happened in revenge of him (II.ii.10-11)
EEBO Match: Hereafter ages. The word pairing appears in two
more EEBO plays: Thomas Heywoods The Iron Age, c. 1613; and
Henry Killigrews Pallantus and Eudora, 1653.
Edward III
157
Similarity: E3: King. But was my mother sister unto those?/ Artois.
She was, my lord, and only Isabel/ Was all the daughters that this Philip
had (I.i.10-12) vs. E2: Kent. But hath thy potion wrought so happily?/
Mortimer. It hath, my lord. The warders all asleep (Sc. xiv.14-5).
Similarity: E3: Jemmy my man, saddle my bonny blackYour
bonny horse is lame (I.ii.57, 70) vs. 2H6: The bonny beast [a horse] he
loved so well (V.iii.13; Cont. has The bon[n]iest gray that ere was bred
in North 2144).
Similarity: E3: Comparest thou her to the pale queen of night
(I.ii.144); vs. TGV: For meby this pale queen of night I swear
(IV.ii.97); and AYL: And thou, thrice-crownd queen of night, survey/
With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above (III.ii.2-3).
Similarity: E3: Now to forget thy study and thy books (I.ii.158) vs.
1H6: Unless my study and my books be false (II.iv.56).
Similarity: E3: That love you beg of me, I cannot give,/ For Sarah
owes that duty to her lordyour progenitor,/ Sole reigning Adam on the
universe/ By God was honoured for a married man,/ But not by him
anointed for a king (II.i.254-5, 264-7) vs. TOAS: A rib was taken, of
which the Lord did make,/ The woe of man so termd by Adam then,/
Woman for that, by her came sinne to vs,/ And for her sin was Adam
doomd to die,/ As Sara to her husband, so should we,/ Obey them, loue
them, keepe, and nourish them (1564-9). Both plays share a Biblical
juxtaposition of Saras obedience to her husband, Abraham, and a
reference to Adam and his wife, Eve.
Similarity: E3: The earth, with giddy trembling when it shakes,/or
when the exhalations of the air, and Did shake the very mountain
where they stood (III.i.127-8 and V.i.148) vs. 1T: As with their weight
shall make the mountains quake,/ Even as when windy exhalations,/
Fighting for passage, tilt within the earth (I.ii.49-51).
Similarity: E3: With comfortable good-presaging signs (III.iii.209)
vs. JM: Thus like the sad presaging raven that tolls (II.i.1).
Similarity: In both cases, as an example of the impossible: E3: When
feathered fowl shall make thine army tremble (IV.iii.68) vs. Err.: Ay,
when fowls have no feathers, and fish have no fin (III.i.80).
Similarity: E3: As many sands as these my hands can holdBut if I
stand to count them sand by sand/ The number would confound my
memory (IV.iv.42, 46-7) vs. Dido: As many kisses as the sea hath
sands (III.i.87); TGV: As full of sorrows as the sea of sands
(IV.iii.33); and R2: Alas, poor Duke, the task he undertakes/ Is
numbring sands (II.ii.145-6).
158
Chapter Seven
Notes
1
Mary Bell, unpublished thesis, Liverpool (1959), 112, quoted in Kenneth Muir,
Shakespeare as Collaborator (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1960), 13-14.
2
Karl P. Wentersdorf, The Authorship of Edward III (Unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1960), cited in Timothy Irish Watt, The
Authorship of The Raigne of Edward the Third, in Shakespeare, Computers, and
the Mystery of Authorship, 116-133, 120; The Raigne of King Edward the Third,
ed. Fred Lapides (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1980), 3-31; Alfred Hart,
Shakespeare and the Homilies (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1934),
219-41; Eliot Slater, The Problem of the Reign of King Edward III (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988); and Eric Sams, Shakespeares Edward III
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1596). Regarding compound words and their
location, see also Sams, 169-70.
3
M. W. A. Smith, The Authorship of The Raigne of King Edward the Third,
Literary and Linguistic Computing 6 (1991): 166-75; Jonathan Hope, The
Authorship of Shakespeares Plays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994), 133-7; MacD P. Jackson, Edward III, Shakespeare, and Pembrokes
Men, Notes & Queries 210 (1965): 329-31.
4
King Edward III, ed. Giorgio Melchiori (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998), 9-17.
5
Ward E. Y. Elliott and Robert J. Valenza, Two Tough Nuts to Crack: Did
Shakespeare Write the Shakespeare Portions of Sir Thomas More and Edward
III? Part II: Conclusion, Literary and Linguistic Computing 25 (2010): 165-77.
6
Richard Proudfoot, The Reign of King Edward the Third (1596) and Shakespeare
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 178.
7
Robert A. H. Smith, Four Notes on The Massacre at Paris, Notes & Queries 39
(1992), 309; and C. F. Tucker Brooke, The Shakespeare Apocrypha: Being a
Collection of Fourteen Plays Which Have Been Ascribed to Shakespeare (Oxford:
The Clarendon Press, 1908; 1967 reprint, Oxford University Press, London), xxii.
8
Thomas Merriam, Edward III, Literary and Linguistic Computing 15 (2000):
157-186; Thomas Merriam, Influence Alone? Reflections on the Newly
Canonized Edward III, Notes & Queries 46 (1999): 200-6; Thomas Merriam,
Marlowes Hand in Edward III Revisited, Literary and Linguistic Computing 11
(1996): 19-22; Robert Matthews and Tom Merriam, A Bard by Any Other
Name, New Scientist, 22 January 1994; and Thomas Merriam, Marlowes Hand
in Edward III, Literary and Linguistic Computing 8 (1993): 59-72.
9
Galle Gaure, Plagiarism Software Finds a New Shakespeare Play, Time, Oct.
20, 2009,
http:/www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1930971,00.html#ixzz0opxUgqyo,
accessed August 7, 2013; and Thomas Merriam, Marlowe versus Kyd as Author
of Edward III I.i, III, and V, Notes & Queries 56 (2009): 549-51.
10
A. D. Wraight, Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn (Chichester, Sussex:
A. Hart, 1993), 74-7; J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare
(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1883), 109; Frederick Gard Fleay, A
Edward III
159
Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642 (London: Reeves and

Turner, 1891), 23, 118-19; and Pinksen, Marlowes Ghost, 111-5.
11
S. Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 152; and Peter Alexander, Shakespeare
(London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 68.
12
The Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Robert Greene, ed.
Alexander B. Grosart (London and Aylesbury: Printed for private circulation only,
1881-86), vol. 8, 132.
13
The association between a cobblers crow and Ave Caesar is based on an
incident in history, and Robert Greene referred to it in the conventional sense in his
dedication to Pandosto, Caesars Crow durst never cry, Ave, but when she was
pearked [perched] on the Capitoll (1588 ed., A2). A crow trained to say Ave
Caesar victor, Imperator was given to Augustus after he defeated Antony. In an
attempt to ingratiate himself, a cobbler tried to sell Caesar another crow trained to
say the same thing, but the emperor did not want it. The crow then said Opera et
impensa periit [wasted trouble and expense], a sentence the cobbler had repeated
in discouragement as he was training the crow. Augustus was pleased and bought
it. In Francescos Fortunes, Greene combined Aesops crow, who stole others
feathers, and the cobblers crow into a witty metaphor. The cobblers crow story is
explained in Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues his England, ed. Croll and
Clemons (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964), 236n.
14
It may be objected that Edward Alleyn would have played the lead, King
Edward, rather than the Black Prince, but it is hazardous to second-guess casting. It
is possible, however, that Alleyn did play King Edward, and that Robert Greenes
memory as to who said what was faulty. It is also possible that King Edward said
Ave Caesar in the initial version of E3, but that the line was shifted to Prince
Edward when it was revised.
15
King Edward III, ed. Melchiori, 137, 206, 209.
16
A. D. Wraight and Virginia F. Stern, In Search of Christopher Marlowe. A
Pictoral Biography (London: Macdonald, 1965), 13, 16.
17
Park Honan. Christopher Marlowe. Poet & Spy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005), 229; and Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning (London: Vintage, 2002),
289-94.
18
William Shakespeare, The Complete Works, ed. Wells and Taylor, 257.
19
The metaphor also appears in the anonymous play Alphonsus, Emperor of
Germany: Men rather honour the Sun rising than the Sun going down. The
Comedies and Tragedies of George Chapman (London: John Pearson, 1873), vol.
3, 199-283, 201.
20
Portions of these parallels were noted in Thomas Merriam, Marlowes Hand in
Edward III, 62; and The Spanish Tragedy, ed. Philip Edwards, 141-2. There are
similar clusters in two works by Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy, I.ii; and
Cornelia, Act V.
21
See discussion of the ships name in Karl P. Wentersdorf, The Date of Edward
III, Shakespeare Quarterly 16 (1965): 227-31. I consulted the British Librarys
160
Chapter Seven
Manuscript Collections Dept. regarding spelling in the 1588 manuscript, Cotton

MSS Julius F.X. ff 95-101.
22
Roger Prior, The Date of Edward III, Notes & Queries 37 (1990): 178-180.
23
Philip W. Timberlake, The Feminine Ending in English Blank Verse (Menasha,
WI: George Banta Publishing Co., 1926), 78-80.
24
Eliot Slater, The Problem of The Reign of Kign Edward III: A Statistical
Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 135.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK
This unnamed, undated, anonymous drama resides in a collection of

manuscript plays known as Edgerton Ms. 1994 at the British Library. It
is missing its final page or pages. The play has been called Part One of
Richard II because it takes place during the reign of King Richard II prior
to the action of Shakespeares Richard II (R2). Since its main focus is,
however, on the fall of the kings uncle and Lord Protector, Thomas of
Woodstock, it is more often called Thomas of Woodstock or Woodstock
(Wood.). Michael Egan published a four-tome set devoted to proving that
William Shakespeare wrote the drama, enumerating myriad parallels to
works by the Bard.1 Employing computerized cluster analysis, Louis Ule
claimed that Marlowe wrote it.2 Woodstock editors Peter Corbin and
Douglas Sedge took no position as to authorship, but stated that the level
of dramatic skill deployed suggests an author (or authors) of considerable
range and competence, and intriguingly, Shakespeare is perhaps the one
known dramatist in the 1590s whose dramatic style most closely resembles
that of Thomas of Woodstock.3
Chronology
R2 relies upon prior knowledge of Wood. for full impact. At R2s
beginning, the Duke of Lancaster laments his brother Woodstocks
murder, so graphically depicted at the end of Wood., and states that Gods
deputy had caused the death. Those who had seen Wood. would have
known by Gods deputy he meant King Richard. In R2, Lancaster
complains that England is leased out like a farm, and York bemoans the
fact that England basely imitates foreign fashion, while King Richard talks
about blank charters. All of these subjects are fully developed in Wood. In
R2, Bolingbroke executes King Richards friends, Bushy and Green, for
the dastardly behavior that was showcased in Wood.
David Lake found that the manuscript of Wood. was written after 1600
due to the types of contractions and oaths it contained.4 A later date is also
supported by a feminine ending count of a whopping 21 percent, according
162
Chapter Eight
to Philip W. Timberlake.5 While Lake thought the version of Wood. that

has come down to us was a revision of a pre-1600 play, MacD. P. Jackson
maintained that the play itself was written after 1600, a position effectively
counterargued by Michael Egan.6
Egan dated Wood. to between August 8, 1592, the registration date of
Thomas Nashes Pierce Penniless, a work he believed to have influenced
it, and 1594, the year prior to the traditional date of Richard II. If Nashe
were an original co-author of Wood., as I will maintain, the date of Pierce
Penniless need not act as a constraint.
We know that Richard II, Henry IV Parts I and II, and Henry V were
written in order, following the sequential order of the reigns of their
protagonist kings, and that Richard III was penned after three plays about
his immediate predecessor, Henry VI.7 A drama about Richard II and his
Lord Protector Woodstock would historically follow in sequence after
ones about Edward II and about Edward III, who was Richard IIs
grandfather and immediate predecessor on the throne. Indeed, when Bushy
reads to the king from the English chronicles (Wood. II.i.55-97), aside
from telling the king the true date of his own birth, he reads only about
events that were dramatized in E2 and E3: the hanging of Mortimer by
Edward III (E2 Sc. xxvi 50-54, 93), and Edward IIIs victory at the Battle
of Poitiers, wherein he captured the French King John and his son (E3
IV.iv-vii, V.i.243). Mention is later made (Wood. V.i.158-64) of Edward
IIIs siege of Calais, also dramatized in E3 (IV.ii, V.i.1-62). Moreover,
Bushy calls Edward IIs adversary proud Mortimer, a phrase appearing
four times in E2. The earliest date for Wood. would therefore be 1591,
after Edward IIIs composition.
In Acts III-V, much is made of filling King Richards treasury by
sending out blank charters to men of means to be signed, affirmed with
their seals, then returned, after which the amount of a debt they must pay
would be filled in. This action was likely inspired by the incident of the
Spanish Blanks. These were blank letters containing the signatures and
seals of Catholic earls of Scotland that were to be filled in and employed
as proclamations in support of Spains invasion of Scotland and
subsequent march south into England, once negotiations with Spain were
complete.8 They were found in the possession of a carrier during the final
days of December, 1592, and on January 17, King James announced that
the conspirators his government had arrested would be tried. The issue of
blanks is integral to the plot of Wood.; a hypothesis that the Spanish
Blanks influenced it would push its earliest date of composition to
January, 1593.
Thomas of Woodstock
163
I previously maintained that Marlowe revised E3 on the basis of its

uncommon linguistic connections to later work by Shakespeare and a
dichotomy in poetic style which ranges from quite good to great.
Wood. does not display these signs. Nashe or someone else may have
revised it after 1600, but not Marlowe. Whoever revised it appears to have
made Wood. less Marlovian rather than more.
Two Styles: Marlovian and Nasheian

I find the voices of two authors in Wood. Note how the same character,
a neer-do-well named Greene, speaks in two different styles, the first
Marlovian, and the second Nasheian.
Wood., Marlovian:
Greene. Thanks, dearest lord. Let me have Richards love
And like a rock unmoved my state shall stand
Scorning the proudest peer that rules the land
May not the lion roar because hes young?
What are your uncles but as elephants
That set their aged bodies to the oak?
You are the oak against whose stock they lean;
Fall from them once and then destroy them ever.
Be thou no stay, King Richard, to their strength,
But as a tyrant unto tyranny,
And so confound them all eternally. (II.i.8-10, 16-25)
Wood., Nasheian:
Greene. Sfoot, and youll give me nothing, then good night,
landlord. Since ye have served me last, and I be not the last shall
pay your rent, neer trust me
Thats best ith winter. Is there any pretty wenches in my
government?...
Slid, I will rule like a king amongst them,
And thou shalt reign like an emperor over us. (IV.i.243-5, 250-1,
258-9)
I will discuss the Marlovian voice first.
164
Chapter Eight
Similarities Between Woodstock and Works by Marlowe

and Shakespeare
A co-author of Woodstock had the same fascination with Edward IIIs
son and Richard IIs father, the Black Prince, as the author of Edward III
did. The Black Prince is dead by the start of Wood., but often mentioned.
So is his tomb with which, as noted earlier, Marlowe would have been
highly familiar. King Richard swears by his fathers tomb (I.iii.200), and
in the final act of Wood., the Ghost of the Black Prince appears in order to
warn his brother Thomas of impending doom.
Wood. (Ghost of the Black Prince):
Night, horror and theternal shrieks of death
Intended to be done this dismal night
Hath shook fair Englands great cathedral
And from my tomb elate at Canterbury
The ghost of Edward the Black Prince is come (V.i.55-59)
The spirit specifically names Canterbury Cathedral. As for the
adjective elate, OED def. 2a gives a figurative meaning dating back to
Chaucer, Of condition and persons with regard to their condition:
Exalted, lofty. This is an odd description for a tomb, and Corbin and
Sedge gloss the word as OED def. 1, a usage first recorded in 1730:
lifted, raised. The Black Princes tomb in the cathedral is indeed raised,
and bears his effigy. An author of Wood. seems not only to have known
this, but to have taken the trouble to include it.
An author of Wood. thought like someone who wrote 2H6/The
Contention. In Wood., the Lord Protector, Woodstock, is told to give up
his staff of office by the young king. He does so, stating, My staff, king
Richard? See coz, here it is (II.ii.155), and Long mayst thou live in
peace and keep thine own/ That truth and justice may attend thy throne
(II.ii.105-6). In 2H6, the Lord Protector, Gloucester, is told to give up his
staff of office by the young king. He does so, stating, My staff? Here,
noble Henry, is my staff (II.iii.32, Cont. 830-1), and Farewell, good
King. When I am dead and gone,/ May honourable peace attend thy
throne (II.iii.37-8, Cont. 835-6).
There is another deep connection between Wood. and 2H6/Cont.
Heart* near.10 burden* near.10 break* is a Near Match for these plays
(as well as the anonymous Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany). Note that
both Wood. and Cont. also juxtapose think*, and that in both works, the
Thomas of Woodstock
165
speaker says that he can prevent his heart from breaking by making some
type of vocalization: Wood.: But that my tongue hath liberty to show/
The inly passions boiling in my breast,/ I think my overburdened heart
would break (I.iii.213-5) vs. Cont.: And now me thinks my burthened
hart would breake,/ Should I not curse them (Cont. 1369-70; 2H6 has
And, even now, my burdened heart would break/ Should I not curse
them III.ii.324-5).
Wood. echoes E2 in its plot about the deleterious effect of minions
upon a weak king. King Edward II is a dislikable, arrogant monarch in the
first half of Marlowes play, but becomes a victim who arouses the
audiences sympathy in the second half. King Richard II undergoes a
similar character arc over the course of two plays: he is a self-centered,
compassionless man who orders his uncles murder in Wood., waning
toward the end of R2 into a pathetic creature who speaks of graves, of
worms, and epitaphs before his own death.
A subtle parallel appears when, in Wood., the crown is placed on King
Richards head. Richard says So now we feel ourself (II.ii.118). In E2,
King Edward says he finds no comfort except that I feel the crown upon
my head (Sc. xxi.82).
Marlovian Rare Scattered Word Clusters

and Strong Parallels
Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between Wood. and E3 for
Stirrup* near.100 lowly* near.100 captive*, which also collocates
blood*, France, footing/afoot, crown*, and king*.
Wood.:
Rents out my crowns rvenues, racks my subjects
That spent their bloods with me in conquering France,
Beheld me ride in state through London streets
And at my stirrup, lowly footing by,
Four captive kings to grace my victory. (V.i.90-4)
E3:
Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,
The Frenchmans terror and his countrys fame,
Triumphant rideth like a Roman peer,
And, lowly at his stirrup, comes afoot
Chapter Eight
166
King John of France together with his son

In captive bonds, whose diadem he brings
To crown thee with, and to proclaim thee king. (V.i.178-84)
This language is echoed in H5:
How London doth pour out her citizens.
The Mayor and all his brethren, in best sort,
Like to the senators of thantique Rome,
With the plebeians swarming at their heels,
Go forth and fetch their conquring Caesar in
As, by a lower but high-loving likelihood (V. Chorus.24-9)
Below are Strong Parallels between Wood., Marlowe and Shakespeare.
1. Wood.:
The right I hold, even with my heart I render
And wish your grace had claimed it long ago.
Thoudst rid mine age of mickle care and woe (II.ii.96-8)
E2:
Good father, on thy lap
Lay I this head, laden with mickle care.
O, might I never open these eyes again,
Never again lift up this drooping head,
O, nevermore lift up this dying heart! (Sc. xx.39-43)
Mickle care* is a Near Match in EEBO, and the phrase in both
scenes is associated with surrender/giving up, evidencing a similar way of
thinking. Richard II has just told Lord Protector Woodstock to yield his
protectorship. Woodstock does so, with the above speech. In the second
excerpt, Edward II, hunted by his enemies, is speaking about giving up to
an abbot who has granted him refuge. Immediately afterwards, Edward is
found out and forced to surrender.
2. Wood.:
Lancaster. And thou no king but landlord now become
To this great state that terrored Christendom.
Thomas of Woodstock
167
King Richard. I cannot brooke these braves. Let drums sound

death
And strike at once to stop this traitors breath (V.iii.106-9)
E2:
Lancaster. Or look to see the throne where you should sit
To float in blood, and at thy wanton head
The glozing head of thy base minion thrown.
King Edward. I cannot brook these haughty menaces!
Am I a king and must be overruled?
Brother, display my ensigns in the field;
Ill bandy with the barons and the earls (Sc. i.130-6)
I cannot brook these is an EEBO Match which appears twice more in
E2: Cease, brother, for I cannot brook these words, and My lord, I
cannot brook these injuries (Sc. i.159 and Sc. vi.71). In the scene from
Woodstock, Lancaster insults King Richard, and the king blusters and
threatens war. In E2, an earlier Earl of Lancaster insults King Edward; the
king blusters and threatens war.
3. Wood.:
The lights of heaven are shut in pitchy clouds
And flakes of fire run tilting through the sky (IV.ii.66-7)
1T:
Gather an army of Cimmerian clouds
(Auster and Aquilon with wingd steeds,
All sweating, tilt about the watery heavens
With shivering spears enforcing thunderclaps,
And from their shields strike flames of lightning) (III.ii.77-81)
2T:
Making the meteors that, like armd men,
Are seen to march upon the towers of heaven,
Run tilting round about the firmament (IV.i.202-4)
Chapter Eight
168
Err.:
Of his hearts meteors tilting in his face (IV.ii.6)
Wood. and 1T share a metaphor about tilting in heaven. In Wood. it is
lightning or flakes of fire that run tilting, yet clouds are mentioned,
while in 1T clouds tilt, yet lightning, akin to fire (flames of lightning) is
juxtaposed. 2T shares Wood. and 1Ts juxtaposition of tilt* and
heaven*, and contains the Wood. phrase run tilting. Meanwhile, both
2T and Err. share the notion of tilting meteors.
4. Wood.:
Woodstock. If not, by good King Edwards bones, our royal father,
I will remove those hinderers of his health,
Thought cost my head.
York, Lancaster. On these conditions, brother, we agree.
Arundel. And I.
Surrey.
And I. (I.i.188-92)
E2:
Mortimer. My lords, if to perform this I be slack,
Think me as base a groom as Gaveston.
Lancaster. On that condition Lancaster will grant.
Warwick. And so will Pembroke and I.
Mortimer Senior.
And I. (Sc. iv.290-3)
E3:
To that condition I agree, my lord (IV.i.40)
2H6:
Suffolk. Here is my hand; the deed is worthy doing.
Queen Margaret. And so say I.
York. And I And now we three have spoke it,
It skills not greatly who impugns our doom. (III.i.278-81)
5. In Wood., upon learning of his wifes decease, King Richard orders the
destruction of their home in Sheen, including the turrets:
Thomas of Woodstock
169
Wood.:
Despair and madness seize me! O dear friends,
What loss can be compared to such a queen?
Down with this house of Sheen! Go ruin all!
Pull down her buildings, let her turrets fall;
Forever lay it waste and desolate
That English king may never here keep court,
But to all ages leave a sad report
When men shall see these ruined walls of Sheen
And sighing say, Here died King Richards queen,
For which well have it wasted, lime and stone,
To keep a monument of Richards moan. (IV.iii.157-167)
This is reminiscent of leaders emotional reactions in E3 and 2T when
they hear of the death of a loved one. Thinking his son is dead, Edward III
vows the destruction of cities and, in particular, the burning of towers,
while Tamburlaine vows the destruction of a town and its turrets upon the
decease of his wife Zenocrate.
E3:
King Edward. All the peers in France
Shall mourners be, and weep out bloody tears
Until their empty veins be dry and sere.
The pillars of his hearse shall be their bones,
The mould that covers him, their city ashes,
His knell, the groaning cries of dying men,
And in the stead of tapers on his tomb
A hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze,
While we bewail our valiant sons decease. (V.i.167-75)
2T:
Tamburlaine. So, burn the turrets of this cursd town,
Flame to the highest region of the air
And kindle heaps of exhalations
That, being fiery meteors, may presage
Death and destruction to thinhabitants;
Over my zenith hang a blazing star
That may endure till heaven be dissolved,
Chapter Eight
170
Fed with the fresh supply of earthly dregs,

Threatning a death and famine to this land!...
Because my dear Zenocrate is dead!
Calyphas. This pillar placed in memory of her (III.ii.1-9, 14-5)
6. All three excerpts below associate God, his angels, and the guarding of
either a king or a prince.
Wood.:
Thou canst not kill me, villain!
Gods holy angel guards a just mans life
And with his radiant beams as bright as fire
Will guard and keep his righteous innocence.
I am a prince, thou darst not murder me. (V.i.131-5)
R2:
For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel. Then if angels fight,
Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right. (III.ii.54-8)
H5 (said to the king):
God and his angels guard your sacred throne
And justly and religiously unfold (I.ii.7, 10)
Image Cluster
Wood. contains imagery which runs through the works of Marlowe and
Shakespeare related to horses. These horses are proud, disdainful, and
scornful. Their dangerous hooves kick, stamp, strike, trample, and wound
the ground. Perhaps the initial inspiration came from The Faerie Queene:
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,/ As much disdayning to the
curbe to yield (I.1.1).
Wood.:
Methought your horse, that wont to tread the ground
Thomas of Woodstock
And pace as if he kicked it scornfully (I.iii.88-9)

CR:
Mounted on steeds, with braue Caparisons deckt,
That in their gates did seeme to scorne the Earth (II.i.712-3)
When proud Eteocles on his foaming steede (V.i.2197)
The wrathfull steeds do check their iron bits,
And with a well gracd terror strike the ground (V.i.2247-8)
The horse had now put on the riders wrath,
And with his hoofes did strike the trembling earth (V.iii.2361-2)
1T:
Thou shalt be leader of this thousand horse,
Whose foaming gall with rage and high disdain (I.i.62-3)
Upon their prancing steeds, disdainfully
With wanton paces trampling on the ground (IV.i.22-3)
For every fell and stout Tartarian steed,
That stamped on others with their thundring hoofs,
When all their riders charged their quivering spears,
Began to check the ground and rein themselves (V.i.330-3)
HL:
For as a hot proud horse highly disdains
To have his head controlled, but breaks the reins,
Spits forth the ringled bit, and with his hooves
Checks the submissive ground (Sestiad II.141-4)
Ven.:
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts, and neighs aloud.
The strong-necked steed, being tied unto a tree,
171
Chapter Eight
172
Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he

The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,
Whose hollow womb resounds like heavens thunder.
The iron bit he crusheth tween his teeth,
Controlling what he was controlld with. (260-4, 267-70)
E3:
And set our foot upon thy tender mould,
But that in froward and disdainful pride
Thou, like a skittish and untamd colt,
Dost start aside, and strike us with thy heels! (III.iii.30-3)
R2:
Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones (I.ii.69)
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses hoofs (III.ii.6-7)
King Richard. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
How went he under him?
Groom. So proudly as if he disdained the ground. (V.v.81-3)
H5:
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them,
Printing their proud hoofs ith receiving earth (Prologue.26-7)
And our wounded steeds
Fret fetlock-deep in gore, and with wild rage
Jerk out their armd heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. (IV.vii.76-9)
1H4:
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armd hoofs
Of hostile paces. (I.i.7-9)
Thomas of Woodstock
173
TNK:
Trotting the stones of Athens, which the calkins
Did rather tell than trample; for the horse
Would make his length a mile, ift pleased his rider
To put pride in him. As he thus went counting
The flinty pavement, dancing, as twere, to th music
His own hooves madefor, as they say, from iron
Came musics origin (V.vi.55-61)
TGV (not involving a horse, but employing similar language):
I throw thy name against the bruising stones,
Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.
And here is writ Love-wounded Proteus. (I.ii.112-4)

I ran parallels painstakingly collected by Michael Egan through EEBO,
as well as others I found, to create the following list of Matches, Near
Matches, and other similarities between Wood. and Marlovian sections of
works in the Marlowe and Shakespeare canons, as well as other works I
have discussed.
1. Wood.: The Lord protect him for it, ay, and our cousin king
(I.i.25) vs. R3: The Lord protect him from that kingly title
(IV.i.19)EEBO Match: Lord protect* him fby.10 king*.
2. Wood.: High Heaven be judge, we wish all good to him (I.i.26)
vs. TGV: O heaven be judge how I love Valentine (V.iv.36)
EEBO Match: Heaven be judge. Among pieces by dramatists, the
phrase occurs in two post-Restoration plays.
3. Wood.: By kingly Edwards soul, my royal father/ Ill be revenged
at full on all their lives (I.i.68-9) vs. E2: For we have power/
And courage too, to be revenged at full (Sc. ii.59-60)EEBO:
Revenge* at full. Among playwrights, the phrase also occurs in the
anonymous play Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany; a non-dramatic
piece by playwright Thomas May, 1635; and Thomas Rawlins
play The Rebellion, pr. 1640.
4. Wood.: Yet thus much can I say, and make my praise/ No more
than merit (I.i.81-2) vs. Lear: With boot and such addition as
your honours/ Have more than merited (V.iii.277-8)EEBO:
174
Chapter Eight
More than merit*. The phrase also occurs in playwright Thomas

Heywoods An Apology for Actors, 1612, and Edward Howards
play The Womens Conquest, pr. 1671.
5. Wood.: A wealthier prize/ Did never yet take harbour in our roads/
Than I to England brought. You all can tell/ Full threescore sail of
tall and lusty ships/ And six great carracks fraught with oil and
wines (I.i.82-6) vs. JM: Thy ships are safe, riding in Malta road;/
And all the merchants with other merchandise/ Are safe arrived,
and have sent me to know/ Whether yourself will come and custom
them./ Barabas. The ships are safe, thou sayst, and richly
fraught?, and Ferneze. Whence is thy ship that anchors in our
road?... Del Bosco. Our fraught is Grecians, Turks, and Afric
Moors (I.i.49-53 and II.ii.2, 9)EEBO: Road* near.30 ship*
near.30 fraught*.
6. Wood.: Trust him not, aunt, for now hes grown so brave (I.iii.66)
vs. Dido: How now, Gaetulian, are ye grown so brave
(III.iii.19); and E2: The younger Mortimer is grown so brave
(Sc. vi.231)EEBO Match: Grown so brave. The juxtaposition
also occurs in the anonymous I Edward IV, attrib. Thomas
Heywood, pr. 1600; and Robert Davenports comedy, A New
Tricke to Cheat the Divell, 1639.
7. Wood.: They would not tax and pill the commons so (I.iii.112)
vs. R2: The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes
(II.i.247)EEBO Match: Tax* near.5 pill* near.5 common*.
8. Wood.: Hath brought thee home a rich and wealthy prize,/ Taen
three score sail of ships and six great carracks (I.iii.143-4) vs.
Oth.: Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land-carrack./ If it prove
lawful prize, hes made for ever (I.ii.50-1)EEBO: Carrack*
near.30 prize*.
9. Wood.: Hath brought thee home a rich and wealthy prize, and
These wealthy prizes already are bestowed/ On these our friends
(I.iii.143 and 153-4) vs. OE: Nor, so thou mayst obtain a wealthy
prize (Book I Elegia VIII.63)EEBO: Wealthy prize*. The
phrase occurs in non-dramatic pieces by playwrights George
Chapman, Michael Drayton, and Thomas May; and John Tathams
play Knavery in all Trades, 1664.
10. Wood.: Their pride hath forcd from the needy commons
(I.iii.147) vs. 2H6: Because I would not tax the needy commons
(III.i.116, Cont. 1043)EEBO: Needy commons. Among dramatists,
the phrase is found in John Days comedy, The Parliament of Bees,
c. 1607.
Thomas of Woodstock
11. Wood.: To pacify the murmuring commons rage (I.iii.256) vs.

E2: The murmuring commons overstretchd hath (Sc.
vi.159)EEBO Match: Murmuring common(s).
12. Wood.: Scorning the proudest peer that rules the land (II.i.10)
vs. E2: And Aeque tandem [equal at last] shall that canker cry/
Unto the proudest peer of Brittany (Sc. vi.41-2); 1H6: Now
Winchester will not submit, I trow,/ Or be inferior to the proudest
peer (V.i.56-7); and 2H6: The/ proudest peer in the realm shall
not wear a head on his shoulders unless he pay me tribute
(IV.vii.117-8; Nasheian section, not in Cont., Marlowe rewrite?)
EEBO Match: Proudest peer.
13. Wood.: Your uncles seek to overturn your state/ To awe ye like a
child (II.i.11-12) vs. E2: As though your highness were a
schoolboy still,/ And must be awed and governed like a child
(Sc. xi.30-1)EEBO Match: Awe* near.30 like a child*, plus
Robert Stapyltons tragic-comedy, The Step-Child, 1664. Note also
2H6: I see no reason why a king of years/ Should be to be
protected like a child (II.iii.28-9, Cont. has: But still must be
protected like a childe,/ And gouerned by that ambitious Duke
348-9); 1H6: None do you like but an effeminate prince,/ Whom
like a schoolboy you may overawe (I.i.35-6); and TGV: Such as
the fury of ungoverned youth/ Thrust from the company of aweful
men (IV.i.43-4).
14. Wood.: Hale them to thblock and cut off all their heads (II.i.40)
vs. E2: Well hale him by the ears unto the block (Sc. vi.91)
EEBO: Hale* fby.10 block, where block is a place of execution.
The juxtaposition is also found in Samuel Rowleys play, When
You See Me Youll Know Me, pr. 1605. While block was
associated with execution as early as 1541, the phrase hale
[someone] to/unto the block appears first in EEBO in E2 and may
have stemmed from the authors knowledge of nautical terms.
When wee hale any Tackle or Haleyard to which two blocks doe
belong, when they meet, we call that blocke and blocke according
to John Smiths A Sea Grammar, 1627, p. 19.
15. Wood.: Have little cause to fear our just proceedings (II.ii.16)
vs. R3: With all your just proceedings in this cause (III.v.64)
EEBO: Just proceeding* near.10 cause*.
16. Wood.: The toils are pitched, and you may catch them quickly
(II.ii.31) vs. MP: And beats his brains to catch us in his trap,/
Which he hath pitched within his deadly toil (Sc. i.52-3); and
Dekker s BL: The safest Toyles to pitch is the Irish Toyle, which
175
176
Chapter Eight
is a net so strongly and cunningly wouen togither, that they who

goe a hunting with it, catch the Common-wealth (D4r-v)EEBO:
Pitch* near.30 toil* near.30 catch*.
17. Wood.: Confusion hangeth oer thy wretched head;/ Mischief is
coming and in storms must fall (II.ii.48-9) vs. 2H6: O God, what
mischiefs work the wicked ones,/ Heaping confusion on their own
heads thereby! (II.i.198-9); and Dekkers BL: So these newfound Lawes of the Deuils inuention, are grounded vpon Mischiefe
and are nothing else but certaine Acts and Rules drawne in to
heads (in an assembly of damned Wretches) for the vtter undoing
of Men, and confusion of a Weale-publike (E4v)EEBO: Head*
near.20 confusion* near.20 mischief*.
18. Wood.: King Richard. What, disrobed again / Of all your golden
rich habiliments?/ Woodstock. Ay, ay, good coz, Im now in my
tother hose,/ Im now myself, Plain Thomas, and by throod/ In
these plain hose Ill do the realm more good (II.ii.32-6) vs. TOAS:
Euen in these honest meane abilliments,/ Our purses shallbe rich,
our garments plaine (1122-3)EEBO Match: habiliment* near.30
rich* near.30 plain*. Note also TGV: My riches are these poor
habiliments (IV.i.14); and TOTS: Even in these honest, mean
habiliments./ Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor,/ For
tis the mind that makes the body rich (IV.iv.168-70).
19. Wood.: Long mayst thou live in peace and keep thine own/ That
truth and justice may attend thy throne (II.ii.105-6) vs. 2H6:
Farewell, good King. When I am dead and gone,/ May honourable
peace attend thy throne (2H6 II.iii.37-8, Cont. 835-6)EEBO
Match: Attend* thy throne.
20. Wood.: Woodstook. [Breaks his staff.] There let him take it
shivered, cracked and broke (II.ii.162) vs. R2: King Richard.
[Shatters the glass.] For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers
(IV.i.279)EEBO Match: Shiver* near.5 crack. Note also 1H4:
For you my staff of office did I break/ In Richards time (34-5).
Worchester says this to King Henry IV, who succeeded Richard II.
Although the speaker is different than in Wood., the association of
breaking a staff of office with Richard II is the same.
21. Wood.: I meet sad hours and wake when others sleep (II.iii.16)
vs. 2H6: Watch thou and wake when others be asleep (I.i.249,
Cont. 192); and MP: For this I wake, when others think I sleep
(Sc. ii.48)EEBO: Wake when others. The phrase occurs in
Thomas Middletons poem The Wisdom of Solomon Paraphrased,
Thomas of Woodstock
1597. Note also Ham.: For some must watch, while some must
sleep (III.ii.261).
22. Wood.: And starvest thy wretched subjects to erect it./ Woe to
those men that thus incline thy soul (II.iii.103-4) vs. 2T: Your
soul gives essence to our wretched subjects (V.iii.164)EEBO
Match: Wretched subject* near.30 soul*.
23. Wood.: Twere better it were ruined, lime and stone, and
When men shall see these ruined walls of Sheen/ And sighing
say, Here died King Richards queen,/ For which well have it
wasted, lime and stone (III.ii.25 and IV.iii.164-6), plus To see
our fathers kingdom ruinate (III.ii.107) vs. 3H6: I will not
ruinate my fathers house,/ Who gave his blood to lime the stones
together (V.i.86-7, TT E2r)EEBO: Ruin* near.20 lime near.20
stone*. Note also R2: CastleKing Richard lies/ Within the
limits of yon lime and stone (III.ii.21, 24-5).
24. Wood.: Rent out our kingdom like a pelting farm (IV.i.148) vs.
R2: Like to a tenement or pelting farm (II.i.60)EEBO Match:
Pelting farm(s). Pelting means paltry.
25. Wood.: Our lives and goods are at the Kings dispose (IV.iii.35)
vs. E3: Captain. Upon condition it will please your grace/ To
grant them benefit of life and goods./ King Edward. They will so?
Then, belike, they may command,/ Dispose, elect, and govern as
they list! (IV.ii.67-8)EEBO: Life/lives and good(s) near.30
dispose. Among playwrights, the juxtaposition also appears in
Philip Massingers play, The Maid of Honour, pr. 1632; and A
Knack to Know a Knave, pr. 1594.
26. Wood.: Well not be nice to take their offers, Crosby (IV.iii.83)
vs. LLL: Since you are strangers and come here by chance,/ Well
not be nice. Take hands. We will not dance (V.ii.219-20)EEBO
Match: Well/we will not be nice.
27. Wood.: Alls whist and still, and nothing here appears/ But the
vast circuit of this empty room (V.i.112-3) vs. HL: Far from the
town (where all is whist and still,/ Save that the sea, playing on
yellow sand,/ Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land (Sestiad
I.346-8)EEBO Match: All is/alls whist and still. Note also E3:
The world is hushed and still (IV.v.3).
28. Wood.: Woodstock. Yet fetch me pen and ink, Ill write to him,
and Lapoole. Heres pen and paper, my lord, wilt please ye
write?/ Woodstock. Anon I will. Shut to the doors and leave me
(V.i.184, 193-4) vs. MP: Duchess. Go fetch me pen and ink.
Maid. I will, madam./ Duchess. That I may write unto my dearest
177
178
Chapter Eight
lord, and Enter the Maid with ink, and paper./ Duchess. So, set it
down, and leave me to myself (Sc. xv.1-2 and 8-9)EEBO
Match: Fetch me pen and ink. Its one other EEBO occurrence is in
the anonymous play Thomas Lord Cromwell, pr. 1602. Note also
E3: King Edward. Art thou there, Lodowick? Give me ink and
paper./ Lodowick. I will, my liege, and King Edward. Give me
the pen and paper, I will write (II.i. 48-9 and 184); and R3:
King Richard. Give me some ink and paper, and King
Richard. Set it down. Is ink and paper ready?/ Ratcliff. It is, my
lord./ King Richard. Leave me (V.v.3, 28-30).
29. Wood.: As willing as a punk thats pressed on a featherbed./
They take their pressing apiece with great patience./ Marry, the
lords no sooner turn their backs but they run/ away like sheep, sir
(V.ii.10-3) vs. E3: And take away their downy featherbeds/ And
presently they are as resty-stiff/ As twere a many over-ridden
jades (III.iii.160-2)EEBO: Feather-bed* near.20 take [all
variations] near.20 away. Note that both instances cited also
contain similes involving animals.
30. Wood.: And may their sins sit heavy on their souls (V.iii.16) vs.
R3: Let me sit heavy on thy soul tomorrow (V.v.71)EEBO
Match: Sit* heavy* on fby.5 soul*. This also appears in William
Chamberlaines tragic-comedy, Loves Victory, pr. 1658.
31. Wood.: Dare the traitors/ Presume to brave the field with
English princes? (V.iii.40-1) vs. R3: We must be brief, when
traitors brave the field (IV.iii.57)EEBO Match: Traitor*
near.30 brave* the field*.
32. Wood.: We might be made partaker of the cause (V.iii.62) vs.
Dido: Yet, if you would partake with me the cause (IV.ii.27)
EEBO: Partake* fby.3 the cause. We also find this juxtaposition in
John Fords play Tis Pity Shes a Whore, pr. 1633.
33. Wood.: Where slept our scouts that he escaped the field?
(V.vi.11) vs. 3H6: Where slept our scouts, or how are they
seduced,/ That we could hear no news of his repair? (V.i.19-20,
TT E1r)EEBO Match: Where slept our scouts. Note the similarity
to a speech in Jn., when the king learns a French army has arrived
ashore in England: O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?/
Where hath it slept? Where is my mothers ear,/ That such an
army could be drawn in France,/ And she not hear of it?
(IV.ii.116-9).
Thomas of Woodstock
179
Similarity: Wood.: May [God deleted in ms.] Heaven be blest for

this prevention (I.i.7) vs. H5: But God be thankd for prevention
(II.ii.154).
Similarity: Wood.: [Figurative] And fain we would lie down to rest
ourselves,/ But that so many serpents lurk ith grass (I.i.139-40) vs.
CR: There lurkes an adder in the greenest grasse,/ Daungers of purpose
alwayes hide their face (III.vii.1627-8). Note also 3H6: Who scapes the
lurking serpents mortal sting? (II.ii.15, TT B6v); Luc.: Who sees the
lurking serpent steps aside (362); Rom.: Or bid me lurk/ Where
serpents are (IV.i.79-80); and R2: With a lurking adder/ Whose double
tongue may with a mortal touch (III.ii.20-1).
Similarity: Wood.: Come, think not ont (I.ii.22) vs. E2: He is a
traitor; think not on him. Come. (Sc. xxiv.114); JM: Their deaths were
like their lives, then think not of em (V.i.56); and DF: If thou lovest
me, think no more of it (Sc. v.153).
Similarity: Wood.: I am no Stoic, my dear sovereign cousin,/ To
make my plainness seem canonical (I.iii.78-9) vs. TOTS: While we do
admire/ This virtue and this moral discipline,/ Lets be no stoics (I.i.2931).
Similarity: Wood.: These hot eruptions must have some redress/ Or
else in time theyll grow incurable (I.iii.242-3) vs. 2H6: Send succours,
lords, and stop the rage betime,/ Before the wound do grow uncurable
(III.i.285-6).
Similarity: Wood.: And hale his [the kings] minions from his wanton
side./ Their heads cut off, the peoples satisfied (I.iii.248-9) vs. E2:
Weld hale him [Gaveston, the kings minion] from the bosom of the
king,/ And at the court-gate hang the peasant up (Sc. ii.29-30).
Similarity: Wood.: But that the ragged commons loves his
plainness (III.i.103) vs. 2H6: Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping/ Hath won thee greatest favour of the commons (I.i.189-90,
Cont. 159-60).
Similarity: Wood.: Their wanton heads so oft play with the winds
(III.ii.20) vs. CR: With which the wanton wind was wont to play
(I.i.48); and E2: Thy wanton head (Sc. i.131).
Similarity: Wood.: Go, sirrah, take you his horse, lead him to the/
stable, meat him well (III.ii.195-6) vs. TOAS: Cupple vppe the hounds
and let vs hie vs home,/ And bid the huntsman see them meated well (234).
Similarity: Wood.: All thanks, love, duty to my princely sovereign
(IV.i.231) vs. E3: All love and duty to my lord the king (II.ii.28).
180
Chapter Eight
Similarity: Wood.: On with thy cloak and mask. To horse, to horse

(IV.ii.3) vs. R2: To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear
(II.i.301); and H5: To horse, you gallant princes, straight to horse!
(IV.ii.15).
Similarity: Wood.: Tis good to choose the least (V.i.46) vs. E3:
Tis good to fear the worst (III.ii.29); and E2: Tis good to fear the
worst (Sc. xxiv.12).
Similarity: Wood.: If I must die, bear record, righteous Heaven,/
How I have nightly waked for Englands good (V.i.123-4) vs. 2H6:
So help me God, as I have watched the night,/ Ay, night by night, in
studying good for England, and Watch thou, and wake when others be
asleep (III.i.110-1 and I.i.249); and E2: Till Edmund be arrived for
Englands good (Sc. xiv.2).
Similarities Between Woodstock and Nashe & Dekker

Michael Mannheim heard the voice of Dekker in Woodstock:
There is so much in the language of plain Thomas (and others) that calls
the exuberant Dekker to mind that it is hard to believe he did not have a
share in writing the anonymous Woodstock. Multiple authorship was, of
course, the rule in the writing of anonymous plays in the age.9
The comic scenes involving Nimble and Ignorance are quite Nasheian
in flavor, as is language in certain scenes involving King Richards
desolute friends, Greene, Bagot, and Tresilian. In these scenes, we hear
black book twice (III.i.148, III.iii.81). This phrase was a favorite of
Nashe & Dekker, appearing in Almond (F3v), Pierce (*v), Terrors (B1r),
BB (e.g., A4r), SHR (E1r), JMM (H2v), STW (C2r), CC (B2v), and VM
(D2r), and not elsewhere in Marlowe or Shakespeare. Thomas of
Woodstock speaks to a horse, telling him Im afraid theyll eat you
shortly if you tarry amongst them. Youre pricked more with the spur than
the provender, I see that (III.ii.167-9), reflecting Nashes sympathy for
animals as found in, for example: Your Horses which you tame and
spurre, and cut their mouthes with raining, and finally kill (Tears C2v).
Compare Wood.s With parchment, innocent sheepskins (III.i.11-12)
to the previously mentioned Nasheian section of 2H6: Is not this a
lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made
parchment? (IV.ii.79-81, Cont. 1775-6); and PG: You weare silkes, and
wee sheepeskinnes, innocence carries it away in the world to come
(K1v).
Thomas of Woodstock
181
When the silly courtier in Wood. proudly wears the latest in court
fashion, with his toe and knee connected by a chain, he says, This chain
doth, as it were, so toeify the knee and so kneeify the toe that between
both it makes a most methodical coherence or coherent method
(III.ii.223-6), employing two nonce verbs not elsewhere seen in the
OED/EEBO that are quite Nasheian in flavor.
Rare Scattered Word Clusters Between Woodstock

and Nashe & Dekker
1. Wood. and the Nasheian portion of 2H6 share the Rare Scattered Word
Cluster Wife/wives near.100 made/make* shift for near.100 follow. Both
excerpts appear within speeches by common men.
Wood.:
Cowtail. Now God amend them for it, they have given an ill
example we shall be forced to follow.
Butcher. I would my wife and children were at Jerusalem with
all the wealth! Id make shift for one, I warrant them. (III.iii.94-7)
2H6, Nasheian portion:
Cade. Let them
break your backs with burdens, take your houses over
your heads, ravish your wives and daughters before
your faces. For me, I will make shift for one, and so
Gods curse light upon you all!
All. Well follow Cade, well follow
Cade! (IV.vii.-182-8)
2. Russet is a coarse, woolen cloth of a reddish-brown color used for
clothing of country people and the poor (OED def. 1a). A rare
juxtaposition found in Wood., Nashes Anatomy of Absurdity, and
Dekkers A Rod for Runaways, contrasts russet with rack and rent,
which Nashe & Dekker associated with greedy usurers and landlords. Here
the Rare Scattered Word Cluster appears at the 200-word level: Russet*
near.200 rack* near.200 rent*.
Chapter Eight
182
Wood.:
Tresilian. Heres a fat whoreson in his russet slops
And yet may spend three hundred pounds by thyear,
The third of which the hogsface owes the King;
Heres his bond fort with his hand and seal.
And so by this Ill sort each several sum:
The thirds of all shall to King Richard come.
How like you this, my lords?
Scroop. Most rare, Tresilian! Hang um, codsheads,
Shall they spend money and King Richard lack it?
Bushy. Are not their lives and lands and livings his?
Then rack them thoroughly.
Tresilian. O my lords, I have set a trick afoot for ye, and ye
follow it hard and get the king to sign it, youll be all kings
by it.
Bushy. The farming out the kingdom? Tush, Tresilian, tis half
granted already and had been fully concluded had not
the messenger returned so unluckily from the Duke of
Gloucester, which a little moved the King at his uncles
stubbornness. But to make all whole we have left that
smooth-faced flattering Greene to follow him close, and
hell never leave till he has done it, I warrant ye.
Scroop. Theres no question ont. King Richard will betake
himself to a yearly stipend and we four by lease must rent
the kingdom.
Bushy. Rent it, ay, and rack it too, ere we forfeit our leases
(IV.i.27-51)
Nashes Anatomy of Absurdity:
Young menspending that in their Ueluets which was rakt vppe in
a Russette coate: so that their reuenewes rackt, and their rents
raised to the vttermost (C4r)
Dekkers A Rod for Runaways:
So, our Countey people, being of late inuaded by the Pictes,
(beaten with wants of Money to pay their rackt Rents to their
greedy Land-lords)If they spy but a footman (not hauing a
Thomas of Woodstock
183
Russet Sute on, their owne Country liuery) they cry, Arme, charge
their Pike-Staues (C1r)
3. A Rare Scattered Word Cluster occurs between Wood. and Nashes The
Unfortunate Traveler: It shall near.100 treason* near.100 forty foot. Both
excerpts appear within comic segments.
Wood.:
It shall be henceforth
counted high treason for any fellow with a grey beard to
come within forty foot of the court gatesHang him! (II.ii.174-6,
187)
Unfortunate:
It shalbe flat treason for any of this fore-mentioned catalogue of
the point trussers, to once name him within fortie foote of an alehouse (A4r)

Wood., and the works of Nashe & Dekker, Nasheian portions of
anonymous works we have discussed, and ones attributed to Marlowe and
Shakespeare.
1. Wood.: Thou buckram scribe (I.ii.74-5) vs. 2H6: Thou
buckram lord (IV.vii.23, Cont. 1789, Nasheian portion)EEBO
Match: Thou buckram.
2. Wood.: Now thou hittest it, Nimble (I.ii.86-7) vs. BMC: 1 Lady.
By a nimble daunce./ Fontinell. You hit it right (A4v)EEBO
Match: Nimble* near.30 hit* it. Note also Wiv.: Nym, thou hast
hit it right (1602 Q only); and Saffron: If you hit it right
(V3v).
3. Wood.: If I cannot pick up my crumbs by the law (I.ii.101-2) vs.
Unfortunate: Then was I driun to picke vp my crums amongst
the Cardinals (M1v); and NH: I ha pickt vp my cromes in Sesus
colledge (E2v)EEBO Match: Pick* up my crumb(s). We find
pick* up his/her/their crumbs in Tears, Summer, Terrors, Sat.,
and LC.
184
Chapter Eight
4. Wood.: Ill cast away my/ buckram bags and be a highway

lawyer (I.ii.102-3) vs. RA: It is thought that Lawyers will carry
it away (be it but with wrangling) and they go around with
buckram bagges (D2v); and BL: Black buckram bags at their
backs, as if they were Lawyers Clients, and carried letters vp and
down (G3v)EEBO Match: Buckram bag(s) near.30 lawyer*.
The juxtaposition also occurs in Thomas Randolphs play
Aristippus, pr. 1630; Machiavels Ghost, a non-dramatic,
anonymous piece sometimes attributed to Thomas Heywood; and
Willam Congreves comedy, Love for Love, pr. 1695. Note also
Pierce: [I] made a search of Enquiry, from the blacke gown to the
buckram bagge, if there were any such Sergeant, Bencher,
Counsellor, Attorney, or Pettifogger (A3r); and ITBN: We must
all turne pettifoggers, and in stead of gilt rapiers, hang buckram
bags at our girdles (C1r).
5. Wood.: He lurks not far off I warrant (II.ii.187) vs. 1HW: Ile
lurke in a tauerne not far off (G3r)EEBO: Lurk* near.20 far
off.
6. Wood.: Thou sendst out barbers there to poll the whole country,/
Sfoot, let some shave thee (III.i.28-9) vs. NG: Thou wouldst
neuer haue gone to any Barbers in London whilst thou hadst liude,
but have bin trimd only there, for they are the true shavers, they
haue the right Neapolitan polling (C1r); and LC: Fleete-streete!
how hast thou bene trimd, washed, Shauen and Polde by these
deere and damnable Barbers (K3v)EEBO: Pol[l]* near.30
shav* near.30 barber*. All three excerpts are discussing tricksters
who take advantage of others.
7. Wood.: This sames a rare fashion you have got at court
(III.ii.201, Nasheian portion) vs. Ado: Your gowns a most rare
fashion, i faith (III.iv.13-4)EEBO: Rare fashion.
8. Wood.: He said flatly we should never have a merry world as long
as it was so (III.iii.72-3) vs. 2H6: Well, I say it was never merry
world in England/ since gentlemen came up (IV.ii.8-10, Cont.
1556, Nasheian portion); OF: Twas never merie world with vs,
since purses and bags were inuented (C1r); MM: Twas never
merry world, since, of two/ usuries, the merriest was put down
(III.ii.6-7, humorous section); and TN: Twas never merry world/
Since low feigning was calld compliment (III.i.110-11)EEBO:
Never fby.5 merry world. The juxtaposition also occurs in the
anonymous play The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, pr. 1598.
Thomas of Woodstock
9. Wood.: Be rid of a knaves company (III.iii.122-3) vs. Ado:

Thank God you are rid of a knave (III.iii.29); and JMM: For
that time one rid of a knaues company (G1v)EEBO Match:
Rid of a knave*.
10. Wood.: Come, you boars grease (III.iii.136) vs. Pierce: He
hath but dipt his bread in wilde Boares greace, and come home
againe (B2r)EEBO: Come* near.20 boar* grease*.
11. Wood.: This paper shall wipe their noses and they shall not boo
to a goose fort; for Ill have these verses sung to their faces
(III.iii.172-4) vs. Pierce: He that wipes his nose, and hath it not,
shall forfeit hys whole face, plus Would wipe his mouth with our
wast[e] paper (C2r and D3r)EEBO: Wipe* near.20 nose*
near.20 face*.
12. Wood.: They shall not boo to a goose fort; for Ill have these
verses sung to their faces by one of my school boys, wherein Ill
tickle them all ifaith (III.iii.172-5) vs. WA: Taylors swore to
tickle the Mercers, & measure out their Sattins & veluets without a
yard before their faces, when the prowdest of them all should not
dare to say Bo to a Taylors Goose (F3v)EEBO Match: Tickle*
near.50 boo fby.5 goose.
13. Wood.: Rent it, ay, and rack it too, ere we forfeit our leases
(IV.i.51-2) vs. WA: Stretch your rents, til the heart strings of those
that dwell in them be ready to cracke in sunder. Racke your poore
neighbours, call in old leases (F1r)EEBO: Rent* near.20 rack*
near.20 lease*.
14. Wood.: Thourt a rare statesman, Nimble (IV.iii.61) vs. Pierce:
Some think to be counted rare Politicians and Statesmen
(B2r)EEBO Match: Rare* near.5 statesman/men.
15. Wood.: Strangle him quickly, ye slave, or by the heart of Hell Ill
fell thee too (V.i.230-1) vs. 2H6: Stand, villain, standor Ill
fell thee down (IV.ii.114, Nasheian portion, not in Cont.)EEBO
Match: Ill fell thee.
16. Wood.: Buy us fresh geldings, spur, cut and ride till we are past
all danger (V.i.273-4) vs. Tears: Your Horses which you tame
and spurre, and cut their mouthes with raining, and finally kill
(C2v); Saffron: Spurre Cut backe againe (M3v); NH: Spur cut
and away (F1v); and WE: Spurr cutt and awaie (V.iii.53)
EEBO: Spur near.3 cut. Among playwrights, it also is found in
Thomas Heywoods The Late Lancashire Witches, pr. 1634; James
Shirleys The Maides Revenge, pr. 1639; and John Websters
Appius and Virginia, pr. 1654.
185
186
Chapter Eight
17. Wood.: There was not a stone between Westminster Hall and
Temple Bar but I have told them every morning (V.vi.30-2) vs.
NFH: For in the Terme time, my Caualiero Cornuto runnes
sweating vp and downe between Temple-barre, and Westminster
hall (B3r)EEBO Match: Between near.10 temple bar* near.10
westminster hall*.
Similarity: Wood.: Has your worship any employment for me?
(I.ii.82) vs. Tears: Had my Father no employment for mee? (D4v);
and Ado: You have no employment for me? (II.i.253-4).
Similarity: Wood.: Scroop. Well go sit in council to devise some
new [fashions]./ Greene. A special purpose to be thought upon. It shall be
the first thing well do (II.ii.208-9) vs. 2H6: The first thing we do
lets kill all the lawyers (IV.ii.78, not in Cont., Nasheian portion). Both
lines are uttered by ignorant men in comic situations.
Similarity: Wood.: I have followed your lordship without eer a rag
since ye run away from the court (III.i.118-9) vs. Pierce: Poore Scholers
and Souldiers wanderwith neuer a rag to their backes (E4r); Strange:
Heart and goodwill, but neuer a ragge of money (G4v); NG: Not a rag
of linnen about me, to hide my nakedness (G2r); SH: Not a rag, Jane
(V.ii.81); and Err. Heart and goodwill you might,/ But surely master, not
a rag of money (IV.iv.87-8, Nasheian portion). Note: It seems evident to
me that Nashe had a hand in writing The Comedy of Errors.10
Similarity: Wood.: Ah, your silence argues a consent, I see
(III.ii.174) vs. Saffron: Since as the prouerbe is, qui tacet consentire
videtur [He who is silent is assumed to agree] thou holding thy peace, and
not confuting him, seemes to confesse and confirme all whereof hee hath
accused thee (E1v); and BB: Meethinkes I heare you say-nothing: and
therefore I knowe you are pleased and agree to all: for Qui tacit consentire
videtur (F3v). Silence is (gives) consent is proverbial (Tilley S446).
Similarity: Wood.: 7,000 [seven thousand pounds]...rents, taxes,
subsidies, fifteensnon-payment (IV.i.185, 187-8, 191) vs. 2H6: He
that made us pay one-and-twenty fifteens and one shilling to the pound
the last subsidy (IV.vii.19-21, Nasheian portion).
Similarity: Wood.: Ill make them smoke fort (IV.i.203) vs.
Lenten: They will make all smoake, but they will make amendes for it
(H2v).
Similarity: Wood.: I have plodded in Plowden and can find no
law[final line of incomplete ms.] (V.vi.35-6) vs. Unfortunate:
Hippocrates might well helpe Almanacke makers, but here he had not a
word to saie, a man might sooner catch the sweate with plodding ouer
Thomas of Woodstock
187
him to no end, than cure the sweate with any of his impotent principles
(D2r). Wood. mentions the writings of Edmund Plowden, the English
lawyer, while Unfortunate discusses those of Hippocrates, the Greek
physician. In both cases the author complains about the fruitlessness of
plodding in or over them.
Division of Wood. Between Marlowe and Nashe

In my view, Wood. as it has come down to us does not divide as neatly
between Nashe and Marlowe as 2H6 did. It appears to me that Marlowe
usually, but not always, wrote the lines for the upper class and King
Richard in particular, even within scenes otherwise penned by Nashe, and
that Nashe usually, but not always, wrote the parts of King Richards
unscrupulous friends and other low lifes. As stated earlier, Wood.s
contractions clue us in that someone revised it in the early 1600s.
I tentatively divide the play as follows in the 2002 version edited by
Peter Corbin and Douglas Sedge:
Marlowe: I.i; I.ii.1-69; I.iii; II.i; II.ii.1-170; II.ii.171-220 with Nashe;
II.iii; III.i with Nashe; III.ii with Nashe; IV.i King Richard; IV.ii; IV.iii
with Nashe; V.i except for the Murderers in V.i.214-77; V.ii; V.iii; V.iv;
V.v with Nashe; V.vi.1-14.
Nashe: I.ii.70-132; II.ii.171-220 with Marlowe; III.i with Marlowe;
III.ii with Marlowe; III.iii; IV.i except for King Richard; IV.iii with
Marlowe; the Murderers in V.i.214-77; V.v with Marlowe; V.vi.15-36.
Notes
1
The Tragedy of Richard II Part One. A Newly-Authenticated Play by William

Shakespeare, ed. Michael Egan (Lewiston, PA: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006). Egans
work is an excellent source of linguistic commonalities; many of the parallels he
presented became Matches and Near Matches after being run through EEBO. See
also Michael Egan, Did Samuel Rowley Write Thomas of Woodstock? The
Oxfordian 10 (2007): 35-54.
2
See Ule, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1607), 17-19; Ule, Cluster Analysis and
the Authorship of Woodstock, Revue, International Organization for Ancient
Languages Analysis by Computer 1 (1976): 1-34; and Louis Ule, A Concordance
to the Shakespeare Apocrypha (Hildesheim, NY: Olms, 1987).
3
Thomas of Woodstock, ed. Peter Corbin and Douglas Sedge (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2002), 4.
4
D. J. Lake, Three Seventeenth-Century Revisions: Thomas of Woodstock, The
Jew of Malta, and Faustus B, Notes & Queries 228 (1983): 133-43.
188
Chapter Eight
Philip W. Timberlake, 73.

MacD. P. Jackson, Shakespeares Richard II and the Anonymous Thomas of
Woodstock, Medieval and Renaissance Drama 14 (2001): 17-65; and Egan, vol.
1, 121-42.
7
Katherine Duncan-Jones, Three Partes Are Past: The Earliest Performances of
Shakespeares First Tetralogy, Notes & Queries 50 (2003): 20-1.
8
Francis Shearman, The Spanish Blanks, Innes Review 3 (1952): 81-103.
9
Michael Mannheim, The Weak King Dilemma in the Shakespearean History Play
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1973), 23 n. 7.
10
For Nashe and The Comedy of Errors, see J. J. M. Tobin, Dr Pinch and Gabriel
Harvey, Notes & Queries 50 (2003): 23-5; and Murphy, The Mysterious
Connection between Thomas Nashe, Thomas Dekker, and T. M., 10, 42, 68, 94 and
147.
6
CHAPTER NINE
TITUS ANDRONICUS
The date of composition of Titus Andronicus (Tit.) is unknown,

although extensively discussed, with proposed dates ranging from 1586 up
until 1594, when it was first published.1 Nicholas R. Moschovakis has
recently argued that the following lines in Tit. are a topical allusion:
Titus. News, news from heaven; Marcus, the post is come.
Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters?
Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter?
Clown. Ho, the gibbet-maker? He says that he hath taken
them down again, for the man must not be hanged till
the next week. (IV.iii.77-82)
On July 16, 1591, Puritans Henry Arthington and Edmund Coppinger
went through London proclaiming to crowds against Queen Elizabeths
regime. They told Londoners they were bringing newes from heaven, of
exceeding great mercie: that an apocalyptic day of judgment was coming,
and the Queen deserved to be deprived of her crown by a new messiah,
William Hackett. Twelve days later after a speedy trial, Hackett was
hanged in Cheapside, Coppinger died the next day in Bridewell, while
Arthington saved his life through public repentance. Tit.s phrase news
from heaven, the joke about hanging, and the name Titus, evoking the
Roman general Titus Vespasianus, whose sacking of the Temple of
Jerusalem in 70 A.D. was viewed by Christians as divine judgment against
the Jews, connects the play to the events of July, 1591, according to
Moschovakis, making that date the terminus a quo for the quarto versions
as they have come down to us (the First Folio version of Tit. contains a
new scene III.ii, known as the fly scene, but otherwise has only minor
changes from the quartos).2
Tit. and Thomas Nashes prose piece Unfortunate share similar
references to rape. Compare Tit.: Drag hence her husband to some secret
hole,/ And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust (II.iii.129-30) to
Unfortunate: Her husbands dead bodie he made a pillow to his
190
Chapter Nine
abhomination (K4v). Nashe was not by nature attracted to the gruesome

and the macabre; in my view, it is far more likely that Nashe echoed Tit.
rather than the other way around. Unfortunate was registered on Sept. 12,
1593, although not published until 1594. I would therefore place the
penning of Tit. as it has come down to us between July 1591 and Sept.
1593. Prof. Gary Taylors best guess is 1592.
Is the 1594 version of Tit. the original one? Scholars have long
speculated about the cause of Tit.s uneven writing and have posited either
that it was an early play by Shakespeare or that the Bard had a co-author.
Frances Meres included Titus Andronicus on his list of plays by
Shakespeare as of 1598, and it was published in Shakespeares First Folio,
but the Titus Andronicus quartos of 1594, 1600, and 1611 bore no authors
name. The excellent 2002 review of literature on authorship by Sir Brian
Vickers seems to settle the matter: Tit. was a piece co-written by George
Peele and Shakespeare, with Peele writing Act I, and probably II.i, II.ii
and IV.i, and Shakespeare responsible for the remainder.
While I accept Vickers findings, it appears to me that some revision of
Peele by his co-author may have occurred: This distressd queen is a
Match between the Tit. Peele section I.i.103, 3H6 III.iii.213, and E2 Sc.
xv.63. Peele is known, though, to have shared verbiage with Marlowe in
his Edward I. It is unlikely, however, that two different writers
independently thought to bring up Tarquin, who is mentioned in both
Shakespeares III.i and Peeles IV.i, with IV.i specifically referring to
his rape of Lucrece. In addition, the word successfully was new during
the last decade of the 16th century, with its first readily datable EEBO
appearance in R. W.s Martine Mar-Sixtus, 1591. In the following three
instances, and only these three in the 16th century, successfully refers to
prior warfareE2: Since then successfully we have prevailed,/ Thanks
be to heavens great architect and you (Sc. xix.21-2); E3: King Edward.
Welcome, fair prince; how hast thou sped, my son,/ since thy arrival on the
coast of France?/ Prince Edward. Successfully, I thank the gracious
heavens./ Some of their strongest cities we have won (III.iii.16-9); and
Tit.: Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years,/ And led my countrys
strength successfully (I.i.193-4, Peele portion).
In Strange News, Thomas Nashe wrote:
A quest of honorable minded Caualiers go vppon it, and if they shall find
by the Law of armes or of ale, that I, beeing first prouokt, am to bee
inioynde to the peace, or be sworne true seruant to cowardize & patience,
when wrong presseth mee to the warres; then wil I bind my selfe prentise
to a Cobler, and fresh vnderlay all those writings of mine that haue trodde
awrie (B2v).
Titus Andronicus
191
Did Nashe consciously or subconsciously include this reference to a

cobbler as a master writer who taught and presumably corrected others
because he had Marlowe in mind? If Tit. is a Peele-Marlowe coauthorship, Peele would have been the older writer, but Marlowe, the
superior playwright. Would Peele have minded Marlowe revising his
work?
It ought also to be noted that Peele is grouped together with Marlowe
and Nashe in Greenes Groatsworth of Wit. Although none of the three is
named, scholars generally agree that these are the three playwrights
Greene advised at the end of his pamphlet to mend their ways and to stop
writing plays. He was expressing his bitterness toward actors in general
and one actor in particular who failed to help him in his time of need. This
is the actor who, I argued in my chapter on 3H6, was likely Edward Alleyn
rather than William Shakespeare.
In any event, since their overall connections to Peele are strong, I will
begin with the assumption that Peele penned I, II.i, II.ii, and IV.i, and
focus my investigation on the Shakespearean portion of the text. When it
comes to Matches and Near Matches, the non-Peele portion of Tit. is,
along with certain parts of E3, the furthest along on the MarloweShakespeare continuum of the plays we have thus far discussed.
Nevertheless, links to Marlowe abound. Tit.s connection to 1T via The
Faerie Queene as well as its ties to Dido are uncanny.
The Faerie Queene

In my discussion of CR, I submitted as evidence of Marlowes
authorship the fact that CR and 1T quote from two consecutive lines of the
18,081-line FQ. It so happens that 1T and Tit. quote from exactly the same
line in FQ. The earliest (assuming the FQ manuscript predated 1T) EEBO
occurrence of distressed plight is in FQ, where it appears twice: Into
most deadly danger and distressed plight (II.12.11), and To comfort me
in my distressed plight (III.5.35). 1T picks up the last half of FQs
III.5.35: Ah, shepherd, pity my distressd plight (I.ii.7).
In Tit. we find: And rather comfort his distressd plight (IV.iv.32).
Tit. did not take this language from 1T, but rather directly from the line 1T
echoed in FQ, stitching on the word comfort from FQ III.5.35. The
chances are extremely small that two separate authors would remember the
same line from Spensers 606-page poem. I offer this as evidence that
Marlowe wrote the line in Shakespeares portion of Tit.
192
Chapter Nine
Dido and the Curtained Cave

Both Tit. and Marlowes Dido Queen of Carthage were published in
1594; Dido was not available in print at the time Tit. was penned,
although, as with any play, it could have circulated in manuscript. Scholars
long ago noted that Shakespeare referred to Marlowes play Dido in
Hamlet (II.ii.463-549). Timothy D. Crowleys assessment is typical: The
reference itself pays tribute to a little-known play that Hamlet did not
witness and that Hamlets author, presumably, experienced only on the
page rather than on the stage, since Hamlet praises the speech that he
remembers and voices uncertainty as to whether or not the play ever was
performed.3 Dido was acted by the Children of the Chapel, who were out
of fashion from 1590-1600 due to the suppression of the Children of
Pauls, and since Shakespeare would already have been too old to join the
company even if he came to London immediately following the birth of
his twins in Stratford in 1584, he could not have known Dido from acting
in it. The author of the Shakespeare portions of Tit., however, almost
certainly possessed a visual memory of Marlowes play.
In Tit. occurs: The wandring prince [Aenaes] and Dido once enjoyed/
When with a happy storm they were surprised,/ And curtained with a
counsel-keeping cave (II.iii.22-4). According to Roma Gill, several times
Dido makes use of a curtained discovery space on-stage, including when
Dido and Aeneas take shelter from a storm in a cave (III.iv), where their
love affair blossoms.4 Martin Wiggins also posited that their cave was
curtained.5 This requires a bit of a leap of faith, because the stage directions
associated with the scene do not mention curtains: The storm. Enter
AENEAS and DIDO in the cave at several times (III.iv). The conclusion,
however, makes perfect sense for a play that elsewhere employs a
curtained space. Therefore, unless Shakespeare read a manuscript from
which curtained was removed before printing, its use in Tit. represents a
visual memory of Dido.
Rare Scattered Word Clusters Between Tit. and Dido

The author of the Shakespeare portion of Tit. was also familiar with
the language of Dido at a deep level, echoing it in ways that are rare in
EEBO.
1. Rare Scattered Word Cluster for Bid* near.100 tale* near.100 Aeneas*
near.100 Troy, also including hands and miserable.
Titus Andronicus
193
Tit.:
Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands
To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice oer
How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?
O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,
Lest we remember still that we have none. (III.ii.26-30)
Dido:
Aenaes. And who so miserable as Aeneas is?
Dido. Lies it in Didos hands to make thee blest,
Then be assured thou art not miserable.
Aeneas. O Priamus! O Troy! Oh Hecuba!
Dido. May I entreat thee to discourse at large,
And truly too, how Troy was overcome?
For many tales go of that citys fall,
And scarcely do agree upon one point.
Some say Antenor did betray the town,
Others report twas Sinons perjury;
But all in this, that Troy is overcome,
And Priam dead. Yet how, we hear no news.
Aenaes. A woeful tale bids Dido to unfold (II.i.102-14)
Here the juxtaposition of hands, miserable, and Aenaes in Tit.,
which occurs after Titus has in vain had his hand cut off to save the lives
of his sons (they are killed anyway), may have stemmed from a subliminal
memory of Dido, as would the specific words bid and tale in relation
to Didos request of Aenaes to recount the tragedy of the burning of Troy.
2. Rare Scattered Word Cluster for Make*/made near.100 beat* forth
near.100 ston*, which also includes soul(s).
Dido:
A woeful tale bids Dido to unfold,
Whose memory, like pale deaths stony mace,
Beats forth my senses from this troubled soul,
And makes Aeneas sink at Didos feet. (II.i.114-7)
Chapter Nine
194
Tit. Q1:
The poor remainder of Andronici
Will, hand in hand, all headlong cast us down,
And on the ragged stones beat forth our soules,
And make a mutuall closure of our house. (K3v-K4r)
The First Folio version of Tit. replaces souls with brains
(V.iii.131-4, W. J. Craig edition), but the Rare Scattered Word Cluster still
holds. The similar juxtapositions appear to me to be subconscious rather
than the work of one man imitating another.
3. Rare Scattered World Cluster for Son(s) near.100 death* near.100
weep*/wept near.100 a stone:
Tit.:
Titus. Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,
And let me say, that never wept before,
My tears are now prevailing orators!
Lucius. O noble father, you lament in vain.
The Tribunes hear you not. No man is by,
And you recount your sorrows to a stone. (III.i.24-9)
Dido:
O my Achates, Theban Niobe,
Who for her sons death wept out life and breath,
And, dry with grief, was turned into a stone (II.i.3-5)
The author of the lines in Tit. may have held in mind the story of
Niobe, to which Dido and CR openly refer (see chapter on Caesars
Revenge). Note also Ham.: Like Niobe, all tears (I.ii.149); and Tro.:
There is a word will Priam turn to stone,/ Make wells and Niobes of the
maids and wives,/ Cold statues of the youth (V.xi.18-20).
Titus Andronicus
195
Other Rare Scattered Word Clusters Between Tit.

and Marlowes Works
1. The following parallel between JM and Tit. constitutes a Rare Scattered
Word Cluster for Door* near.100 dig* near.100 grave* near.100 dead
man/men. Other juxtaposed words include kill, friend*, and night*.
Tit.:
Even now I curse the dayand yet I think
Few come within the compass of my curse
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death;
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself;
Set deadly enmity between two friends;
Make poor mens cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and haystacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves
And set them upright at their dear friends door (V.i.125-36)
JM:
As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights
And kill sick people groaning under walls;
Sometimes I go about and poison wells;
And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves,
I am content to lose some of my crowns,
That I may, walking in my gallery,
See em go pinioned along by my door.
Being young, I studied physic, and began
To practise first upon the Italian;
There I enriched the priests with burials,
And always kept the sextons arms in ure
With digging graves and ringing dead mens knells.
And after that was I an engineer,
And in the wars twixt France and Germany,
Under pretence of helping Charles the Fifth,
Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. (II.iii.177-92)
Chapter Nine
196
Both excerpts are written in a lively verse that transcends time in its
appeal to the reader. Note the same bragging tenor regarding murder in the
above quotes. As for the last line in the Tit. excerpt, elsewhere in JM
Barabas kills a man, sets him upright upon his staff, and frames the murder
on a friend of the deceased who happens by.
JM was not published until well after Shakespeares death. It has been
speculated that the reason Shakespeare possessed such a detailed
knowledge of this play, which also exhibits similarities to The Merchant of
Venice, is that he acted in it. The only plays he was documented as acting
in, however, are Ben Jonsons Every Man in his Humor and Sejanus his
Fall, which Shakespeare, curiously, did not parallel.
2. The following is, for me, the most fascinating Rare Scattered Word
Cluster in my book. It holds true for Tit., JM, 2T and E3, and only these
four works in all of EEBO: Flint* near.100 heart* near.100 unrelenting*.
The E3 and JM excerpts also include breast(s), while 2T contains
bosom.
Tit.:
Listen, fair madam, let it be your glory
To see her tears, but be your heart to them
As unrelenting flint to drops of rain. (II.iii.139-41)
2T:
With what a flinty bosom should I joy
The breath of life and burden of my soul,
If, not resolved into resolvd pains,
My bodys mortifid lineaments
Should exercise the motions of my heart,
Pierced with the joy of any dignity!
O father, if the unrelenting ears
Of death and hell be shut against my prayers (V.iii.185-92)
E3:
Edward Plantagenet, in the name of God,
As with this armour I impall thy breast,
So be thy noble unrelenting heart
Walled in with flint of matchless fortitude,
Titus Andronicus
197
That never base affections enter there. (III.iii.179-83)

JM:
And having all, you can request no more,
Unless your unrelenting flinty hearts
Suppress all pity in your stony breasts,
And now shall move you to bereave my life. (I.ii.141-4)
3. Rare Scattered Word Cluster for Mother* near.100 strik*/struck home
near.100 stab*.
Tit.:
Tamora. Revenge it as you love your mothers life,
Or be ye not henceforth called my children.
Demetrius. This is a witness that I am thy son.
He stabs Bassianus
Chiron. And this for me, struck home to show my strength.
He stabs Bassianus, who dies. (II.iii.114-7)
2T:
Son. Give me your knife, good mother, or strike home.
The Scythians shall not tyrannize on me.
Sweet mother, strike, that I may meet my father!
She stabs him. (III.iv.28-30)
4. Rare Scattered Word Cluster: Sorrow* near.100 burn* to cinder*
near.100 ease*, which also includes heart.
Tit.:
O that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,
That I might rail at him to ease my mind!
Sorrow conceald, like an oven stopped,
Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is
One hours storm will drown the fragrant meads:
What will whole months of tears thy fathers eyes?
Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee.
O, could our mourning ease thy misery!
Chapter Nine
198
I bring consuming sorrow to thine age

Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears (II.iv.34-7, 54-7,
III.i.60, III.ii.20)
2T:
Tamburlaine. Sorrow no more, my sweet Casane, now.
Boys, leave to mourn. This town shall ever mourn,
Being burnt to cinders for your mothers death.
Calyphas. If I had wept a sea of tears for her,
It would not ease the sorrows I sustain.
Amyras. As is that town, so is my heart consumed
With grief and sorrow for my mothers death. (III.ii.44-50)
5. Rare Scattered Word Cluster for Leaf/leaves (noun) near.100 quiver*
near.100 hound*.
Tit.:
The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind
And make a chequered shadow on the ground.
Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,
And, whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds (II.iii.14-17)
2T:
In number more than are the quivering leaves
Of Idas forest, where your highness hounds
With open cry pursues the wounded stag (III.v.5-7)
Note also Tit.: Tremble like aspen leaves (II.iv.45) vs. 1T: Stand
staggering like a quivering aspen leaf (II.iv.4).
Other Similarities between Titus Andronicus

and the Works of Marlowe
The evil Aaron in Tit. has often been compared to the evil Barabas in
JM. Both revel in their wrong-doing, possess an irony-laden sense of
humor, and take on the roles of both villains and victims. Shakespeare is
clearly remembering Marlowe in this play, wrote Lisa Hopkins.6
Titus Andronicus
199
According to Eugene M. Waith:

Marlowes portrayal of him [Barabas, in The Jew of Malta] suggests a
characteristic interest in the outsider and even a certain sympathy.
Shakespeares treatment of the outsider, Aaron, is in some respects
remarkably similar. The sardonic humour is there (notable in 5.1); the
speech in which Aaron boasts of his crimes immediately recalls Barabas
(see notes on 5.1.128-40), and the episodes with Aarons baby present a
sympathetic view unlike any in the prose history. The fact that Shakespeare
clearly had Tamburlaine in mind at about the same time, when writing
some of Gloucesters speeches in 3 Henry VI, makes it all the more likely
that he thought of Barabas in creating the role of Aaron.7
Moreover, Waith suggested that a train of association may have led

Shakespeare to the name Aaron: from the name of the evil servant
Ithamore in JM, to Ithamar in the Bibles Numbers 4:28, who is the son of
Aaron.8
Alan Hughes noted a specific example of how the author of the
Shakespearean portion of Tit. and a Marlovian portion of DF appeared to
think alike. Remarking upon Ill dive into the burning lake below/ And
pull her out of Acheron by the heels (Tit. IV.iii.44-5), Hughes remarked:
Acheron is a river in the Underworld, for the whole of which it stands
here and in Marlowes Faustus: Sint mihi dei Acherontis propitii [May
the gods of Acheron be propitious to me] (Sc. iii.16).9
Mythology
Alan Hughes discussed similarities between Tit. and Tamburlaine
relating to cannibal imagery and comparable styles of violence:
The cannibal imagery of the banquet scene in Tamburlaine the Great, Part
I (c. 1587) parallels the physical horrors of the climactic banquet in Titus
Andronicus: Marlowe even refers to Procnes revenge, a conspicuous
theme in Shakespeares play. Compare the style of violence in Titus with
the suicides of Bajazeth and Zenocrate, who brain themselves on-stage,
and, at the climax of The Jew of Malta (c. 1590), the death of Barabas, who
falls into a boiling cauldron.10
As mentioned above, Tit. is based in part on the Greek mythology tale

(narrated, among other sources, in Ovid) of Philomela, who is raped by
King Tereus of Thrace. He cuts out her tongue so she cant tell anyone
about it, but she weaves a tapestry telling what happened and sends it to
her sister, his wife, Procne. The livid Procne kills Itys, her own son by
200
Chapter Nine
Tereus, cooks him up and serves him to her husband, who unknowingly
eats his progeny. When Tereus finds out, he tries to kill Philomela and
Procne, but the gods transform all three into birds. In Tit., Demetrius and
Chiron rape Lavinia, then cut off her tongue and hands. Lavinia
manipulates a stick to write the names of her rapists; in revenge, her father
Titus kills Demetrius and Chiron, cooks them up and serves them to
Tamora, their evil mother who had goaded on her sons.
Marlowe refers to parts of the Philomela myth not only in 1T
(IV.iv.23-5); but also OE (II.vi.3, 6-7; II.xiv.30-4; and III.xi.32), and in his
dedication to the Countess of Pembroke prefacing Thomas Watsons
Amintae Gaudia.11 Shakespeare additionally mentions the myth in Cym.
(II.ii.44-6); Luc. (1079-80, 1128, 1134); MND (II.ii.13, 24); PPilg.
(xiv.17); and Son. 102 (7). The connection is to the bird aspect of the story
in OE, the Amintae Gaudia preface, Luc., MND, PPilg., and Son. 102.
This is not the only example of both Marlowe and Shakespeare
repeatedly invoking the same mythological stories in their works. The
protagonists of Marlowes poem Hero and Leander are mentioned in the
previously discussed TOAS (176-8 and 1173-83); CR (I.iv.551-2); and E3
(II.ii.151-5); plus Marlowes E2 (Sc. i.7-9); and the following works by
Shakespeare: TGV (I.i.22-26 and III.i.119-20); MND (humorously
misremembered as Helen and Lemander in V.i.195-6); Rom. (II.iii.39);
AYL (III.v.82-3 [quotes HL] and IV.i.93-9); and Ado (V.ii.29-30).
Dido and/or Aeneas, the stars of Marlowes Dido, Queen of Carthage,
are raised in the previously discussed CR (I.i.288-93); and 2H6 (III.ii.1169 and V.iii.62-5); Marlowes OE (I.viii.42; I.xv.25; II.xviii.25-6, 31, and
III.viii.13); and 1T (V.i.380, 394); and Shakespeares Tit. (II.iii.22-4 and
V.iii.79-83); Tmp. (II.i.81-90); Ant. (IV.xv.53); Ham. (II.ii.448-521); MV
(V.i.9-12); Rom. (II.iii.39-40); Cym. (III.iv.58-9); JC (I.ii.114-6); and in
Tro., where Aeneas is a character.
The mythical story of Venus and Adonis, immortalized in
Shakespeares poem of the same name, is mentioned in CR (I.vi.587 and
V.v.2561); Marlowes Dido (III.ii.100); HL (Sestiad I.11-14 and I.92-3);
OE (III.viii.15-16); and JM (IV.ii.97); and Shakespeares PPilg. (poems 4,
6 and 9); TOTS (Induction 2.49); 1H6 (I.viii.6); and Son. 53 (5).
Both frequently invoked the Greek hero Hercules. Marlowe named him
in 1T, E2, Dido, and HL, and as Alcides, his birth name, in 1T, 2T, HL,
LFB, OE, and his epitaph to Sir Roger Manwood. Shakespeare alluded to
Hercules in Ado, LLL, MND, Wiv., MV, AYL, AWW, TOTS, Cym., Cor.,
Ham., TNK, Ant., 1H4, and 1H6, and to Alcides in TOTS, MV, Jn., Ant.,
1H6, and 3H6.12 As for other works under discussion, Hercules is named
in TOAS, CR, and Wood., and as Alcides in TOAS and CR.
Titus Andronicus
201
Sources
Returning to Tit. and Dido, Reuben A. Brower wrote:
In the obviousness and sheer amount of learning displayed, in the verbal
horrors of some scenes, and in the solemn seriousness of others, Titus
Andronicus sounds very like the work of a young man. It is in many ways
reminiscent of Marlowes Dido Queen of Carthage, a play that also seems
to be the work of a youthful dramatist fresh from his books, eager to
transfer ancient myth and narrative poetry to the stage. In both plays there
is a good deal of translation, imitation, and direct quotation of Latin poets:
of Virgil and Ovid (to a lesser degree) in Dido; of Virgil, Ovid, and (to a
lesser degree) Seneca, in Titus Andronicus. Marlowe shows also what
Shakespeare will show, that heroic violence translated out of the traditional
idiom and out of the traditional values it consecrates, becomes brutality.13
Maurice Cheney noted:

[Tamaras] wooing of the all too willing Aaron echoes Dido and
Aeneas...Titus Andronicus is conceived in terms of the events of Aeneas
tale to Dido in Marlowes play rather than directly from Vergils Aeneid.
The emphasis here is Ovidian rather than Vergilian, and although Tamora
is a Gothic and not an African queen like Dido, she is nevertheless
represented as a foreign temptress of otherwise virtuous Romans. This is
the same context as the Troy tapestry in The Rape of Lucrece, a narrative
poem from around the same time as Titus, with its strong emphasis on
Sinons betrayal.14
According to Lisa Hopkins:

Titus Andronicus also shows a marked debt to Virgil, weaving together a
series of allusions to and quotations from him in which Troy fuses with
Romenot least because the name of Lavinia inevitably recalls that of
Aeneas bride.
Hopkins remarked that Shakespeare does not merely echo Virgil in

Tit., he also subverts him.
The story [of Dido and Aeneas in Titus Andronicus] is ironically handled,
because there is a sharp glance here towards the quasi-comic treatment of
the story in Marlowes Dido, Queen of Carthage.15
Thus, in terms of sources, we have Tit. employing Virgils Aeneid

(2H6 quotes it at II.i.24) which was the main source for Marlowes Dido.
202
Chapter Nine
Both Tit. and Dido subvert and deflate Virgil by Ovidianizing him.16 Ovid
was a favorite author of Marlowe and Shakespeare, both of whom are
known to have read Ovids Metamorphosis in Latin and in Arthur
Goldings 1567 English translation. Tit. also incorporates Seneca, whom
Marlowe quoted in E2 (Sc. xx.53-4) and strongly echoed in LFB (572).17
We have already noted both Marlowes and Shakespeares employment of
Lucans Pharsalia under our discussions of CR and 2H6, and their
repeated echoes from Spencers The Faerie Queene. While we are on the
subject, both used Holinsheds Chronicles for their English history plays,
and both read Ariostos Orlando Furioso in Italian, which Marlowe
mirrored in Olympias efforts to thwart the amorous suggestions of
Theridamas in 2T (III.iii, III.iv, IV.ii), and in which Shakespeare found
certain phrasing for Othello (III.iv).18
Both were thoroughly familiar with the Bible, understandable in
Marlowes case because he attended Cambridge University on a
scholarship created by Archbishop Parker to encourage divinity studies.
Alex Jack found that both authors most often echoed the Geneva Bible,
followed by the Bishops Bible, with infrequent references to other
English bibles then in use. The Gospel of Matthew was the book in the
Bible to which both Marlowe and Shakespeare most frequently referred,
and for both, the Psalms was the second most echoed book.19
We can tell from their use of sources, as well as the incorporation of
foreign language into their plays, that both Marlowe and Shakespeare read
not only Latin and Italian, but also French, Greek, and possibly Spanish.20
Both spiced their work with Italian proverbs. In Marlowe we find: Che
ser, ser [what will be shall be] (DF I.i.49), and in Shakespeare appears:
Venezia, Venezia, Chi non ti vede, chi non ti prezia [Venice, Venice, he
that does not see thee does not esteem thee] (LLL IV.ii.96-7).
Young Englishmen during that era usually learned languages in school,
from a private tutor, and/or via travel abroad. Marlowe and Shakespeare
would have picked up Latin in grammar school (assuming Shakespeare
attended one). Marlowe would also have learned languages at Cambridge
University and via his travel abroad. It is not known how Shakespeare
learned French, Italian, and Greek, since he did not attend university and
there is no evidence that he ever stepped foot off the island of Britain.
Titus Andronicus and Rare Scattered Word Clusters

in Shakespeares Works
Many Shakespeare lovers would happily strike the bleak and bloody
Tit. from his canon, but not current Shakespeare scholars. Tit. is simply
Titus Andronicus
203
too interconnected to the main body of Shakespeare works, especially Ven.

and Luc., as research by T. M. Parrott and J. D. Wilson has documented.21
Below I build upon similarities they uncovered, adding others I found.
1. Rare Scattered Word Cluster between Tit. and Ven. for Shed* near.100
flower* near.100 fresh* near.100 heart*, which also collocates distill*,
dew*, blood, eye, and a juxtaposition of whose and upon.
Tit.:
Quintus. Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood
As fresh as mornings dew distilled on flowers?
A very fatal place it seems to me.
Speak, brother. Hast thou hurt thee with the fall?
Martius. O brother, with the dismallst object hurt
That ever eye with sight made heart lament (II.iii.200-5)
Ven.:
Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers,
So they were dewed with such distilling showers
Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear
That if I love thee, I thy death should fear;
And, more than so, presenteth to mine eye
The picture of an angry chafing boar,
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie
An image like thyself, all stained with gore,
Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed (65-6, 659-65)
The excerpts share not only words but the imagery of blood being shed
upon flowers.
2. Rare Scattered Word Cluster: Stop* near.100 burn* near.100 conceal*
near.100 sorrow*. It also includes oven, heart, and lost her tongue
vs. mute.
Tit.:
O that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,
That I might rail at him to ease my mind!
Chapter Nine
204
Sorrow conceald, like an oven stopped,

Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.
Fair Philomel, why she but lost her tongue (II.iv.34-8)
Ven.:
An oven that is stopped, or river stayed,
Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage.
So of conceald sorrow may be said
Free vent of words loves fire doth assuage.
But when the hearts attorney once is mute (331-5)
Both excerpts figuratively compare concealed sorrow to an oven
stopped. The Tit. excerpt was employed earlier in a Rare Scattered Word
Cluster with 2T for Sorrow* near.100 burn* to cinder* near.100 ease*,
where we find the literal threat of a town being burned to cinders. The
transition from the literal in 2T, to a simile in Tit., then a metaphor in Ven.,
may be viewed as a continuum advancing along the same path.
3. Rare Scattered Word Cluster: Crimson* near.100 bubbling* near.100
fountain*, which also collocates river and blood.
Tit.:
Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,
Like to a bubbling fountain stirred with wind,
Doth rise and fall between thy rosd lips,
Coming and going with thy honey breath.
But, sure, some Tereus hath deflowered thee (II.iv.22-6)
Luc.:
And from the purple fountain [Lucreces wounds] Brutus drew
The murdrous knife; and as it left the place
Her blood in poor revenge held it in chase,
And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide
In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood
Circles her body in on every side (1734-9)
Tit. and Luc. compare rivers of crimson blood to bubbling fountains. It
is noteworthy that crimson blood is likened to wine in Marlowes 2T
Titus Andronicus
205
(III.ii.107-8), and to water upon which ships sail in OE (Book II Elegia

XI.25-8).
4. Rare Scattered Word Cluster: Womb* near.100 prison*/imprison*
near.100 enfranchis*.
Tit.:
And from that womb where you imprisoned were
He [baby] is enfranchisd and come to light (IV.ii.123-4)
WT:
This child was prisoner to the womb, and is
By law and process of great nature thence
Freed and enfranchised (II.ii.62-4)
Not only the words but also the imagery match: a baby who is
imprisoned in the womb is enfranchised when born. Note also:
TGV:
Silvia. Belike that now she hath enfranchised them
Upon some other pawn for fealty.
Valentine. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
Silvia. Nay, then he should be blind, and being blind (II.iv.88-91)
Image Cluster
Marlowes and Shakespeares works contain a juxtaposition between
hounds, in four instances described as yelping (Tit., E2, Ven., 1H6), and
the hunting of deer. Sometimes this is associated with the myth, recounted
in Ovids Metamorphosis, wherein Actaeon saw the goddess Diana naked
while she was bathing, and as punishment she turned him into a stag, who
was then killed by his own hunting dogs.
Tit.:
Aaron, let us sit,
And, whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds,
Replying shrilly to the well-tuned horns,
Chapter Nine
206
As if a double hunt were heard at once,

Let us sit down and mark their yelping noise
Bassianus. Or is it Dian, habited like her,
Who hath abandoned her holy groves,
To see the general hunting in this forest?
Tamora. Saucy controller of our private steps!
Had I the power that some say Dian had,
Thy temples should be planted presently
With horns, as was Acteaons; and the hounds
Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs...
Lavinia. Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day!
Tis pity they should take him for a stag. (II.iii.16-20, 57-64, 70-1,
W. J. Craig edition. Quarto substitutes yellowing for yelping)
Ven.:
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled,
With much ado, the cold fault cleanly out.
Then do they spend their mouths. Echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies. (692-6)
And as she runs, the bushes in the way
Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,
Some twine about her thigh to make her stay.
She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,
Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,
Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.
By this, she hears the hounds are at a bay,
Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder
Wreathed up in fatal folds just in his way,
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;
Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds (871-81)
E2:
One like Actaeon peeping through the grove
Shall by the angry goddess be transformed,
And running in the likeness of an hart,
By yelping hounds pulled down and seem to die (Sc. i.66-9)
Titus Andronicus
DF (1616):
In bold Acteons shape to turne a Stagge.
And therefore my Lord, so please your Maiesty,
Ile raise a kennell of Hounds shall hunt him so,
As all his footmanship shall scarce preuaile
To keepe his Carkasse from their bloudy phangs. (E4v)
DF (1604):
Knight. Ifaith, thats as true as Diana turned me to a stag.
Faustus. No, sir, but when Actaeon died, he left the horns for you.
(Sc. x.58-9)
R3:
From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept
A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:
That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood...
How do I thank thee, that this charnel cur
Preys on the issue of his mothers body (IV.iv.47-50, 56-7)
CR:
And all the hell-hounds compasse me a round
Each seeking for a parte of this same prey...
And endlesse matter for to prey vpon (V.iv.2517-18, 2522)
1H6:
How are we parked and bounded in a pale!
A little herd of Englands timorous deer
Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs.
If we be English deer, be then in blood,
Not rascal-like to fall down with a pinch,
But rather moody-mad and desperate stags,
Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel
And make the cowards stand aloof at bay. (IV.ii.45-52)
207
Chapter Nine
208
TOTS:
Lord. Or wilt thou hunt,
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
First Servant. Say thou wilt course, thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathd stags, ay, fleeter than the roe. (Induction 2.43-7)
Did ever Dian so become a grove
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate,
And then let Kate be chaste, and Dian sportful! (II.i.253-6)
Tranio. O sir, Lucentio slipped me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself and catches for his master.
Petruchio. A good swift simile, but something currish.
Tranio. Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself.
Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay
Petruchio. Ill venture so much of my hawk or hound (V.ii.52-6,
75)
TOAS:
Cupple vppe the hounds and let vs hie us home,
And bid the huntsman see them meated well...
And offer thou him his horse to ride abroad,
And thou his hawkes and houndes to hunt the deere (23-4, 55-6)
And if your honour please to hunt the deere,
Your hounds stands readie cuppeld at the doore,
Who in running will oretake the Row[e] (128-30)
2T:
And hunt that coward, faint-heart runaway,
With that accursd traitor Almeda,
Till fire and sword have found them at a bay. (III.ii.151-3)
Of Idas forest, where your highness hounds
With open cry pursues the wounded stag (III.v.5-7)
Titus Andronicus
209
Oth.:
I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound
that hunts, but one that fills up the cry. (II.iii.354-5)

Below are Matches, Near Matches, and other similarities between
sections in Tit. attributed to Shakespeare, and Marlovian sections of
anonymous works we have discussed, plus the canon of Marlowe and
Shakespeare.
1. Tit.: The wandring prince and Dido once enjoyed/ When with a
happy storm they were surprised,/ And curtained with a counselkeeping cave (II.iii.22-4) vs. Dido: The storm. Enter AENEAS
and DIDO in the cave at several times./ Dido. Aeneas!/ Aeneas.
Dido!/ Dido. Tell me, dear love, how found you out this cave?
(III.iv.1-3)EEBO: Dido* near.30 storm* near.30 cave*. Among
playwrights, the juxtaposition occurs in Henry Chettles The
Tragedy of Hoffman, pr. 1631.
2. Tit.: And curtained with a counsel-keeping cave, plus Theres
not a hollow cave or lurking-place,/ No vast obscurity or misty
vale (II.iii.24 and V.ii.35-6) vs. Luc.: Cave-keeping evils that
obscurely sleep (1250)EBBO: Cave near.20 keeping, also
found in playwright James Shirleys instructional book Eisagoge,
Sive, Introductorium Anglo-Latino-Graecum, pr. 1656.
3. Tit.: Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds/ Be unto
us as is a nurses song (II.iii.27-8) vs. PS: By shallow rivers, to
whose falls/ Melodious birds sing madrigals (7-8); and MWW:
[Parodying PS] To shallow rivers, to whose falls/ Melodious
birds sing madrigals (III.i.16-17)EEBO: Melodious birds, a
phrase also occurring in non-dramatic works by playwrights
Michael Drayton and Thomas Lodge. Widening the search to
include melodious bird, which is found in Tit.: Where, like a
sweet melodious bird, it sung (III.i.85) takes us just above our
fifteen-work cut-off, and includes the anonymous play The Maids
Metamorphosis, pr. 1600, and Nathaniel Lees drama The Rival
Queens, pr. 1677.
4. Tit.: Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds/ Be
unto us as is a nurses song/ Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep
(II.iii.27-9) vs. Ven.: By this, far off she hears some huntsman
210
Chapter Nine
hollo;/ A nurses song neer pleased her babe so well (973-4)

EBBO Match: Nurse* song* near.30 babe*.
5. Tit.: Drag hence her husband to some secret hole,/ And make his
dead trunk pillow to our lust (II.iii.129-30) vs. 2H6: And
whispers to his pillow, as to him/ The secrets of his over-chargd
soul (III.ii.379-80, Cont. has first line only at 1401); and Mac.:
Infected minds/ To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets
(V.i.69-70)EEBO: Pillow* near.20 secret*. The juxtaposition
appears in a 1594 poem by playwright Michael Drayton, and a
1678 tragedy by Nahum Tate.
6. Tit.: O Tamora, thou bearest a womans face (II.iii.136) vs. 3H6:
And yet be seen to bear a womans face (I.iv.141, TT B2v)
EEBO: Bear* a womans face.
7. Tit.: When did the tigers young ones teach the dam?/ O, do not
learn her wrath! She taught it thee./ The milk thou suckdst from
her did turn to marble,/ Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny./ Yet
every mother breeds not sons alike (II.iii.142-6) vs. Dido: Thy
mother was no goddess, perjured man,/ Nor Dardanus the author
of thy stock;/ But thou art sprung from Scythian Caucasus,/ And
tigers of Hyrcania gave thee suck (V.i.156-9)EEBO: Mother*
near.50 suck* near.50 tiger*. Note also E2: Inhuman creatures,
nursed with tigers milk (Sc. xxi.71); E3: Like a thirsty tiger,
suckst her blood (III.iii.121); and Cor.: Mark what mercy his
mother shall bring from him. There is no more mercy in him than
there is milk in a male tiger (V.iv.27-9).
8. Tit.: The lion, moved with pity, did endure/ To have his princely
paws pared all away (II.iii.151-2) vs. 1T: As princely lions when
they rouse themselves,/ Stretching their paws and threatning herds
of beasts (I.ii.52-3)EEBO Match: Lion* near.30 princely
near.30 paws. Note also E2: But when the imperial lions flesh is
gored,/ He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw, and Before
your princely feet (Sc. xxi.11-12 and Sc. xi.45); and LLL: Thus
dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar/ Gainst thee, thou lamb, that
standest as his prey./ Submissive fall his princely feet before
(IV.i.87-9).
9. Tit.: Come on, my lords, the better foot before (II.iii.192) vs. Jn.:
Nay, but make haste, the better foot before (IV.ii.170)EEBO:
Better foot before. The sentiment is proverbial (Tilley F570), but
this particular phrasing is uncommon.
10. Tit.: When he by night lay bathed in maiden blood (II.iii.232)
vs. 1H6: Whose maiden-blood, thus rigorously effused
Titus Andronicus
(V.vi.52)EEBO: Maiden blood*, which occurs in Goldings

translation of Ovids Metamorphosis, and among playwrights in
John Lylys Gallathea, pr. 1592; John Fletchers The Faithful
Shepherdess, pr. 1610; and Abraham Cowleys Loves Riddle, pr.
1638.
11. Tit.: Tis not an hour since I left him there (II.iii.256) vs. Jn.:
Tis not an hour since I left him well (IV.iii.104)EEBO
Match: Tis not an hour since I left.
12. Tit.: Until we have devised/ Some never-heard-of torturing
pain (II.iii.284-5) vs. 2H6: You did devise/ Strange tortures for
offenders, never heard of (III.i.121-2)EEBO Match: Never
heard of near.30 devis* near.30 tortur*.
13. Tit.: What fool hath added water to the sea,/ Or brought a faggot
to bright-burning Troy (III.i.68-9) vs. 3H6: With tearful eyes add
water to the sea,/ And give more strength to that which hath too
much (V.iv.8-9)EEBO: Add* water to the sea, proverbial
(Tilley W106).
14. Tit.: O, that delightful engine of her thoughtscagebird
(III.i.82, 84-5) vs. Ven.: Prisoned in a jaildovesOnce more the
engine of her thoughts began (362, 366, 367)EEBO Match:
Engine* of her thought*. In both instances, engine of her
thoughts refers to a womans tongue. Note also R2: Within my
mouth you have enjailed my tongue (I.iii.160).
15. Tit.: Environed with a wilderness of sea,/ Who marks the waxing
tide grow wave by wave,/ Expecting ever when some envious
surge/ Will in his brinish bowels swallow him (III.i.94-7) vs. 2T:
That from the bounds of Phrygia to the sea/ Which washeth
Cyprus with his brinish waves (III.v.11-2)EEBO: Sea(s)
near.30 wave* near.30 brinish.
16. Tit.: Or with our sighs well breathe the welkin dim (III.i.211)
vs. DF: And dims the welkin with her pitchy breath (Sc. iii.4);
TOAS repeats the DF line verbatim (Induction 20)EEBO Match:
Breath* near.30 welkin* near.30 dim*.
17. Tit.: Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless/ As frozen water to a
starvd snake (III.i.249-50) vs. 2H6: I fear me you but warm the
starvd snake (III.i.343)EEBO: Starved snake*, also found in
the following plays: Ben Jonsons Poetaster, pr. 1602; John Days
The Isle of Gulls, pr. 1608; and John Carylls The English Princess,
pr. 1667.
18. Tit.: This poor right hand of mine/ Is left to tyrannize upon my
breast (III.ii.7-8) vs. 3H6: This strong right hand of mine/ Can
211
212
Chapter Nine
pluck the diadem from faint Henrys head (II.i.152-3, TT B5v);

and E3: What if I swear by this right hand of mine (II.i.352)
EEBO: This fby.2 right hand of mine. Among playwrights the
juxtaposition also occurs in the anonymous The Troublesome Reign
of King John, Part II, pr. 1591.
19. Tit.: What Roman lord it was durst do the deed./ Or slunk not
Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,/ That left the camp to sin in Lucrece
bed? (IV.i.61-3) vs. Luc.: Vowed to root out the whole hated
family of the Tarquins, and, bearing the dead body to Rome,
Brutus acquainted the people with the doer and manner of the vile
deed (The Argument); and CR: An other Tarquin is to bee
expeld,/ An other Brutus liues to act the deede:/ Tis not one nation
that this Tarquin wronges,/ All Rome is staynd with his vnruld
desires (III.v.1551-4)EEBO: Rom* near.30 Tarquin* near.30
deed*, also found among playwrights in Nathaniel Lees tragedy
Lucius Junius Brutus, pr. 1681.
20. Tit.: Why, what a caterwauling doest thou keep! (IV.ii.57) vs.
TN: What a caterwauling do you keep here! (II.iii.69)EEBO
Match: What a caterwauling. The phrase also occurs in Thomas
Heywoods play A Woman Killed with Kindness, wr. 1602.
21. Tit.: Aaron. Do execution on my flesh and blood./ Demetrius. Ill
broach the tadpole on my rapiers point (IV.ii.83-4) vs. 3H6:
Thy brothers blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,/ Broached with
the steely point of Cliffords lance (II.iii.15-6); and CR: Is
pleasd with quaffing of ambitious bloud,/ Then all you deuills
whet my Poniards point,/ And I wil broach you a bloud-sucking
heart (III.vi.1578-80)EEBO: Blood* near.30 broach* near.30
point*.
22. Tit.: He is enfranchisd and come to light./ Nay, he is your
brother by the surer side,/ Although my seal be stampd in his
face (IV.ii.124-6) vs. Luc.: To unmask falsehood and bring truth
to light,/ To stamp the seal of time in agd things (940-1)
EEBO Match: To light near.30 stamp* near.30 seal*.
23. Tit.: Then sit we down, and let us all consult (IV.ii.131) vs.
TOAS: Then sit we downe and let vs send for them (1465); and
Cont.: Then sit we downe againe my Lord Cardinall,/ Suffolke,
Buckingham, Yorke, and Somerset./ Let vs consult of prowd Duke
Humphries fall (1102-4, not in 2H6)EEBO Near Match: Then
sit we down, which also occurs among playwrights in Robert
Wilsons play The Three Lords and Ladies of London, pr. 1590;
and the anonymous Wily Beguiled, pr. 1606. Note also Ham.:
Titus Andronicus
Well, sit we down,/ And let us hear Bernardo speak of this

(I.i.31-2).
24. Tit.: A long-tongued babbling gossip (IV.ii.149) vs. TN: The
babbling gossip of the air (I.v.262)EEBO Match: Babbling
gossip*.
25. Tit.: Ill dive into the burning lake below/ And pull her out of
Acheron by the heels, plus Infernal kingdom (IV.iii.44-5 and
V.ii.30) vs. DF: Now by the kingdoms of infernal rule,/ Of Styx,
Acheron, and the fiery lake/ Of ever-burning Phlegethon, I swear
(Sc. viii.44-6)EEBO: Lake* near.30 Acheron* near.30 burning*.
The juxtaposition occurs among playwrights in a 1596 poem by
Michael Drayton.
26. Tit.: Whats this but libelling against the Senate (IV.iv.17) vs.
E2: What call you this but private libelling/ Against the earl of
Cornwall and my brother? (Sc. vi.34-5)EEBO Match: But fby.5
libelling against.
27. Tit.: Is the sun dimmed, that gnats do fly in it?/ The eagle suffers
little birds to sing (IV.iv.82-3) vs. Luc.: Gnats are unnoted
wheresoeer they fly,/ But eagles gazed upon with every eye
(1014-5)EEBO: Fly [all forms of verb] near.30 gnat* near.30
eagle*.
28. Tit.: Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes (V.ii.66) vs. TOTS:
Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyesPardon, I pray thee, for
my mad mistaking (IV.v.46, 50)EEBO Match: Mad near.50
mistaking eye*.
29. Tit.: Even by my god I swear to thee I will (V.i.86) vs. Wood.:
Even by this kiss, and by my crown I swear (V.iv.35); E3:
Even by that power I swear, that gives me now/ The power to be
ashamd of myself (II.ii.188-9); MV: I swear to thee, even by
thine own fair eyes (V.i.242); and Dekkers WB: But I sweare/
Euen by my birth-day, by the crowne I weare (C3r)EEBO:
Even by near.10 I swear. The juxtaposition also occurs in Edward
Sharphams play The Fleir, 1607.
30. Tit.: Few come within the compass of my curse (V.i.126) vs.
R3: Nor thou within the compass of my curse (I.iii.282)
EEBO Match: Compass of my curse*.
31. Tit.: And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam (V.iii.189)
vs. MV: And, whilst thou layst in thy unhallowd dam
(IV.i.135)EEBO Match: Unhallowed dam.
213
214
Chapter Nine
32. Tit.: The venomous malice of my swelling heart (V.iii.13) vs.

1H6: From envious malice of thy swelling heart (III.i.26)
EEBO Match: Malice* near.20 swelling heart*.
33. Tit.: DidosburningWhen subtle Greeks surprised King
Priams Troy./ Tell us what Sinon hath bewitched our ears
(V.iii.81-4) vs. Dido: Others report twas Sinons perjury;/But all
in this, that Troy is overcome,/ And Priam dead (II.i.111-3); and
Luc.: Perjured Sinon...So did I Tarquin, so my Troy did perish./
Look, look, how listning Priam wets his eyes/ To see those
borrowed tears that Sinon sheds, and So Priams trust false
Sinons tears doth flatter/ That he finds means to burn his Troy
with water (1521, 1547-9, 1560-1)EEBO: Priam* near.30 Troy*
near.30 Sinon*. Sinon, who convinced the Trojans to take a giant
wooden horse filled with Greek soldiers into their city, was
mentioned in the Aeneid, but not the Iliad or Odyssey. Note also
2H6: When he to madding Dido would unfold/ His fathers acts,
commenced in burning Troy!/ Am I not witched like her? Or thou
not false like him?...weeps (III.ii.117-9, 121).
34. Tit.: That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound (V.iii.86)
vs. R3: Now civil wounds are stopped; peace lives again
(V.vii.40); and R2: Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours
swords (I.iii.127)EEBO: Civil wound*.
35. Tit., regarding a dead body: Draw you near/ To shed obsequious
tears upon this trunk (V.iii.150-1) vs. Son. 31: How many a holy
and obsequious tear/ Hath dear religious love stoln from mine
eyedeadgrave where buried (5-7, 9)EEBO Match:
obsequious tear(s). The phrase occurs in Richard Bromes play The
Queen and Concubine, pr. 1659.
Similarity: Tit.: The snake lies rolld in the cheerful sun (II.iii.13)
vs. 2H6: Or as the snake rolled in a flowring bank/ With shining
checkered slough (III.i.228-9); and Ven.: Like one that spies an adder/
Wreathed up in fatal folds (878-9).
Similarity: Tit.: Chiron. An twere my cause I should go hang
myself./ Demetrius. If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord
(II.iv.9-10) vs. MV: Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself/
And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,/ Thou hast not left the value
of a cord (IV.i.361-3).
Similarity: Tit.: Made thy body bare/ Of her two branches, those
sweet ornaments/ Whose circling shadows [arms] kings have sought to
sleep in (II.iv.17-9) vs. HL: Fair Cynthia wished his arms might be her
Titus Andronicus
215
sphere (Sestiad I.59); E3: The arms of death embrace us round

(IV.iv.1); and Ven.: Within the circuit of this ivory pale [the arms of
Venus] (230).
Similarity: Tit.: Those lily hands/ Tremble like aspen leaves upon a
lute (II.iv.44-5) vs. 2T: Their fingers made to quaver on a lute (I.iii.29).
Similarity: Tit.: Sorrow conceald, like an oven stopped,/ Doth burn
the heart to cinders where it is (II.iv.36-7) vs. TGV: The more thou
dammst it [loves hot fire] up, the more it burns./ The current that with
gentle murmur glides,/ thou knowst, being stopped, impatiently doth
rage (II.vii.24-6).
Similarity: Tit.: Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs,/ When
thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating (III.ii.12-3) vs. Jn.: And
didst in signs again parley with sin;/ Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart
consent (IV.ii.239-40).
Similarity: Tit.: I will dismount, and by the wagon wheel/ Trot like a
servile footman all day long,/ Even from Hyperions rising in the east/
Until his very downfall in the sea (V.ii.54-7) vs. H5: But like a lackey
from the rise to set/ Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night/ Sleeps in
Elysium; next day, after dawn/ Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse
(IV.i.269-72).
Notes
1
See Vickers, Shakespeare, Co-Author, 148-50.

Nicholas R. Moschovakis, Topicality and Conceptual Blending: Titus
Andronicus and the Case of William Hacket, College Literature 33 (2006): 12750.
3
Timothy D. Crowley, Arms and the Boy: Marlowes Aeneas and the Parody of
Imitation in Dido, Queen of Carthage, English Literary Renaissance 38 (2008):
408-38, 437.
4
Dido Queene of Carthage in The Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe, ed.
Roma Gill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987-98, vol. 5, 117.
5
Martin Wiggins, When Did Marlowe Write Dido, Queen of Carthage? 538.
6
Stage, 23.
7
Titus Andronicus, ed. Eugene M. Waith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 38.
8
Waith, 87 n. 69.7
9
Hughes, 131 n. 44-5.
10
Titus Andronicus, ed. Alan Hughes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994, 2006), 4.
11
C. M.s dedication to Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke,
prefacing Amintae Gaudia by Thomas Watson in The Complete Works of Thomas
2
216
Chapter Nine
Watson (1556-1592), ed. Dana F. Sutton (Lewiston, PA: Edwin Mellen Press,
1996), vol. 2, 201.
12
The list of allusions in Shakespeare to Hercules is from Earl Showerman,
Shakespeares Many Much Ados: Alcestis, Hercules, and Loves Labours
Wonne, Brief Chronicles 1 (2009): 138-77, 163.
13
Reuben A. Brower, Hero & Saint. Shakespeare and the Graeco-Roman Heroic
Tradition (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971), 174.
14
Maurice Charney, Marlowe and Shakespeares African Queens, in
Shakespearean Illuminations. Essays in Honor of Marvin Rosenberg, ed. Jay L.
Halio and Hugh Richmond (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1998), 243-4.
15
Stage, 16, 18, 20.
16
On the deflation of Virgil by Marlowe, see Donald Stump, Marlowes Travesty
of Virgil: Dido and Elizabethan Dreams of Empire, Comparative Drama 34
(2000): 79-107.
17
As Merriam pointed out, LFBs with flaming top, a rare phrase also appearing
in Hamlet (II.ii.505), derives from Seneca his Tenne Tragedies, 1581. Thomas
Merriam, The Tenor of Marlowe in Henry V, Notes & Queries 45 (1998): 323.
18
For Orlando Furioso and Marlowe, see Christopher Marlowe. The Plays and
their Sources, ed. Vivan Thomas and William Tydeman (London: Routledge,
1994), 80. For Orlando Furioso and Shakespeare, see Roger Prior, Shakespeares
Debt to Ariosto, Notes & Queries 48 (2001): 289-92.
19
Alex Jack, Hamlet. By Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare (Becket,
MA: Amber Waves, 2005), vol. 2, 121-2.
20
Italian. On Marlowes use of Ludovico Dolces Didone, a play in Italian about
Dido, as a source for Dido, Queen of Carthage, see Mary E. Smith, Marlowe and
Italian Dido Drama, Italica 53 (1976): 223-235. Giordano Brunos dialogue De
gl heroici furori is proposed as a source for Tamburlaine in James Robinson
Howe, Marlowe, Tamburlaine, and Magic (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press,
1976). On a quote from Giordano Brunos La Cena de le Ceneri appearing in
Doctor Faustus, see Roy T. Eriksen, Giordano Bruno and Marlowes Doctor
Faustus (B), Notes & Queries 32 (1985): 463-5. Regarding Shakespeare and
Italian, see Naseeb Shaheen, Shakespeares Knowledge of Italian, Shakespeare
Survey 47 (1994): 161-9; and Roy T. Eriksen, Extant and in Choice Italian:
Possible Italian Echoes in Julius Casear and Sonnet 78, English Studies 3 (1988):
224-237. A source for The Merchant of Venice, Il Pecorone, is an Italian work not
known to have been translated into English. French. One of 2Ts sources was in
French, Franois de Belleforests enlarged edition of Cosmographie Universelle by
Sebastian Mnster, and Marlowe incorporated French into The Massacre at Paris.
A source for Hamlet was Belleforests Histoires Tragiques, while Shakespeare
incorporated French language into Henry V. Greek. Marlowe drew upon writing
by Musaeus in Greek for his Hero and Leander. On Shakespeares knowledge of
Greek, see Myron Stagman, Shakespeares Greek Drama Secret (Newcastle upon
Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010). Stagman presents convincing
evidence, in particular, on 415-7. See also Earl Showerman, Orestes and Hamlet.
Titus Andronicus
217
From Myth to Masterpiece: Part I, The Oxfordian 7 (2004): 89-114; Earl

Showerman, Look Down and See What Death is Doing. Gods and Greeks in The
Winters Tale, The Oxfordian 10 (2007): 55-74; and Showerman, Shakespeares
Many Much Ados: Alcestis, Hercules, and Loves Labours Wonne. Spanish. We
find a few Spanish phrases in The Jew of Malta, while Antonio de Eslavas Noches
de Invierno may have influenced The Tempest, and Don Juan Manuels El Conde
Lucanor may have affected TOTS. These works by Eslava and Manuel are not
known to have been translated in Shakespeares day. See Hugh Wilson,
Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew and Spanish Influence: Or, Exemplary
Tales and Picaresque Fictions, Sederi 9 (1998): 233-55; William Shakespeare,
The Tempest, ed. Frank Kermode (London: Methuen, 1954); and Isabel Gortzar,
How Did Marlowe Learn Spanish? http://marlowe-shakespeare.blog
spot.kr/2011/02/how-did-marlowe-learn-spanish-by-isabel.html. Accessed on
August 7, 2013.
21
T. M. Parrott, Shakespeares Revision of Titus Andronicus, The Modern
Language Review 14 (1919): 16-37; and Titus Andronicus, ed. J. D. Wilson
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), xix-lxv.
CHAPTER TEN
ROMEO AND JULIET
The first quarto of Romeo and Juliet appeared in 1597 with no name
on the title page, and the acting company listed as Lord Hunsdons
Servants, who bore that name between July 24, 1596 and March 17, 1597
(before and after they were known as The Lord Chamberlains Men).
Shakespeares name did not appear on the 1599 and 1609 quartos, or on
one variation of the 1622 quarto. He is listed as the author in a second
variant of the 1622 quarto. Francis Meres attributed Romeo and Juliet
(Rom.) to Shakespeare in 1598, and the play is included in Shakespeares
First Folio.
Proposed dates of composition for Rom. have ranged between 1591
and 1596. The early date was suggested because the Nurse says of Juliet,
Tis since the earthquake now eleven years, And she was weaned
(I.iii.25-6), and England experienced an earthquake in April, 1580. Sarah
Dodson, however, found that there were two landslips in England in
January 1583 and August 1585, and Sidney Thomas noted that an
earthquake occurred on the European continent on March 1, 1584. It might
be argued that the 1584 earthquake, which raised the water levels of Lake
Geneva in Switzerland and was also felt in Italy and France, would be the
one most likely to be mentioned by a nurse living in northern Italy.1 If so,
the Nurse was speaking in 1595. The year 1596 has been proposed due to
striking parallels between Romeo and Juliet and Thomas Nashes Have
With You at Saffron-Walden, printed between September 1596 and March,
1597. I will maintain that Nashe co-authored the play, and that parallels to
his works therefore cannot be employed to help date it. More promising,
however, is Joan Ozark Holmers well-reasoned argument that Rom.s
fencing terminology was heavily influenced by Saviolos Vincentio
Saviolo his Practise, 1595, thus published between March 25, 1595 and
March 24, 1596.2 Moreover, the nonextant A newe ballad of Romeo and
Juliet was entered into the Stationers Register on August 5, 1596. Since
Rom.s source called its protagonist Romeus, I concur with Hyder
Rollins that the ballad was likely suggested by the play. 3 I would date
Romeo and Juliet
219
Rom. between April 1595 and July 1596, with the year 1595 more likely
due to the earthquake clue.
Similarities Between Romeo and Juliet

and Marlowes Works
Given Marlowes sharp upward learning curve, a work dated c. 1595 is
a far cry from Tit. c. 1592 and Marlowes last datable work, c. 1590-1, not
to mention 1T and 2T, written c. 1587. We would not expect to find the
large numbers of Matches/Near Matches between Marlowes
acknowledged canon and other pieces previously discussed. There are,
nonetheless, striking linguistic similarities between Rom. and a variety of
works by Marlowe.

1. Below is a well-known parallel between Rom. and E2 that is a Rare
Scattered Word Cluster for Gallop* apace near.100 Phoebus* near.100
night*. The speakers in both excerpts express their desire for night to
come quickly by telling Phoebus and his horses to gallop apace through
the sky.
Rom.:
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus lodging. Such a waggoner
As Phaton would whip you to the west
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaways eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms untalked of and unseen. (III.ii.1-7)
E2:
Gallop apace, bright Phoebus, through the sky,
And dusky night, in rusty iron car,
Between you both shorten the time, I pray,
That I may see the most desird day
When we may meet these traitors in the field. (Sc. xvi.44-8)
Chapter Ten
220
2. Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between Rom. and

Marlowes LFB for Cloud* near.100 meteor* near.100 torch* near.100
night*. It also includes day, light, and east.
Rom.:
Romeo. No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Nights candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Juliet. Yon light is not daylight; I know it, I.
It is some meteor that the sun exhaled
To be to thee this night a torchbearer
And light thee on thy way to Mantua. (III.v.7-15)
LFB:
And sundry fiery meteors blazed in heaven,
Now spear-like, long, now like a spreading torch;
Lightning in silence stole forth without clouds,
And from the northern climate snatching fire
Blasted the Capitol; the lesser stars,
Which wont to run their course through empty night,
At noonday mustered; Phoebe having filled
Her meeting horns to match her brothers light,
Strook with th earths sudden shadow, waxd pale;
Titan himself throned in the midst of heaven
His burning chariot plunged in sable clouds,
And whelmed the world in darkness, making men
Despair of day, as did Thyestes town,
Mycenae, Phoebus flying through the east. (529-42)
Strong Parallels
1. Both excerpts below compare a young lady to a star in the east, and
share strikingly similar constructions.
Romeo and Juliet
221
Rom.:
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. (II.i.44-5)
JM:
But stay, what star shines yonder in the east?
The lodestar of my life, if Abigall. (II.i.41-2)
2. Another parallel revolves around one person breathing life into
anothers lips:
Rom.:
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!
And breathed such life with kisses in my lips
That I revived and was an emperor. (V.i.6-9)
HL:
By this, sad Hero, with love unacquainted,
Viewing Leanders face, fell down and fainted.
He kissed her, and breathed life into her lips (Sestiad II.1-3)
Ven.:
For on the grass she lies as she were slain,
Till his breath breatheth life in her again. (473-4)

Following are Matches, Near Matches, and other similarities to the
Marlovian portions of works attributed to Marlowe, Shakespeare and other
works previously discussed.
1. Rom.: The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars/ As
daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven/ Would through the airy
region stream so bright (II.i.61-3) vs. CR: Then by this loue, and
by these christall eyes,/ More bright then are the Lamps of Ioues
222
Chapter Ten
high house, and Call downe these goulden lampes from the
bright skie,/And leaue Heauen blind (I.iii.423-4 and III.ii.121516); 1T: Whose eyes are brighter than the lamps of heaven
(III.iii.120); 2T: Now, bright Zenocrate, the worlds fair eye,/
Whose beams illuminate the lamps of heaven (I.iii.1-2); and the
two parodies, TOAS: Whose eies are brighter then the lampes of
heauen, (197); and Sol.: Quick lampelike eyes, like heavens two
brightest orbes (IV.i.80)EEBO Match: Lamp(s) near.20 bright*
near.20 heaven*/Joves high house near.20 eye(s), a juxtaposition
also occurring in Robert Wilsons play, The Three Lords and Three
Ladies of London, pr. 1590.
2. Rom.: Like softest music to attending ears! (II.i.211) vs. Tit.: To
lovesick Didos sad-attending ear (V.iii.81)EEBO: Attending
ear(s).
3. Rom.: Lovers can see to do their amorous rites (III.ii.8) vs. HL:
Some amorous rites or other were neglected (Sestiad II.64)
EEBO Match: Amorous rite*. The phrase also occurs in George
Chapmans play All Fools, pr. 1637.
4. Rom.: A gentler judgement vanished from his lips (III.iii.10) vs.
E3: That such base breath should vanish from my lips
(IV.iv.79); and Luc.: To make more vent for passage of her
breath,/ Which thronging through her lips so vanisheth/ As
smoke from Aetna (1040-2)EEBO Match: Vanish* near.5 lips.
5. Rom.: And steal immortal blessing from her lips,/ Who, even in
pure and vestal modesty,/ Still blush, as thinking their own kisses
sin (III.iii.37-9; Q1 has And steale immortal kisses from her lips
F4v) vs. DF: Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss./ Her
lips sucks forth my soul. See where it flies! (Sc. xiii.92-3)
EEBO: Immortal* near.30 kiss* near.30 lips. Among playwrights
we find the collocation in James Shirleys The Changes, pr. 1632,
and two post-Restoration plays by John Banks. Note also Dido:
For in his looks I see eternity,/ And hell make me immortal with
a kiss (IV.iv.122-3).
6. Rom.: That pierced the fear-full hollow of thine ear (III.v.3) vs.
E3: Fill thou the empty hollows of mine ears (II.i.128)EEBO:
Hollow* of [possessive] ear*. This also occurs in the play Jacke
Drums Entertainment (anonymous, attrib. John Marston), pr. 1601;
and Thomas Heywoods The History of Women, pr. 1624.
7. Rom.: Death lies on her like an untimely frost/ Upon the sweetest
flower of all the field (IV.iv.55-6) vs. JM: A fair young maid,
scarce fourteen years of age,/ The sweetest flower in Cythereas
Romeo and Juliet
223
field (I.iii.13-4)EEBO Match: Sweetest flower near.20 field.

Rom. is describing Juliet, who is not quite fourteen, while JMs
subject, Abigall, is scarce fourteen. This juxtaposition seems to
indicate the same mind at work. Note also Ven.: The fields chief
flower, sweet above compare (8).
Similarity: Rom.: Paris. Younger than she are happy mothers made./
Capulet. And too soon marred are those so early made, and Benvolio.
Supper is done, and we shall come too late./ Romeo. I fear too early, for
my mind misgives (I.ii.12-13 and I.iv.105-6) vs. 3H6: O boy, thy father
gave thee life too soon,/ And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!
(II.v.92-3, TT C3r); and Luc.: O, quoth Lucretius, I did give that life/
Which she too early and too late hath spilled (1800-1).
Similarity: Rom.: In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;/ And
where the worser is predominant,/ Full soon the canker death eats up that
plant (II.ii.28-30) vs. Wood.: Shall cankers eat the fruit/ That planting
and good husbandry hath nourishd? (I.iii.155-6, Marlovian portion); and
R3: Small herbs have grace; gross weeds do grow apace (II.iv.13).
Similarity: Rom.: Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day
(III.iv.32) vs. TOAS: Wedding dayProuide your selues against our
marriage daie (354, 357, Marlovian portion); and TOTS: To buy
apparel gainst the wedding day (II.i.311).
Similarity: Rom.: It is some meteor that the sun exhaled (III.v.13)
vs. TOAS: From whence the sun exhales his glorious shine (1201,
Marlovian portion).
Similarity: Rom.: Come, death, and welcome (III.v.24) vs. E2:
Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief (Sc. xxvi.92); and
AYL: Tis but one cast away, and so, come, death! (IV.i.175).
Similarity: Rom.: Eyes, look your last!...The dashing rocks thy
seasick weary barque! (V.iii.112, 118) vs. 2T: Now, eyes, enjoy your
latest [last] benefitThrough rocks more steep and sharp than Caspian
cliffs (V.iii.224, 241). In Rom., Romeo refers to viewing his deceased
wife, Juliet, in the last scene of the play, before he kills himself. In 2T,
Tamburlaine refers to viewing his deceased wife, Zenocrate, in the last
scene of the play, before he dies.
A Biographical Connection
Juliet was sixteen years old in the main source for Romeo and Juliet,
Arthur Brookes poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, and
scholars are not sure why Shakespeare made her younger. According to
224
Chapter Ten
the play, Juliet was born on Lammas Eve (August 20). I have mentioned
Marlowes three sisters, but he had a fourth named Joan (or Jane). Joan
was baptized on Lammas Eve and married young, at age 12 . She died in
childbirth a year later, when she was the same age as Juliet.4 Marlowe had
a personal reason to view the death of a newly married girl not yet
fourteen years old as particularly tragic.
The Hero and Leander Connection

Harold R. Walley found that Shakespeare was indebted to Marlowes
Hero and Leander for his tender, romantic approach to the love between
Romeo and Juliet. Arthur Brookes Romeus and Juliet, published in 1562,
took a medieval, moralistic approach. In his Epistle to the Reader, Brooke
intoned about:
A couple of unfortunate lovers, thralling themselves to unhonest desire;
neglecting the authority and advice of parents and friends; conferring their
principal counsels with drunken gossips and superstitious friars (the
naturally fit instruments of unchastity); attempting all adventures of peril
for thattaining of their wished lust; using auricular confession, the key of
whoredom and treason, for furtherance of their purpose; abusing the
honourable name of lawful marriage to cloak the shame of stolen contracts;
finally by all means of unhonest life hasting to most unhappy death.5
Brooke portrayed Romeus as a proper young fellow, and Juliet as a

wiley wench in the mold of Cressida who sets out to ensnare him. The
lovers fall in love immediately, then separate for weeks. When they
reunite, according to Walley, they rather sedately discuss the pros and
cons of marriage, and Romeus promises to marry only if Friar Lawrence
grants permission.6 The tone of Romeo and Juliet is entirely unlike
Brooke. Walley calls it impetuous, gay, tender, impassioned, and shot
through with a fervid imagination. It is both delicate and earthy,
transcendent in its romantic idealism and aflame with physical desire. 7
This is an apt description for the tone of HL.
Walley noted numerous similarities between HL and Rom. Both are
without precedent, HL as a poem and Rom. as a play, in departing from
their sources and introducing an Ovid-influenced exuberant, passionate,
sensual love. When the lovers first meet, both works invoke the language
of worship. In HL: He [Leander] kneeled, but unto her [Hero] devoutly
prayed;/ Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said,/ Were I the saint he
worships, I would hear him,/ And as she spake those words, came
somewhat near him (Sestiad I.177-80). Hero is shyly encouraging, and
Romeo and Juliet
225
the tone is unorthodox, religiously speaking. Romeo calls Juliet a holy

shrine and his lips, pilgrims. The two banter back and forth about saints
and pilgrims, with Juliet saying, Saints do not move, though grant for
prayers sake (I.v.104), and later, Do not swear at all,/ Or if thou wilt,
swear by thy gracious self,/ Which is the god of my idolatry,/ And Ill
believe thee (II.i.154-7). Juliet is shyly encouraging, and the tone is,
again, religiously unorthodox. In HL: These lovers parld by the touch of
hands (I.185), while Rom. shows them parleying about hands: For saints
have hands that pilgrims hands do touch,/ And palm to palm is holy
palmers kiss (I.v.98-9).
Both Leander and Romeo fall in love at first sight and begin to woo up
close, immediately. In Romeus and Juliet, Romeus, too, falls in love at
first sight, but the wooing takes place at long distance over several weeks.
Moreover, Brooke moralistically described Romeus as a poor fool who
swallowed loves sweet impoisoned bait:/ How surely are the wareless
wrapt by those that lie in wait!8
Both Hero and Juliet realize that they are not supposed to act as eagerly
as they do. As Walley noted, Hero was afraid,/ In offering parley, to be
counted light (Sestiad II.8-9), while Juliet tells Romeo, Therefore
pardon me,/ And not impute this yielding to light love (II.i.146-7). When
Hero sends Leander on his way near dawn with her maidenhead intact
(shell lose it next time they meet), Marlowe wrote that we often stay the
messenger that would be goneSad Hero wrung him by the hand, and
wept,/ Saying, Let your vows and promises be kept (Sestiad II.82, 956). When Juliet sends Romeo on his way near dawn at the end of the
balcony scene, her maidenhead intact (shell lose it next time they meet),
Juliet keeps calling Romeo back, and reminds him of the promises he
made.
Love makes Leander and Romeo act differently, and people notice.
Without being told, Leanders father knew where he had been,/ And for
the same mildly rebuked his son,/ Thinking to quench the sparkles new
begun (Sestiad II.136-8). Friar Laurence, too, surmises that Romeo had
not slept the previous night because of a woman, chides him, and is as
ineffective as Leanders father. After Hero and Leander made love, And
now she [Hero] wished this night were never done./ And sighed to think
upon th approaching sun (Sestiad II.301-2). Juliet also wishes to prolong
her wedding night, trying to convince Romeo that he has heard a
nightingale, not a lark.
Walley noted two parallels in imagery between Rom. and HL. In the
first, the light from a womans face causes the false dawning of a day. In
the second, a woman is compared to a bird held in a hand.9
Chapter Ten
226
1. Rom.:
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night. (II.i.61-4)
HL:
And from her countenance behold ye might
A kind of twilight break, which through the hair,
As from an orient cloud, glimpse here and there.
And round about the chamber this false morn
Brought forth the day before the day was born. (Sestiad II.318-22)
2. Rom.:
I would have thee gone
And yet no further than a wantons bird,
That lets it hop a little from his hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again (II.i.221-5)
HL:
Even as a bird, which in our hands we wring,
Forth plungeth, and oft flutters with her wing,
She [Hero] trembling strove (Sestiad II.289-91)
At the end of his paper, Walley concluded:
In view of the modifications which Shakespeare introduced into his
interpretation of love, it is scarcely credible that two men, writing at nearly
the same time, should each create a new kind of love story, conceived in
the same spirit, observing the same psychological development, stressing
the same specific features in roughly the same order, and do it quite
independently. It is more reasonable to conclude that Shakespeare, fresh
from his experiments in narrative poetry, and perhaps somewhat dazzled
by the brilliant novelty of Hero and Leander, its tragedy left incomplete by
its authors more perfect tragedy, essayed for the stage a comparable
themeFor the headlong ecstasy of loves wild sweet moment Marlowe
was the man. Thus, it would seem, thought Shakespeare, as for a time he
thrust aside Brooke, with his affected languors and dusty morality, to dip
Romeo and Juliet
227
his pen into the fire of Marlowe and write with Hero and Leander at his
elbow.10
I would add, first, that at Shakespeares side would have to have been a
manuscript copy of Hero and Leander, as it had yet to be printed. Second,
having such a copy at his elbow would not explain the significant
similarities to Marlowes other works discussed above, including the
unpublished JM. To me it is more reasonable to conclude that Marlowe
wrote much of Rom., a work which fits along the Marlowe-Shakespeare
continuum some years after HL.
The Sonnet Connection

Shakespeare is well known for his book of sonnets: poems of fourteen
lines that express a complete thought. He sometimes incorporated sonnets
into his plays, too.11 Loves Labours Lost contains sonnets that lovestruck
suitors write to women (IV.ii.106-19 and IV.iii.24-39), while Alls Well
That Ends Well (III.iv.4-17) and As You Like It (IV.iii.51-64) have ones in
letters. Henry Vs Epilogue is a sonnet, and Cymbeline includes a sonnet in
a speech by Jupiter (V.v.187-207). Rom. has two: the Prologue is a sonnet,
while the second sonnet is cleverly incorporated into the lovers first
meeting:
Rom.
Two households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of their parents rage
Which but their childrens end, naught could remove
Is now the two-hours traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. (Prologue 1-14)
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Chapter Ten
Romeo. If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this.
For saints have hands that pilgrims hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers kiss.
Romeo. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?
Juliet. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Romeo. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers sake.
Romeo. Then move not, while my prayers effect I take. (I.v.92105)
It is less well known that about eight years earlier, Marlowe placed
sonnets within two of his plays. Paul H. Kocher found that Marlowe
stitched a sonnet into a speech within 1T. He viewed it as a blank verse
adaptation of one of Marlowes own [nonextant] sonnets, with a structure
modeled on the three quatrains and concluding couplet which have come
to be called the Shakespearean sonnet. Because the sonnet is a digression
and the speech sounds more natural without it, Kocher argued that it had
been written separately, then revised for inclusion into the play:12
1T:
What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then?
If all the pens that ever poets held
Had fed the feeling of their masters thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,
Their minds and muses on admird themes;
If all the heavenly quintessence they still
From their immortal flowers of poesy,
Wherein as in a mirror we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit;
If these had made one poems period,
And all combined in beautys worthiness,
Yet should there hover in their restless heads,
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest. (V.i.160-73)
Romeo and Juliet
229
Roy T. Eriksen located another instance of an embedded blank-verse

sonnet with a closing rhymed couplet in 1Ts sequel.
2T:
Black is the beauty of the brightest day!
The golden ball of heavens eternal fire,
That danced with glory on the silver waves,
Now wants the fuel that inflamed his beams,
And all with faintness and for foul disgrace
He binds his temples with a frowning cloud,
Ready to darken earth with endless night.
Zenocrate, that gave him light and life,
Whose eyes shot fire from their ivory bowers
And tempered every soul with lively heat,
Now by the malice of the angry skies,
Whose jealousy admits no second mate,
Draws in the comfort of her latest breath,
All dazzled with the hellish mists of death. (II.iv.1-14)
It is true that these sonnets are not rhymed throughout as
Shakespeares are. Yet Marlowe showed himself to be a master of rhyme
in HL, which is written entirely in rhymed couplets, including two that end
in sake and take (in that order) as Rom.s second sonnet does:
Rom.:
Juliet. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers sake.
Romeo. Then move not, while my prayers effect I take. (I.v.104-5)
HL:
Complained to Cupid. Cupid for his sake,
To be revenged on Jove did undertake, (Sestiad I.441-2)
If not for love, yet, love, for pity sake,
Me in thy bed and maiden bosom take; (Sestiad II.247-8)
Italian poet Petrarch was the father of the sonnet, and his sonnets to
Laura connected Daphne with the laurel. In his dedication of his late friend
Thomas Watsons Amintae Gaudia to the Countess of Pembroke, Marlowe
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Chapter Ten
wrote (translated from the Latin), So shall I, whose slender wealth is but
the seashore myrtle of Venus, and Daphnes evergreen laurel, on the
foremost page of every poem invoke thee as Mistress of the Muses to my
aid.13 Eriksen found this to be a reference to lost poems, some of which,
given the tie-in to Petrarch, were likely sonnets.14
Eriksen also proposed that the seashore myrtle of Venus represented
a connection to Marlowes OE, which contains Girt my shine brow with
sea-bank myrtle sprays, and Yoke Venus doves, put myrtle on thy hair
(I.i.34 and I.ii.23). Interestingly, Shakespeare made similar
myrtle/sea/Venus associations in Ven.: This said, she [Venus] hastesth to
a myrtle grove (865); PPilg.: Venus, with young Adonis sitting by her/
Under a myrtle shade (xi.1-2); and Ant.: As is the morn-dew on the
myrtle-leaf / To his grand sea (III.xii.9-10).
Researchers have found the same sonnet sequences to have touched
both Marlowe and Shakespeare. Eriksen proposed that in Petrarchs
Sonnet 307, Shakespeare found imagery for Sonnet 78, and also argued
that the same sonnet by Petrarch influenced Marlowes DF.15 James
Robinson Howe proposed that the style of Giordano Brunos Italian sonnet
dialogue De gl heroici furori affected the metaphoric style of speech in
1T, while Eriksen suggested that the form of the sonnet he discovered in
2T was modeled after a sonnet in Brunos dialogue.16 Frances A. Yates
found this same sonnet dialogue by Bruno to have acted as a source for
Shakespeares LLL.17
Romeo and Juliet and Nashe & Dekker

I propose that Rom.s excellent plot and high poetry were devised by
Marlowe, while Nashe penned, for the most part, the bawdy, witty
language of Mercutio, the Nurse, and other servants. One clue is in Stanley
Wells response to his own question about where the Bard derived the
style of the Nurses speech at I.iii.12-60, I suspect it is relevant that, at
about the time the play was composed, Thomas Nashe was demonstrating
his capacity in what he calls the extemporal vein.18 Another clue is that,
according to Ronald B. McKerrow, Nashe appears to have been writing
for Shakespeares company at the time.19 For my discussion of Thomas
Nashe, I am indebted to J. J. M. Tobin and Joan Ozark Holmer, who have
adeptly pointed out numerous similarities between Nashes writing and
Rom.20
Let us begin by discussing two similarities that are unique to Rom. and
Nashe & Dekker.
Romeo and Juliet
231
1. In Nashes Saffron we hear: Then there would be old scratchingNot

Tibault or Isegrim, Prince of Cattes, were euer endowed with the like
Title./ Respondent. Since you can make so much of a little, you shall haue
more of it, A common Mounte-banke Rat-catcher, and What a
stomacke I had to haue scratcht with him (H3r-v, L1r, O4r). Nashe
sometimes worked from memory without double-checking for accuracy, a
trait editor Ronald B. McKerrow found disturbing as it made it difficult to
identify references in Nashes works.21 Here Nashe misremembered
Tybert, the name of the cat in William Caxtons 1481 translation of the
moral fable Reynard the Fox, as Tibault. As Holmer pointed out, Nashe
derived Isegrim from the name of a female cat in William Baldwins
Beware the Cat, a book which also contains the phrase prince of cats.
Holmer maintained that Nashes prince of cats is a vocative addressing
Gabriel Harvey, whom Nashe later called a rat catcher.22
In Rom. appears Benvolio. Why, what is Tybalt?/ Mercutio. More
than Prince of Cats, plus Tybalt, you rat-catcherGood King of
Catsscratch a man to death (II.iii.17-8 and III.i.74, 76, 101). Here the
thinking is quite like Nashes. Tybalt, like Harvey (as Nashe portrays
him), is an arrogant enemy. Prince of cats and rat catcher refer to the
same person, Tybalt in Rom. and Harvey in Saffron, although in neither
instance are these epithets located near each other, as might be expected if
one author were copying another. Both works collocate prince of cats
and more, and both equate scratching with fighting.
Finally, in Dekkers Satiro-Mastix, we find A Scratching of mens
faces, as tho you were Tyber the long-taild Prince of Rats (L3v),
addressed to the arrogant enemy, Horace. Again there is a faulty memory,
with Tyber instead of Tybert. Tyber is associated with scratching men,
as Tybalt scratched Mercutio. The juxtaposition of the name Tyber
with prince of rats, however, takes us back in indirect fashion to Nashes
commixture of the same two sources: Caxtons Reynard the Fox for
Tiber/Tibault, and Baldwins Beware the Cat for prince of cats/rats. To me
the same mind appears to be at work in all three pieces, and only these
three. Tib* near.30 prince* of rat*/cat* is an EEBO Match.
2. Another EEBO Match shared by the first quarto of Rom. and Nashe &
Dekker is the word fantastico*. Rom.: The Poxe of such limping
antique affecting fantasticoes these new tuners of accents (1597 Quarto
E1v); the First Folio (II.iii.27) has phantacies, but this is often emended
to fantasticoes because it makes better sense. In Nashes Saffron is:
These new fangled Galiardos, and Senior Fantasticos, to whose amorous
Villanellas and Quipassas, I prostitute my pen in hopes of gain (E3v).
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The word also occurs in Dekkers OF: I haue reueld with kings, dauncd
with Queenes, dallied with Ladies, worne straunge attires, seene
fantasticoes (E1r). I find but one other appearance of fantastico(s) in
an English sentence in EEBO, The Good Womans Champion by I. A.,
1650. The Rom. and OF occurrences are the only examples listed in the
OED.
Bawdy Language
Rom. was Shakespeares bawdiest play, and Nashe was a notoriously
bawdy author. He wrote a sexually explicit, humorous poem which
circulated in manscript (it was far too risqu to have been approved for
publishing) about a mans visit to a brothel entitled The Choice of
Valentines (Valentines). As Joan Ozark Holmer pointed out, Gabriel
Harvey insinuated that Nashe had written much more like it. Harvey
claimed that Nashe wrote whole Volumes of ribaldry; not to be read but
vpon a muck-hill, or in the priuest priuie of the Bordello,23 and Nashe
admitted prostituting his pen to relieve his poverty:
That twise or thrise in a month, when res est angusta domi, the bottom of
my purse is turnd downeward, & my conduit of incke will no longer flowe
for want of reparations, I am faine to let my Plow stand still in the midst of
a furrow, and follow some of these newfangled Galiardos and Senior
Fantasticos, to whose amorous Villanellas and Quipassas I prostitute my
pen in hope of gaine, but otherwise there is no newfanglenes in mee but
pouertie (Saffron E3v)
Following are bawdy similarities between Rom. and work I attribute to

Nashe & Dekker, including a passage in a Nasheian section of DF:
1. Rom.: Samson. I will take the wall of any man or maid of
Montagues./ Gregory. That shows thee a weak slave, for the
weakest goes to the wall./ Samson. Tis true, and therefore
women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall;
therefore I will push Montagues men from the wall, and thrust his
maids to the wall (I.i.10-7) vs. Banq: Oh always the weakest
goes to the wall, as for example, knocke downe a sheepe and he
tumbles forwards, knocke downe a woman and she tumbles
backewards (C2v)EEBO: Weakest goes to the wall near.30
woman/women. Rom. and Dekkers Banq. mix the proverb about
the weakest going to the wall (Tilley W185) with the female sex to
create bawdy puns. The same sexual punning occurs in Nashes
Romeo and Juliet
2.
3.
4.
5.
Valentines: Poore Priapus, whose triumph now must falle,/ Except

thow thrust this weakeling to the walle (257-8). Priapus is the
god of male genitalia. Note also Pref. to A&S: No bones to take
the wall of Sir Philip Sidney (M2v).
Rom.: Samson. I will be civil with the maidsI will cut off their
heads./ Gregory.The heads of the maids?/ Samson. Ay, the heads
of the maids, or their maidenheads, take it in what sense thou
wilt (I.i.21-5) vs. WB: Would you deflower my bed,/ And strike
off a poore maiden-head? (C1r); and RA: Yet on the contrary
side shall maiden-heads be so scant, that if fiue hundred be to bee
had ouer-night, foure hundred & nine teene of those will be
strucke of[f] before the next morning (C2v).
Rom.: Yea, quoth he, dost thou fall upon thy face?/ Thou wilt
fall backward when thou hast more wit,/ Wilt thou not, Jule?
(I.iii.43-5, repeated almost identically at I.iii.57-9) vs. Comets: Let
Maidens borne under this Planet, beware to fall on theyr
backesfor [they] may catch a fortie weekes Fevor (C3v); Banq.:
Oh always the weakest goes to the wall, as for example, knocke
downe a sheepe and he tumbles forwards, knocke downe a
woman and she tumbles backewards (C2v); and 2HW:
HarlotsWhole therefore backward fall (H2r).
Rom.: I conjure theeBy her fine foot, straight leg and quivering
thigh/ And the demesnes [region] that there adjacent lie (II.i.1820) vs. Valentines: First bare hir leggs, then creepe up to hir
kneese./ From thence ascend unto hir mannely thigh./ (A pox on
lingring when I am so nighe) (102-4).
Rom.: To raise a spirit in his mistress circle/ Of some strange
nature, letting it there stand/ Till she had laid it and conjured it
downI conjure only but to raise up him (II.i.24-6, 29) vs. BMC,
a mans response when a woman says her chamber is haunted at
night: By Hercules, if any spirits rise, I will coniure them in their
owne Circles with Toledo (F1v); BB: And in adulterous Circles
there rise I: There am I coniurd vp through hote desire (B1r-v);
and DF: O, this is admirable! Here I ha stoln one of Doctor
Faustus conjuring-books, and, ifaith, I mean to search some
circles for my own use. Now will I make all the maidens in our
parish dance at my pleasure stark naked before me (Sc. vi.1-4,
Nasheian portion). Here circle means a womans genitalia; to
raise a spirit means to sexually arouse a man; the literal meaning
of Toledo is a blade made in Toledo, Spain, but in this case
means penis; and to conjure means to have sex with.
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6. Rom.: If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark./ Now will he sit
under a medlar tree/ And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit/
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone./ O Romeo, that she
were, O that she were/ an open-arse, and thou a popprin pear
(II.i.33-8) vs. Wood.: Nimble. But if she have a daughter, she shall
set her mothers mark tot?/ Tresilian. Meddle with none but men
and widows, sir, I charge ye./ Nimble. Well, sir, I shall see a
widows mark then; I neer saw none yet! (III.i.163-7, Nasheian
portion). Medlar was employed as a slang term for female
genitalia (OED def. 3a), and to meddle meant to have sexual
intercourse with (OED def. 4). Mark in both instances meant the
target at which a man aimed to have sex.
7. Rom.: Romeo. It [love] pricks like thorn. Mercutio. If love be
rough with you, be rough with love./ Prick love for pricking, and
you beat love down (I.iv.26-8) vs. describing rough sex, in
Valentines: He rubd, and prickt, and pierst hir to the bones
(145). Mercutio advises Romeo to have rough sex to relieve
himself, as is depicted in Nashes Valentines. Note also Tears:
Their crowning mee with thornes I take for no trespasse, for they
cannot pricke mee so ill (1593 edition, F3v).
8. Rom.: BawdAn old hare hoar [whore]/ And an old hare hoar/
Is very good meat in Lent./ But a hare that is hoar/ Is too much
for a score/ When it hoars ere it be spent (II.iii.121, 125-30) vs.
Saffron: Shall wee haue a Hare of him then? a male one yeare,
and a female anotherbut hee must haue his whoore Silenes
(R3r). J. J. M. Tobin proposed that Mercutios bawdy joking about
hares (men) and whores was prompted by the passage in Saffron.24
Note also RA: Crab, is very good meat for the brest, stomacke
and ribs (B1v).
9. Rom.: The County Paris hath set up his rest/ That you shall rest
but little (IV.iv.33-4) vs. Terrors: You that are married and haue
wiues of your owne, and yet hold too nere frendship with your
neighbours; set vp your rests, that the Night will be an il neighbor
to your rest (H2r). Both works associate setting up ones rest
with resting little during the night because of the couples lovemaking.
Fencing/Quarrelling Language
As previously stated, Holmer showed that Rom. was influenced by
Saviolos book about fencing, Vincentio Saviolo his Practise, 1595. So
Romeo and Juliet
235
was Nashes Saffron, published in 1596. Stramazone, a fencing term

first appearing in the OED/EEBO in Saviolos book, occurs in the insult
Stramutzen Gabriell in Saffron (S3v).25 It is also the name of one of the
gallants who conversed in Dekkers The Meeting of Gallants at an
Ordinary, Signior Stramazoon, as well as one of the fencing terms Dekker
lists in The Wonderful Year: He has his Mandrittaes, Imbrocataes,
Stramazones, and Stoccataes ats fingers ends (D4r).
Holmer noted other examples of how Nashe employed the imagery of
dueling and fencing in his fight with Harvey. Harvey maintained that
Nashe accused him of being an old Fencer, while Nashe wrote in
Saffron, And where he [Harvey] terrefies mee with insulting hee was
Tom Burwels, the Fencers, Schollernot all the fence he learnd of Tom
Burwell shall keepe mee from cramming a turd in his iawes (V4r). Nashe
added: Tamburlain-like, hee [Harvey] braues it indesinently in her [an
unnamed woman] behalfe, setting vp bills, like a Bear-ward or Fencer,
what fights we shall haue and what weapons she will meete me at
(S4v).26
Twice in Saffron, Nashe associated Italians with quarrelling. Nashe
wrote that Harvey and he take upon us to bandie factions, and contend
like the Vrsini and Coloni in Roome (Saffron C4v). Tobin noted that
Romeo used the word bandying in a similar fashion when trying to stop
Tybalt and Mercutio, members of two factions, from fighting: The prince
expressly hath/ Forbid this bandying in Verona streets (III.i.86-7).27 As
Holmer pointed out, Nashe also wrote that a conference between his
friends may be supposed to be held after the same manner that one of
these Italianate conferences about a Duell is wont solemnly to be handled,
which is when a man, being specially toucht in reputation, or challenged to
the field upon equall tearmes, calls all his friends together, and askes their
aduice how he should carrie himselfe in the action (Saffron D2r).28
In The Dead Term, Dekker associated biting ones thumb and
quarreling: What Ieering, what byting of Thumbs to beget quarrels
(D4v), as did Rom.: Samson. I bite my thumb, sir./ Gregory. Do you
quarrel, sir? (I.i.48-9)EEBO Match: Bite [all forms of verb] near.30
thumb* near.30 quarrel*.
Rom. and The Terrors of the Night

Most of the known parallels between Rom. and Nashe are to Saffron,
causing scholars to speculate that either Shakespeare read Saffron in
manuscript, or that he wrote Rom. after Saffron was published. If, as I
maintain, Nashe co-authored Rom., the probable reason for the high
236
Chapter Ten
number of similarities between Rom. and Saffron is that Nashe was writing
both at the same time. He said that he had been big with childe of a
common place of reuenge, euer since the hanging of Lopus [Lopez]
(Saffron C4r), a hanging that occurred on June 7, 1594. In other words, he
worked on Saffron during 1594-96.
An author of Rom. possessed a thorough grounding in other work by
Nashe. Holmer noted, in particular, the relationship between Mercutios
speech at I.iv.53-104 and Nashes The Terrors of the Night. For example,
she thought Rom.: Dreams,/ Which are the children of an idle brain,/
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy (I.iv.96-8) was inspired by Terrors:
Some such ridiculous idle childish inuention./ A Dreame is nothing else
but the Eccho of our conceipts (C4r). Holmer found that Mercutios
speech was indebted to Terrors for the idea of combining extremely
diminutive spirits with the engendering of melancholic mortals dreams. I
would add the coincidence of spinner meaning spider in Rom. and
Terrors. Other vocabulary similarities Holmer pointed out are between
Rom. and other Nashe works: atomi (Tears, Valentines), ambuscado
(Tears), and time out of mind (Pierce, Unfortunate, Lenten).29

Following are additional Nasheian Matches, Near Matches, and other
similarities between Rom. and work I attribute to Nashe & Dekker:
1. Rom.: For then she could stand high-lone (I.iii.38) vs. BMC:
When I could not stand a hye-lone (D2v)EEBO Match:
Stand*/stood near.20 high lone. High lone means alone, without
support.
2. Rom.: Let wantons light of heart/ Tickle the sense-less rushes
with their heels (I.iv.35-6) vs. BMC: Lady, bid him whose heart
no sorrow feeles/ Tickle the rushes with his wanton heeles
(A4v)EEBO Match: Rushes near.30 tickle* near.30 wanton*.30
3. Rom.: Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are (I.iv.76)
vs. FHT: He would sweare, she spake nothing but swete meates:
and her breath then sent forth such a delicious odour (D1v); GH:
The breath of it stinks like the mouthes of Chamber-maides by
feding on so many swet meats (B4r); and 2HW: Indeed I loue
no sweet meats:Shas a breath stinkes worse then fifty
Polecats (I1r)EEBO: Breath* near.30 sweet meat*. The
juxtaposition occurs in two other plays: John Websters The White
Devil, wr. 1612; and Thomas Nabbes The Bride, pr. 1640.
Romeo and Juliet
237
4. Rom.: And then dreams heOf healths five fathom deep

(I.iv.83, 85) vs. SH: Carowse me fadom healths to the honour of
the shoomakers (I4v); and WH: They are dabling together
fathom deepe: the knight hath drunke so much Helth to the
Gentleman yonder (G2r)EEBO Match: Fathom* near.20
health*.31
5. Rom.: Be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all (I.v.19, W. J.
Craig edition) vs. 2HW: When I die, the longer liver take all
(C3v)EEBO Match: the longer liver take all. Tilley terms this
expression proverbial (L395), but these are his first two examples.
6. Rom.: And the demesnes that there adjacent lie (II.i.20) vs.
Saffron: In the demeanes or adiacents (M3v)EEBO Match:
Demesnes near.20 adjacent*.
7. Rom.: A villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! (III.i.1012) vs. WA: They fought by the book (G2v); and GH: Hee may
as well fight by the book (D1v)EEBO Match: Fight*/fought by
the book. The phrase also appears in John Websters The Duchess
of Malfi, pr. 1623.
8. Rom.: Then music with her silver sound/ Why silver sound,
why music with her silver sound?It is music with her silver
sound because musicians have no gold for sounding./ Then music
with her silver sound (IV.iv.154-5, 165-7) vs. OF: Heres no
swete Musicke with her siluer sound (B3v)EEBO Match:
Music with her silver sound. The expression originated in The
Paradise of Dainty Devices by Richard Edwards, 1585.
Similarity: Rom.: Samson. Gregory, o my word, well not carry
coals./ Gregory. No, for then we should be colliers./ Samson. I mean, an
we be in choler, well draw./ Gregory. Ay, while you live, draw your
neck out o the collar (I.i.1-6, W. J. Craig edition) vs. Saffron:
Consiliadore. And draw him in cole more artificially than the face in
cole that Micheall Angelo and Raphaell Vrbin went to buffets about. I
would you might be cole-carriers or pioners in a cole-pit, whiles colliers
ride vpon collimull cuts, or there be any reprisalls of purses twixt this and
Cole-brooke,/ Respondent. Pacifie your conscience, and leaue your
imprecations; wee will beare no coales, neuer feare you (H4v); Tears:
He slips his neck out of the coller (M4r); OF: Horsesno Collyer
shall cosen you out of your measure, but must tie vp the mouth of their
Sackes, least their Coales kindle your choler (G3v); and EMIH: Piso.
What moues thee to this choller? Ha?/ Cob. Coller sir? swounds I scorne
your coller, I sir am no colliers horse sir, neuer ride me with your coller,
238
Chapter Ten
and you doe, ile shew you a iades tricke./ Piso. Oh youle slip your head
out of the coller (Nasheian section, F3v; in the 1616 edition, colliers
horse was changed to cart horse).
Similarity: Samson is a servant to Capulet in Rom.: Samson. Tis
known I am a pretty piece of flesh./ Gregory. Tis well thou art not fish; if
thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John (I.34-6, W. J. Craig edition). Poor
John was a type of preserved fish that Nashe mentioned in four works
(Terrors, Lenten, Saffron, and Summer). As in Rom., Saffron contains an
association between poor John and servants: The description of that
poore Iohn a Droynes his man, whom he had hyred for that iourney
(P1v). In Lenten, Nashe juxtaposed John and fish* four times,
including: Halfe fish halfe flesh (a Iohn indifferent (H2v).
Similarity: Rom.: What, art thou drawn among these heartless
hinds? (I.i.63) vs. SH: You by such luck might proue your hart a hind
(D1v). The punning revolves around deer (harts and hinds), hearts, and
hinds, meaning rustic, country people.
Similarity: Rom.: Tut, duns the mouse, the constables own word
(I.iv.40) vs. WH: Duns the mouse (H2v), and PG: Yet don is the
mouse, lie still (A3r). This proverb (Tilley D644) also appears in the
following plays: Sir John Oldcastle, pr. 1600 by Anthony Munday, et al;
the anonymous The London Prodigal, pr. 1605; the anonymous Every
Woman in her Humour, pr. 1609; and J. C.s The Two Merry Milk-maids,
pr. 1620. I find it noteworthy that the phrase, used twice elsewhere in
Dekker, accompanies the word constable, a favorite subject of Nashe &
Dekker.
Similarity: Rom.: Sometime she gallops oer a courtiers nose,/ And
then dreams he of smelling out a suit (I.iv.78-9, W. J. Craig edition) vs.
GH: If you be a Courtier, discourse of the obtaining of Suits (D4r).
Similarity: Rom.: Poor Romeo, he is already dead; stabbed with a
white wenchs black eye; shot through the ear with a love-song; the very
pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boys butt-shaft [type of arrow]
(II.iv.13-7, W. J. Craig edition) vs. Lenten: When foorthwith her eyes
bred her eye-sore, the first white whereon their transpiercing arrowes
stuck being the breathlesse corps of Leander (G3r); LC: Neither he nor
his blacke-Dogge durst barke any more. Another, thinking to cleaue the
verrie pinne with his arrow (D3r); and NW: Here are more shooters,
but they that have shot two Arrows without heads, they cannot stick ith
Butt yet; hold out knight, And Ill cleave the black pin in th midest
oth white (34, Dekker section). These are archery associations: the
archer shot arrows at a white mark which was fastened to the target or butt
with a black pin placed at its center. Archers sought to cleave this pin.
Romeo and Juliet
239
Similarity: Rom.: Mercutio. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last

night./ Romeo. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give
you?/ Mercutio. The slip, sir, the slip (II.iii.42-6) vs. Unfortunate: Aie
me, she was but a counterfet slip, for she not onely gave me the slip
(F1v). Note also Wood.: I can tell ye, that will give ye the slip (III.iii.223, Nasheian portion). Both Rom. and Unfortunate pun by mixing the
expression to give the slip, meaning to escape, with the knowledge that a
counterfeit coin is called a slip.
Similarity: Rom.: Mercutio. Well said; follow me this jest now till
thou has worn out the pump, that, when the single sole of it is worn, the
jest may remain after the wearing sole singular./ Romeo. O single-soled
jest! solely singular for the singleness (II.iv.67-72, W. J. Craig edition)
vs. Saffron: In the single-soald pumpes of his aduersitie (F4r); Pierce:
Your singlesoald Orator Pierce Penilesse (A4v); WY: Like a single sole
Fidler, that reeles from Tauerne to Tauerne (B1r-v); PC: Of all those
that loue ualiant licour, is the single-sole disposition of Brewers (B4r-v);
and GH: Draw neere all you that loue to walke vpon single and simple
soules (B4v).
Similarity: Rom.: Nay, good goose, bite not. (II.iii.73) vs. Strange:
Good bear, bite not. (T3v), repeated two times in Saffron (T3r) after
Gabriel Harvey criticized Nashe for the phrase in Pierces Supererogation.
Similarity: Rom.: Romeo. Heres goodly gear!/ [Benvolio.] A sail, a
sail!/ Mercutio. Two, two (II.iii.93-5) vs. Saffron: Marke, marke, A
sentence, a sentencetheres two (G2v-G3r); and 2H6: My lord, a
prize, a prize! Heres the Lord Saye (IV.vii.18, Cont. 1787, Nasheian
portion).
Similarity: Rom.: Nurse. My fan, Peter./ Mercutio. Good Peter, to
hide her face, for her fans the fairer face (II.iii.98-100) vs. SH: Wife. I
must get me a fan or else a maske./ Roger. So you had neede, to hide your
wicked face (III.ii.45-6).32
Similarity: Rom.: Nurse. RoperyDoth not rosemary and Romeo
begin/ both with a letter?/ Romeo. Ay, Nurse, what of that? Both with an
R./ Nurse. Ah, mockerthats the dogs name. R is for the
(II.iv.137, 197-200) vs. Saffron: Gabriell, his eldest sonnes name,
beginning with a G. for Gallowes, Iohn with a I. for Iayle, Richard with
an R. for Ropemaker (I3v); and Summer: Dog They arre and barke at
night against the Moone (D4r).
Similarity: Rom.: Mercutio [as he is dying]. Ask for me tomorrow,
and you shall find me a grave man (III.i.97-8) vs. Strange: So
betuggeth a dead man. But I cannot be induced to belieue a graue man of
his sort (D1v); Summer: DeathLet vs haue no more of these graue
240
Chapter Ten
matters (D1r); WY: Funerall Office: But there are they as full of grauematters of their owneTo Grauesend none went vnlesse they be driuen,
for whosoeuer landed there neuer came back again (D1v-r).
Similarity: Rom.: A plague o both your houses! (III.i.99-100) vs.
Tears: Haue thereby doubled the Plague on them and theyr houses
(X3v).
Similarity: Rom.: Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a
man to death (III.i.100-1) vs. DF: To a dog, or a cat, or a mouse, or a
rat, or anything (Sc. iv.60-1, Nasheian portion).
Similarity: Rom.: They have made worms meat of me (III.i.107)
vs. OF: I see by this we are all wormes meate (A3r).
Similarity: Rom.: Marry, sir, tis an ill cook that cannot lick his
own fingers, therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me
(IV.ii.6-8). A variation of the proverbial expression He is an ill cook that
cannot lick his own fingers (Tilley C636) occurs in two works by
DekkerITBN: Cooke, licke thy fingers, now or neuer (H4v), and RA:
And hauing like a wise Cooke lickt his owne fingers (F4r).
It is true that in Dekkers writing, we hear a few echoes of portions of
Rom. that I attribute to MarloweRom.: Dry sorrow drinks our blood
(III.v.59) vs. OF: Dry heat drinks up my blood (IV.i.61); Rom.: He
jests at scars that never felt a wound (II.i.43) vs. OF: Whilst at his
skarres/ They skoffe, that nere durst view the face of warres (A4v); and
Rom.: And follow thee, my lord, throughout the world (II.i.190) vs. SH:
And Rose will follow thee through all the world (IV.iv.7-8).33 The vast
majority of the known similarities between Rom. and Nashe & Dekker are,
however, to Nasheian passages in Rom.
Division of Rom. Between Marlowe and Nashe

I tentatively divide Rom. between Marlowe and Nashe as follows (W.
J. Craig edition), with the stipulation that at times one could have revised
the work of the other, especially in areas where one author transitions to
the other. I see no particular reason, however, to involve any additional
revising hands:
Marlowe: Act I Prologue; I.i.85-244; I.ii; I.iii with Nashe; I.iv.97-115;
I.v.45-148; Act II Prologue; II.i.1-2; II.ii; II.iii; II.v; II.vi; III.i.115-203;
III.ii; III.iii; III.iv; III.v; IV.i; IV.ii.9-48; IV.iii; IV.v with Nashe; V.i; V.ii;
and V.iii.
Nashe: I.i.1-84; I.iii with Marlowe; I.iv.1-96; I.v.1-44; II.i.3-42; II.iv;
III.i.1-114; IV.ii.1-8; IV.iv; and IV.v with Marlowe.
Romeo and Juliet
241
Notes
1
Sidney Thomas, The Earthquake in Romeo and Juliet, Modern Language Notes
64 (1949): 417-9, and Sarah Dodson, Notes on the Earthquake in Romeo and
Juliet, Modern Language Notes 65 (1950): 144, as cited in Romeo and Juliet, ed.
Jill L. Levenson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 99-100. Great
Earthquakes of the Old World, The Atlantic 24 (1869): 140-150, 146 mentions
that the March 1, 1584 earthquake raised the water levels of Lake Geneva,
Switzerland twenty feet above normal; A Chronological and Historical Account of
the Most Memorable Earthquakes that have Happened in the World (Cambridge: J.
Bentham, 1750), xi cites Quercetan as the source for the knowledge that France
experienced an earthquake on March 1, 1584. The information that the earthquake
was felt in Italy is from
http://www.phenomena.org.uk/page29/page33/page33.html. Accessed on August
7, 2013.
2
Joan Ozark Holmer, Draw, if you be Men: Saviolos Significance for Romeo
and Juliet, Shakespeare Quarterly 45 (1994): 163-89.
3
Hyder Rollins, An Analytic Index to the Ballad-Entries (1557-1709) in the
Registers of the Company of Stationers of London (Hatboro, PA: Tradition Press,
1967), 200, cited in Joan Ozark Holmer, No Vain Fantasy: Shakespeares
Refashioning of Nashe for Dreams and Queen Mab, Shakespeares Romeo and
Juliet: Texts, Contexts, and Interpretations, ed. Jay L. Halio (Newark: Univ. of
Delaware Press, 1995), 49-82.
4
Ule, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1607), 2-3.
5
Arthur Brooke, Brookes Romeus and Juliet, ed. J. J. Munro (London: Chatto &
Winders, 1908), epistle To the Reader, as quoted in Walley, Shakespeares Debt
to Marlowe in Romeo and Juliet, 259.
6
Walley, 259.
7
Walley, 260.
8
Brooke, li. 217, 219-20, as quoted in Walley, 262.
9
Walley, 266.
10
Walley, 267.
11
William Shakespeare. The Complete Works, ed. Wells and Taylor, xxi, 369, 777.
12
Paul H. Kocher, A Marlowe Sonnet, Philological Quarterly 24 (1945): 39-45,
39-40.
13
Watson, Thomas. The Complete Works of Thomas Watson (1556-1592), ed.
Dana F. Sutton (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), Vol. II, 201.
14
R. T. Eriksen, Marlowes Petrarch: In Morte di Madonna Laura, Cahiers
lisabthains 29 (1986): 13-25.
15
Eriksen, Marlowes Petrarch, 16-18; and Roy T. Eriksen, Extant and in
Choice Italian: Possible Italian Echoes in Julius Casear and Sonnet 78, English
Studies 3 (1988): 224-237.
16
James Robinson Howe, Marlowe, Tamburlaine, and Magic (Athens, OH: Ohio
University Press, 1976); and Eriksen, Marlowes Petrarch, 20.
17
Frances A. Yates, A Study of Loves Labours Lost (Cambridge, 1936), 113,
135.
242
18
Chapter Ten
Stanley Wells, Juliets Nurse: the uses of inconsequentiality, in Shakespeares

Styles, ed. Philip Edwards, et al (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980),
51-66, 64.
19
In his c. Sept. 1596 letter to William Cotton, Nashe wrote that his hopes for
writing for the stage were thwarted by the Lord Mayor and the aldermens
persecution of the players, who in their old Lords time thought their state
settled. Ronald B. McKerrow found this to be a reference to the July 1596 death
of Lord Chamberlain Henry Carey, patron of Shakespeares company, the Lord
Chamberlains Men. Thomas Nashe, The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. Ronald B.
McKerrow (London: A. H. Bullen, 1904-10; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958), vol.
5, 194.
20
J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and the Texture of Romeo and Juliet, The Aligarh
Journal of English Studies 5 (1980): 162-74; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and Romeo
and Juliet, Notes & Queries 27 (1980): 161-2; and Joan Ozark Holmer, Nashe as
Monarch of Witt and Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, Texas Studies in
Literature and Language 37 (1995): 314-43.
21
See discussion in McGinn, 972-3.
22
Holmer, Nashe as Monarch of Wit, 315-7.
23
Gabriel Harvey, The Works of Gabriel Havey, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (1884;
New York: AMS Press, 1966), vol. 2, 233, cited in Holmer, Nashe as Monarch
of Wit, 333.
24
Tobin, Nashe and the Texture of Romeo and Juliet, 166.
25
Occurence in Nashe pointed out in Matthew Steggle, The Names of Gabriel
Harvey: Cabbalistic, Russian, and Fencing Sources, Notes & Queries 52 (2005):
185-6.
26
Holmer, Nashe as Monarch of Wit, 317.
27
Tobin, Nashe and the Texture of Romeo and Juliet, 169.
28
Holmer, Nashe as Monarch of Wit, 318.
29
Holmer, No Vain Fantasy, 50, 63, 64.
30
The Shakspere Allusion-book, ed. C. M. Ingleby (London: Oxford University
Press, 1932), 110.
31
Robert Adger Law, The Shoemakers Holiday and Romeo and Juliet, Studies
in Philology 21 (1924): 356-61, 360.
32
Law, 360.
33
Emile Koeppel, Studien ber Shakespeares Wirkung auf Zeitgenssiche
Dramatiker (Louvian: A. Uystpruyst, 1905), 1-11; and Law, 360.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1 HENRY IV
1H4 was first published as the anonymous quarto The Historie of

Henrie the Fourth in 1598. The second quarto, printed in 1599, reported
that it was newly corrected by W. Shake-speare, and Meres listed
Henry the 4 in his list of Shakespeares works. The play was performed
in 1597, and is thought to have been written in late 1596 or 1597. Thus, it
is even further removed in time than Rom. from Marlowes acknowledged
works, although it does tie into them. 1H4s connections are quite plentiful
to the works of Nashe & Dekker, and I will maintain that this is because
Nashe co-authored it with Marlowe.
The Wells and Taylor edition of Shakespeares works calls Falstaff
Sir John Oldcastle, the characters original name before controversy
forced a change, but in the excerpts below, I shall call him Falstaff. Let
us first discuss similarities between 1H4 and the canon of Marlowe.
1H4 and Marlowe: Rare Scattered Word Clusters

1. Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster for holla* near.100
ransom* near.100 Mortimer* (as well as its abbreviations Mort. and Mor.)
between 1H4 and E2 which might have been triggered at the subconscious
level by the name Mortimer:1
1H4:
He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear Ill holla Mortimer! (I.iii.219-22, W. J. Craig
edition)
E2:
Mortimer. Cousin, an if he will not ransom him,
Chapter Eleven
244
Ill thunder such a peal into his ears,

As never subject did unto his king.
Lancaster. Content, Ill bear my part. Holla! Whos there? (Sc.
vi.126-9)
Note also Tit.:
Hollow cave...but I will find them out;
And in their ears tell them my dreadful name (V.ii.35, 338-9)
2. Rare Scattered Word Cluster Between 1H4 and 2H6, Marlovian section,
for Bottom* near.100 of all our fortune* near.100 fly*.
1H4:
The very bottom and the sole of hope,
The very list, the very utmost bound,
Of all our fortunes...
A rendezvous, a home to fly unto. (IV.i.50-2, 57)
2H6:
And to secure us
By what we can, which can no more but fly.
If you be taen, we then should see the bottom
Of all our fortunes; but if we haply scape (V.iv.5-8, not in Cont.)
Strong Parallels
1. 1H4:
A son who is the theme of honours tongue,
Amongst a grove the very straightest plant (I.i.80-1)
DF (re Faustus):
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight (Epilogue:
Chorus.1)
I Henry IV
HL:
His body was as straight as Circes wand (Sestiad 1.61)
Per. (Comparing Marina to his wife):
As wand-like straight (V.i.110, W. J. Craig edition)
E3 (re Prince Edward):
A hazel wand amidst a wood of pines (V.i.142)
TOTS:
Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender (II.i.248-9)
2. 1H4:
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drownd honour by the locks (I.iii.201-3)
Tit.:
He doth me wrong to feed me with delays.
Ill dive into the burning lake below
And pull her out of Acheron by the heels. (IV.iii.42-4)
1T:
Ye Furies, that can mask invisible,
Dive to the bottom of Avernus pool,
And in your hands bring hellish poison up
And squeeze it in the cup of Tamburlaine! (IV.iv.17-20)
2T:
And we descend into thinfernal vaults,
To hale the Fatal Sisters by the hair (II.iv.98-9)
245
Chapter Eleven
246
3. 1H4:
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, Nor can one
England brook a double reign (V.iv.64-5)
E2:
Two kings in England cannot reign at once. (Sc. xxi.58)
4. 1H4:
O gentlemen, the time of life is short.
To spend that shortness basely were too long
If life did ride upon a dials point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour. (V.ii.81-4)
R2:
For now hath time made me his numbring clock.
My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch
Whereto my finger, like a dials point,
Is pointing still in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sounds that tell what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans
Show minutes, hours, and times. But my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbrokes proud joy (V.v.50-9)
3H6:
O God! Methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain.
To sit upon a hill, as I do now;
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many make the hour full complete,
How many hours bring about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live
So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
I Henry IV
247
Passed over to the end they were created,

Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. (II.v.21-29, 38-40)
In all three cases, the character who speaks these words dies.

Below are Matches, Near Matches, and other similarities between 1H4
and Marlovian portions of works attributed to Marlowe, Shakespeare, and
other works previously discussed.
1. 1H4: And breathe short-winded accents of new broils/ To be
commenced in strands afar remote./ No more the thirsty entrance of
this soil/ Shall daub her lips with her own childrens blood./ No
more shall trenching war channel her fields,/ Nor bruise her
flowrets with the armd hoofs/ Of hostile paces. Those opposd
eyes,/ Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,/ All of one
nature, of one substance bred,/ Did lately meet in the intestine
shock (I.i.3-12) vs. HL: Or if it could, down from th enameled
sky/ All heaven would come to claim this legacy,/ And with
intestine broils the world destroy (Sestiad I.249-51)EEBO:
Broil* near.100 heaven* near.100 intestine.
2. 1H4: Shall daub her lips with her own childrens blood./ No more
shall trenching war channel her fields,/ Nor bruise her flowrets
with the armd hoofs/ Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes,/
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heavenknife (I.i.6-10,
17) vs. 1T: That almost brent the axletree of heaven,/ So shall our
swords, our lances, and our shot/ Fill all the air with fiery meteors./
Then, when the sky shall wax as red as blood,/ It shall be said I
made it red myself,/ To make me think of naught but blood and
war (IV.ii.50-5)EEBO: Blood* near.40 war* near.40 meteor*.
3. 1H4: O, that it could be proved/ That some night-tripping fairy
had exchanged/ In cradle clothes our children where they lay,/ And
called mine Percy, his Plantagenet (I.i.85-8) vs. Dido: O Dido,
your little son Ascanius/ Is gone! He lay with me last night/ And in
the morning he was stoln from me;/ I think some fairies have
beguiled me (V.i.212-5)EEBO: Lay* near.30 night* near.30
fairy/fairies. The juxtaposition also occurs in the 1602 quarto of
Wiv., and Eastward Ho, a play by George Chapman, Ben Jonson,
and John Marston, pr. 1605. Only in Dido and 1H4 are the words
248
Chapter Eleven
employed in a similar context: that fairies had taken a baby during

the night.
4. 1H4: Who, then affrighted with their bloody looks,/ Ran fearfully
among the trembling reeds,/ And hid his crisp head in the hollow
bank (I.iii.103-5) vs. 2T: Governor. There lies more gold than
Babylon is worth,/ Which when the city was besieged I hid./ Save
but my life, and I will give it thee./ Tamburlaine. Then, for all your
valour, you would save your life?/ Whereabout lies it?/ Governor.
Under a hollow bank, plus Mighty Tamburlaine, our earthly
God,/ Whose looks make this inferior world to quake (V.i.116-21
and I.iii.138-9); and E3: Let creeping serpents hid in hollow
banks/ Sting with their tongues (III.iii.1421-2)EEBO: Hid
near.30 hollow bank*. This juxtaposition also occurs in John Days
play The Parliament of Bees, pr. 1648.
5. 1H4: She is desperate here, a peevish self-willed harlotry,
(III.i.194) vs. Rom.: A peevish, self-willed harlotry it is
(IV.ii.13-4, Marlovian portion)EEBO Match: Peevish self-willed
harlotry.
6. 1H4: Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong (IV.iii.103)
vs. Wood.: Heres wrong on wrong to stir more mutiny
(I.iii.245, Marlovian portion)EEBO: Wrong(s) on wrong(s). The
phrase also appears in Thomas Heywoods comedy, The Fair Maid
of the West, pr. 1631.
Similarity: 1H4: Advantage feeds him fat while men delay
(III.ii.180) vs. Wood.: Authoritys a dish that feeds men fat (I.ii.58,
Marlovian portion).
Similarity: 1H4: To push against the kingdom, with his help/ We
shall oerturn it topsy-turvy down (IV.i.81-2) vs. Wood.: As if the
world were topsy-turvy turned (II.ii.143, Marlovian portion).
Similarity: 1H4: Before I loved thee as a brother, John,/ But now I
do respect thee as my soul (V.iv.18-9) vs. E3: And wheretofore I loved
thee as Villiers,/ Hereafter Ill embrace thee as myself (IV.iii.49-50).
Additional Connections Between 1 Henry IV, Tamburlaine,

and Edward II
Majorie Garber found that in 1H4, As the quintessential Marlovian
overreacher, the embodiment of hyperbole, Tamburlaine has his truest
counterpart in Shakespearean drama in the person of Hotspur, Harry
Percy.2 Both Tamburlaine and Hotspur, Garber noted, are rebels who first
I Henry IV
249
join forces with kings, then turn against them. Hotspurs speech An if we
live, we live to tread on kings (V.ii.85) expresses a desire that is acted out
in 1T, when Tamburlaine employs Bajazeth as a footstool.
Garbers favorite Marlovian moment in 1H4 is when Hotspur looks
at a map and proposes to change the course of a river: Ill have the
current in this place dammed up,/ And here the smug and silver Trent shall
run/ In a new current fair and evenly (III.i.98-100). She compares it to
Tamburlaines boast that he will change geography: I will confute those
blind geographers/ That make a triple region in the world,/ Excluding
regions which I mean to trace,/ And with this pen reduce them to a map
(1T IV.iv.78-81); and, I would add, Tamburlaines desire expressed while
perusing a map to connect bodies of water: And here, not far from
Alexandria, Whereas the Terrene and the Red Sea meet,/ Being distant less
than full a hundred leagues,/ I meant to cut a channel to them both,/ That
men might quickly sail to India (2T V.iii.131-5).
Garber characterized 1H4 as a parody of Tamburlaine, and Hals
victory over Hotspur in 1H4 as a metaphor for Shakespeares dramatic
victory over Marlowe.3 I would instead characterize 1H4 as involving the
hand of the same dramatist who had grown by leaps and bounds since his
early penning of Tamburlaine. As we noted in our discussion of TOAS,
Marlowe enjoyed parodying himself, but in this case he and Nashe may
have infused Hotspur with Tamburlaine because they viewed the two as
sharing similar character traits.
David Bevington compared 1H4 to a different work by Marlowe, E2.
According to Bevington, both plays deal with the conflicting motives of
patriotism and personal self-interest in the portrayal of political conflict.4
King Henry IV did not make the mistake that King Edward II did when he
surrounded himself with favorites, a theme already handled in R2, a play
to which E2 has frequently been compared. Henry IV made other mistakes
instead, insisting on usurping the barons power with his own centralized
authority. We come to understand the points of view of both the king and
the barons, and realize how civil war became inevitable. Marlowe and
Shakespeares ability to create a new kind of English historical drama
arises out of their great skill in portraying the conflict between powerful
and intelligent persons in a situation where we are invited to sympathize
with both sides.5
Speaking of E2, Bevington wrote:
We have only one play from Marlowe in this vein [the English history
play], but it is a masterpiece, and the continuation of the new genre in
Shakespeares ongoing work can at least show us some of the directions in
which this highly innovative new dramatic genre could move.6
Chapter Eleven
250
Instead, I view 1H4 as an example of the way the new genre did
develop, guided by the same playwrights hand.
1H4 and Nashe & Dekker

The relationship between 1H4 and the canon of Nashe & Dekker is
well documented, thanks to the work of J. D. Wilson, G. Blakemore
Evans, J. M. M. Tobin, and others.7 While Rom. is particularly well
connected to Saffron, Tobin found detailed wording similarities between
1H4 and Nashes Pierce Penniless, three of which are Rare Scattered
Word Clusters. 8
1. Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 1H4 and Pierce for Dagger*
near.200 hostess* near.200 weep* [all forms of verb].
1H4:
Prince Henry. Thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy
precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown.
Falstaff. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now
shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look
red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion,
and I will do it in King Cambyses vein.
Prince Henry. Well, here is my leg.
Falstaff. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.
Hostess. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, ifaith.
Falstaff. Weep not, sweet Queen, for trickling tears are vain.
Hostess. O the Father, how he holds his countenance!
Falstaff. For Gods sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen,
For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.
Hostess. O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as
ever I see!
Falstaff. Peace, good pint-pot; peace (II.v.383-400)
Pierce:
And not to holde your peace whiles the pot is stirring. Nor haue we
one or two kinde of drunkards onely, but eight kindes. The first is
Ape drunke, and he leapes, and sings, and hollowes, and daunceth
for the heauens: the second is Lion drunke, and he flings the pots
about the house, calls his Hostesse whore, breakes the glasse
I Henry IV
251
windowes with his dagger, and is apt to quarrell with any man that
speaks to him: the third is Swine drunke, heauy, lumpish and
sleepie, and cries for a little more drinke, and a fewe more cloathes:
the fourth is Sheepe drunke, wise in his owne conceit, when he
cannot bring foorth a right word: the fifth is Mawdlen drunke when
a fellow will weepe for kindnes in the midst of his Ale (F1r)
2. Rare Scattered Word Cluster: Seven (alone or in a compound) near.200
stars near.200 nobl*/nobil* near.200 Diana*.
1H4:
Falstaff. For we that take purses go by the moon and the seven
stars, and not By Phoebus, he, that wandring knight so fair. And
I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art a king, as God save thy grace
majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none
Prince Henry. What, none?
Falstaff. No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to be prologue
to an egg and butter.
Prince Henry. Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.
Falstaff. Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king let not us that
are squires of the nights body be called thieves of the days beauty.
Let us be Diana s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions
of the moon, and let men say we be men of good government,
being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the
moon, under whose countenance we steal. (I.ii.13-29)
Pierce:
Far be it bright stars of Nobilitie, and glistring attendants
on the true Diana, that this my speech shoulde be anie way
iniurious to your glorious magnificence: for in you liue
those sparks of Augustus liberalitie, that neuer sent
anie awaie emptie: & Science seauenfold throne
well nigh ruined by ryot and auarice, is mightily supported
by your plentifull larges. (I3v)
3. Rare Scattered Word Cluster: Shine [all forms of verb] near.100 good*
tall fellow*.
Chapter Eleven
252
1H4:
He made me mad
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman
Of guns, and drums, and wounds, God save the mark!
And telling me the sovereignst thing on earth
Was parmacity for an inward bruise,
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly (I iii.52-62)
Pierce:
Alas, it is easie for a goodlie tall fellow that shineth in his silkes,
to come and out face a poore simple Pedant in a thred bare cloake
(I3r)
4. Following is a Rare Scattered Word Cluster between 1H4 and Dekkers
The Gulls Hornbook for Ignis fatuus near.100 torch* near.100 link*:
1H4:
If I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a ball of
wildfire, theres no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual
triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a
thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the
night betwixt tavern and tavern (III.iii.37-42)
GH:
Let him that is your candlestick, and holds vp your torch from
dropping (for to march after a link, is shoomaker like) let Ignis
Fatuus, I say being within the reach of the constables staffe, aske
alowd, Sir Giles, or Sir Abram, will you turne this way, or downe
that strete? (F2v-F3r)
Ignis fatuus is a phosphorescent light seen hovering over marshy
ground, caused by the spontaneous combustion of inflammable gas
I Henry IV
253
resulting from the decay of organic matter. This is the sole occurrence of
ignis fatuus in the canon of Shakespeare; Nashe & Dekker also
mentioned it in Pref. to A&S, JMM, and SDS. A link was a torch made
from tow and pitch. Both excerpts joke about a person being used to light
the night.

1H4 is rich with Matches, Near Matches, and other similarities to
works by Nashe & Dekker, and Nasheian portions of works weve
discussed.
1. 1H4: Old lad of the castle (I.ii.41-2) vs. Saffron: Old Dick of
the Castle (A2r)EEBO: Old* fby.2 of the castle*. Old lads of
the castle appears earlier in a 1592 piece by Nashes adversary,
Gabriel Harvey.
2. 1H4: A jest to execute (I.ii.159) vs. MG: To execute a Iest
vpon (C2v)EEBO Match: Jest* near.5 execute*.
3. 1H4: Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new-reaped,/ Showed
like a stubble-land at harvest-home (I.iii.33-4) vs. FHT: Our
stubble-hairde Lawyer, who reapt his beard euery Terme time,
(the Lawyers harvest) (D3v)EEBO Match: Stubble* near.30
reap* near.30 harvest*.
4. 1H4: Poor jade is wrung in the withers (II.i.6) vs. Saffron: That
wrung him on the withers worse than all the rest (P4r); and WH:
Never were three innocent Cittizens so horribly, so abhominably
wrung vnder the withers (H2v)EEBO: Wrung near.20 withers.
The juxtaposition also occurs in playwright John Lylys book,
Euphues his England, 1580.
5. 1H4: At hand quoth Pickpurse (II.i.48) vs. Pierce: At hand
quoth pick-purse (F1v); and BB: For the time was at hand like
a Pickpurse, that Pierce should be cald no more Pennilesse
(D2v)EEBO: At hand fby.20 pick purse*/pickpurse*. Among
playwrights this collocation occurs in John Days The Blind Beggar
of Bednal-green, pr. 1659; Thomas Drus The Duchess of Suffolk,
pr. 1631; and the English translation of George Ruggles Latin
play, Ignoramus. Note also the similarly constructed, nonsensical
phrase in Rom.: Shake, quoth the dove-house (I.iii.35, Nasheian
portion).
6. 1H4: Homo is a common name to all men (II.i.95) vs. Pierce:
Homo is a common name for a man or a woman (D1v)EEBO:
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Chapter Eleven
Homo is a common name. Note also 1HW: Ist possible that Homo/
Should be nor man, nor woman (C1v). The punning, which also is
found in the anonymous play How a Man May Choose a Good
Wife from a Bad, pr. 1602, stems from a discussion of the proper
and the common noun substantive in William Lylys grammar
book: Homo is a common name to all men.
7. 1H4: Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed knaves! (II.ii.82) vs.
Wood.: Here, ye bacon-fed pudding eaters (III.iii.115, Nasheian
portion); and OA: The rich plaintiff with the corpulent, bacon-fed
guts (B1r)EEBO Match: Bacon-fed.
8. 1H4: No, ye fat chuffs (II.ii.86-7) vs. Pierce: A fat chuffe it was
I remember (A3v); and Wood.: Fat chuffs, my lord, all landed
men (IV.iii.79, Nasheian portion)EEBO: fat chuff*, also found
in Robert Greenes A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1592.
9. 1H4: We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns,/ And pass
them current, too (II.iv.90-1) vs. PC: Doe much hurt, if they
light uppon mens Pates: Many crackt Crownes shall passe
currant thorough Cheape-side by Goldsmith stalles, and yet neuer
suspected (C3v); PG: Urcenze. If she misse his crowne tis no
matter for crackking./ Farneze. So she soader it againe, it will
passe currant (C4r); and NG: Haue oftentimes gone away with
crakt crownes, & neuer complained of them that gaue them. If
euer mony were currant ( currendo, of running away) now was
the time (B4r)EEBO: Crown* near.30 crack* near.30 current*.
This juxtaposition is found in the anonymous play How a Man May
Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, pr. 1602.
10. 1H4: But, sweet Nedto sweeten which name of Ned I give thee
this pennyworth of sugar, clapped even now into my hand by an
underskinker (II.v.21-3) vs. GH: Enquire what Gallants sup in
the next roome, anddo notsend them in a pottle of wine, and
your name swetned in two pittifull papers of Suger, with some
filthie Apologie cramd into the mouth of a Drawer (F1v-F2r)
EEBO: Sweeten* near.30 name* near.30 sugar*.
11. 1H4: Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully (II.v.73-4)
vs. Almond: For fiue marke a yeare and a canuas dublet (C4v);
and Pierce: Will scarse get a Scholler a paire of shoes and a
Canuas-doublet (B4r)EEBO: Canvas doublet*. The phrase
occurs in The Cheats, a comedy by John Wilson, pr. 1664; and a
book by playwright Aphra Behn, 1678.
12. 1H4: If manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of
the earth, then am I a shotten herring (II.v.128-9) vs. SHR: The
I Henry IV
third that came sneaking in was a leane ill-faced shotten-herringbellied rascall (C3r)EEBO Match: Face* near.20 shotten
herring*.
13. 1H4: You carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick
dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still run and roared, as ever I
heard bull-calf (II.v.261-4) vs. WY: As nimbly as if his guts had
bene taken out by a hangman (F2r)EEBO Match: Guts near.20
nimbly.
14. 1H4: Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a
devil haunts thee in the likeness of a fat old man (II.v.451-3) vs.
Pierce: The Diuell (as they make it) is onely a pestilent humour in
a man, of pleasure, profit, or policie, that violently carries him
away to vanitie, villanie, or monstrous hypocrisie (G2v)EEBO
Match: Devil* near.30 violently carry* fby.3 away.
15. 1H4, said of Falstaff: That stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted
Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly (II.v.456-8) vs.
Tears, said of Gabriel Harvey: All the rest of his inuention is
nothing but an oxe with a pudding in his bellie, not fit for any
thing els, saue only to feast the dull eares of ironmongers,
ploughmen, carpenters and porters (1594 ed., **r)EEBO Match:
Ox* near.30 pudding* in near.30 belly* In both cases, the quip
about the ox is employed to insult a person.
16. 1H4: To velvet-guards and Sunday-citizens (III.i.252) vs. SDS:
O ueluet-garded Theeues! (B3v)EEBO: Velvet guard*. The
juxtaposition occurs in John Marstons Histrio-mastix, pr. 1610,
and James Shirleys The School of Complement, pr. 1631.
17. 1H4: I would swear by thy face; my oath should be By this fire
thats Gods angel! (III.iii.33-4) vs. Sat.: Myne Ingle is all fire
and water I markt, by this Candle (which is none of Gods Angels)
(C1r); and NH: By this iron (which is none a gods Angell)
(D3r)EEBO: By this fby.10 God* angel*. The juxtaposition
appears in two other plays, the anonymous Misogonus, c. 1570, and
George Chapmans The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, wr. 1596,
which the passage in 1H4 apparently parodies.9
18. 1H4: Falstaff. How now, lad, is the wind in that door, ifaith? Must
we all march?/ Bardolph. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion
(III.iii.88-90) vs. Sat.: Dost stare my Sarcens-head at Newgate?
Dost gloate? Ile march through thy drunkirke guts, plus Why
then come, well walke arme in arme,/ As tho we were leading
one another to Newgate (C4v and F3v)EEBO: March* near.20
Newgate*.
255
256
Chapter Eleven
19. 1H4: I am a soused gurnet (IV.ii.12-3) vs. 1HW: Puncke, you

sowcde gurnet? (D2v)EEBO: Soused gurnet*. The expression
is also found in the anonymous play Wily Beguiled, pr. 1606. We
hear Gurnets head in BMC and Sat.
Similarity: 1H4: What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the
day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the
tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed
sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why
thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day (I.ii.612) vs. Summer: What haue we to doe with scales, and hower-glasses,
except we were Bakers, or Clock-keepers? I cannot tell how other men are
addicted, but it is against my profession to vse any scales but such as we
play at with a boule, or keepe any howers but dinner or supper. It is a
pedanticall thing to respect times and seasons (D1r).10 Both passages
scoff at keeping the time of day and relate time to food and pastimes.
Similarity: 1H4: And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of
durance? (I.ii.42-3). While I find only one other EEBO occurrence of
robe* of durance, in G. T.s The Legend f Brita-mart, 1646, we hear the
uncommon phrase suite of durance in Lenten: Had got him a suit of
durance, that would last longer then one of Erra Paters Almanacks
(K1r); BMC: I goe in a suite of Durance for her sake (E2v); WH: Let
me not liue but Ile giue thee a good suite of durance (E1r); SHR: Let
him goe in a blacke suite of Durance (E1r); Over.: His apparrell is
daubd commonly with statute late [lace], the suite it selfe of durance
(85); and Err.: Takes pity on decayed men and gives them suits of
durance (IV.iii.24-6, Nasheian portion)EEBO: Suit* fby.5 of fby.5
durance. The punning revolves around a lengthy law suit and a suit of
apparel.
Similarity: 1H4: Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman
hath no lean wardrobe. Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib cat (I.ii.735) vs. 1HW: Now you looke like an old he cat, going to the gallowes
(D1v). The joking revolves around gib being short for gibbet, meaning
gallows, and a gib cat being a cat that is castrated. Note also GH: If you
be a Courtier, discourse of the obtaining of Suits (D4r).
Similarity: 1H4: The melancholy of Moor-ditch (I.ii.77-8) vs. PP:
Shall be condemned of melancholy, and be adiudged to walke ouer
More-fieldes (E3v).
Similarity: 1H4: Prince. I see a good amendment of life in thee, from
praying to purse-taking./ Falstaff. Why, Hal, tis my vocation (I.ii.1024) vs. Tears: Hee held it as lawfull for him, (since all labouring in a
I Henry IV
257
mans vocation is but getting,) to get wealth as well with his sword by the
High way side, as the Labourer with his Spade (H1v); and 2H6: Yet it is
said Labour in thy vocation; which is as much to say as Let the
magistrates be labouring men (IV.ii.17-9, Nasheian portion).
Similarity: 1H4: The incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue
will tell us (I.ii.183-4) vs. Saffron: He is ashamd of the
incomprehensible corpulencie thereof (F2v); and Pierce: A fat
corpulent man (E2v).
Similarity: Peter Corbin and Douglas Sedge noted that the spruce
courtier in a Nasheian section of Wood. (III.ii.114-245) was a forebear of
the trimly dressed lord who demands Hotspurs prisoners in 1H4 (I.iii.3268).11 Regarding the lord in 1H4 we hear, To be so pestered with a
popinjay (I.iii.49). It is the same sentiment found in Nashes Saffron
when Don Carneades reports Gabriel Harveys insults of Nashe to Nashe:
Hee calls thee the greene Popinjay, & saies thou art thine own idoll
(Q2r). Dekker uses popinjay as an insult in GH: Haunting theaters, he
may sit there, like a popiniay, onely to learne play-speeches (A2r). 1H4s
is the sole appearance of popinjay in the canon of Shakespeare; it occurs
meaning bird in Lenten and OF.
Similarity: 1H4: Out of my grief and my impatience (I.iii.50) vs.
1HW: Out of your anger & impatience (C3r).
Similarity: 1H4, speaking of a certain lord: This villanous saltpetre
should be digged/ Out of the bowels of the harmless earth (I iii.59-60) vs.
Almond: Your printers were shrouded vnder the name of saltpetermen,
so that who but Hodgkins, Tomlins, and Sims at the vndermining of a
house, and vndoing of poore men by diggyng vp their flo[o]rs (C3v).
Similarity: 1H4: Falstaff. I am accursed to rob in that thiefs
company. The rascal hath removed my horse and tied him I know not
where. If I travel but four foot by the square further afoot, I shall break my
wind (II.ii.11-4) vs. Pierce: The Romane Censors, if they lighted vpon a
fat corpulent man, they straight tooke away his horse, and constrained him
to goe a foote (E2v). 1H4 and Nashe both discuss taking away a horse
from a fat man, forcing him to walk.
Similarity: 1H4: Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I
be taen, Ill peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all and
sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison (II.ii.43-6) vs. NSS:
I shall have scuruy ballads made of me,/ Sung to the Hanging Tune
(D4v); NG: I have an intent to hire three or foure Ballad-makers, who I
know will be glad for sixe pence and a dinner, to turne all this limping
prose into more perfectly-halting verse, that it shall doe any true-borne
Citizens heart good, to heare such doings sung to some filthie tune (C1r-
258
Chapter Eleven
v); Tears: Ignominious Ballads made of you, which euery Boy would
chaunt vnder your nose (O1r); NH: There will be ballads made of him
(G1v); Wood.: Ill have these verses sung to their faces by one of my
schoolboys, wherein Ill tickle them all ifaith (III.iii.173-5, Nasheian
portion); and 1HW: Sfoote, doe you long to have base roags that
maintaine a saint Anthonies fire in their nose (by nothing but two penny
ale) make ballads of you? (A3r).
Similarity: 1H4: Ye gorbellied knaves (II.ii.97) vs. Tears: You
gorbellied Mammonists (Y3v); WY: My gorbelly Host (F2r); and
Saffron: An vnconscionable vast gorbellied Volume (F2r-v).
Similarity: 1H4, when fleeing from a thief: Falstaff sweats to death,/
And lards the lean earth as he walks along (II.iii.16-7) vs. WY, when
fleeing from a plague-ridden corpse: Out of the house he wallowed
presently, beeing followed with two or three doozen of napkins to drie vp
the larde, that ranne so fast downe his heeles, that all the way hee went,
was more greazie than a kitchen-stuffe-wifes basket (F2r);12 and said to
the host in MG, who is fat: my honest-larded Host (C1r). Indeed, MG
compares the host to Sir John Old Castle, Falstaffs original name: If you
chaunce to talke of fatte Sir Iohn Old-castle, he [the host] wil tell you, he
was his great Grand-father, and not much vnlike him in Paunch (B4r).
Similarity: 1H4: I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can
call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis
(II.v.6-8) vs. GH: Your first complement shall be to grow most inwardly
acquainted with the drawers, to learne their names, as Iack, and Will,
and Tom (F1r).
Similarity: 1H4, said in a tavern by the drawer, i.e., the tapster:
Anon, anon sir (II.v.26, 36, 43, 87, 98) vs. Summer: I am no tapster to
say, Anon, anon, sir (E2v); Unfortunate: His Tapster ouerhearing him,
cried, anone, anone sir (B2v); and PWPF: Tauernsand drawers run
vp stayres, and downe stayres, crying anon, anon, onely at his call (F1r).
Similarity: 1H4: Clinking of pewter (II.v.45) vs. JMM: Pewterpot clinkers (C2v).
Similarity: 1H4, said in a tavern to the drawer: What, standest thou
still, and hearest such a calling? Look to the guests within (II.v.80-1) vs.
Unfortunate: Ran hastely to his Tapster, and all to belaboured him about
the eares, for letting Gentlemen call so long and not looke in to them
(B3r).
Similarity: 1H4: I am a rogue if I drunk today, I am a rogue, if I
were not at half-sword with a dozen of them, two hours together, and
Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else (II.v.152, 164-5, and 210)
vs. OF: I am a villaine, Master, if I am not hungrie (D3v).
I Henry IV
259
Similarity: 1H4: Two rogues in buckram suits, and Four rogues in

buckram (II.v.193-4, 197-8) vs. Wood., said to neer-do-well Nimble:
As thou dost now in buckram (I.ii.112, Nasheian portion).
Similarity: 1H4: Ill tickle ye for a young prince, ifaith (II.v.449)
vs. Wood.: Ill tickle them all, ifaith (III.iii.174-5, Nasheian portion).
Similarity: 1H4: But for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true
Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he
is, old Jack Falstaff (II.v.480-2) vs. Saffron: Nor Dick of the Cow, that
man Demilance Northren Borderer, who plaid his prizes with the Lord
Iockey so brauely: but paraphrasticall gallant Patron Dick, as good a fellow
as euer was Heigh, fill the pot, hostesse: curteous Dicke, comicall Dicke,
liuely Dicke, louely Dicke, learned Dicke, olde Dicke of Lichfield (A2v).
G. Blackmore Evans wrote of this portion of Saffron, The whole passage
asks for application to the character and behavior of Falstaff.13
Similarity in dislike of ballad-makers or ballad-mongers,
contrasted with poet*1H4: I had rather be a kitten and cry mew/
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers./ I had rather hear a brazen
canstick turned,/ Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree,/ And that would set
my teeth nothing on edge,/ Nothing so much as mincing poetry
(III.i.125-30) vs. Pierce: With the enemies of Poetrie I care not if I haue
a bout, and those are they that tearme our best Writers but babling
Ballatmakers, holding them fantasticall fooles that haue wit, but cannot
tell how to vse it (D3r); Terrors: If hee loue good Poets hee must not
countenance Ballat-makers (C1r); and NFH: Very fewe can be suffered
to liue there [in hell]yet some pittifull fellowesnot Poets indeed, but
ballad-makers, rub out there, and write Infernals (B4v).
Similarity: 1H4: I had rather hear a brazen canstick [First Folio:
candlestick] turned, plus I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers
(III.i.127, II.v.6-7) vs. Lenten: The sworne brothers of candlesticke
turners and tinkers (I3r).
Similarity: 1H4: My skin hangs about me like an old ladys loose
gown (III.iii.3) vs. Unfortunate: That hanges on his shoulders lyke a
countrie husewiues banskin [barm-skin, meaning leather apron], and A
paire of side paned hose that hung downe like two scales filled with
Holland Cheeses (D1r and C1v); Saffron: Let the chaine hang downe on
your breast, like a stale greasie Courtiers chaine (F3v); Pierce: A paire
of trimke slops, sagging down like a shoomakers wallet (A3v); and GH:
The Danish sleue, sagging downe like a Welsh wallet (B3v-B4r).
Similarity: 1H4, said in a tavern: An I have not forgotten what the
inside of a church is made of (III.iii.7-8) vs. 2HW: Sfoot, I wonder how
the inside of a Tauerne lookes now (C2).
260
Chapter Eleven
Similarity: 1H4: Why, you are so fat, Falstaff, that you must needs
be out of all compass, out of all reasonable compass (III.iii.20-3) vs.
NH: I was in doubt I should haue growne fat of late: & it were not for
law suites: and feare of our wiues, we rich men should grow out of all
compass (E1r).
Similarity: 1H4: Do thou amend thy face, and Ill amend my life.
Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poopbut tis in the
nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning LampThou hast saved
me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the
night betwixt tavern and tavern (III.iii.23-6, 40-1) vs. WY, speaking of the
host, with a glistening, carbuncled nose: The Hamburgers offered I know
not how many Dollars, for his companie in an East-Indian voyage, to haue
stoode a nightes in the Poope of their Admirall, onely to saue the
charges of candles (F1v). Both excerpts joke about a persons nose as a
source of light and a means to save money. This is the same passage in
1H4 that shares a Rare Scattered Word Cluster with Dekkers GH (see
above).
Similarity: 1H4: I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire and
Dives that lived in purplefor there he is in his robes, burning, burning
(III.iii.30-2) vs. SDS: In costly garments, thou didst wrong so thine
owne soulethe father hath sat at his dore in purple, and at his boord like
Diues, surfeiting on those dishes which were earned by other mens
browes (B4v). Note also 1H4: Slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted
cloth, where the gluttons [Dives] dogs lick his sores (IV.ii.25-7). Nashe
& Dekker seemed particularly affected by the Bible story about Dives the
rich man and Lazarus the beggar. He mentioned Dives in Pierce (E2r),
where he is associated with the words lick and gluttons; Tears (M1v
and O1r); DD (E3v and F1v); Sat. (F1v); WA (B2r); VD (I4v); and NFH
(G1r). Dives is referred to in 2H4 as the glutton: Let him be damned,
like the glutton (I.ii.38).
Similarity: 1H4: Is the wind in that door, ifaith? (III.iii.88) vs. 1HW:
Looke there, the winde is alwayes at that doore (V.ii.198).
Similarity: 1H4: Revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen, the
cankers of a calm world and a long peace (IV.ii.29-30) vs. Pierce:
Others by dirt, as worms, and so I know many goldfiners and hostlers
come up; some by herbs, as cankers, and All the cankerwormes that
breede on the rust of peace (F3v).
Similarity: 1H4: Bought out their services, that you would think that
I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swinekeeping, from eating draff and husks (IV.ii.33-5) vs. Unfortunate: The
onely thing they did well was the prodigall childs hunger, most of their
I Henry IV
261
schollers being hungerly kept; & surely you would haue sayd they had bin
brought vp in hogs academie to learne to eate acorns, if you had seene
how sedulously they fell to them. Not a ieast had they to keepe their
auditors from sleeping but of swill and draffe; yes, nowe and then the
seruant put his hand into the dish before his master, & almost choked
himselfe, eating slouenly (F2r).
Similarity: 1H4: And the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host
at Saint Albans, or the red-nosed inn-keeper of Daventry. But thats all
one; theyll find linen enough on every hedge (IV.ii.45-8) vs. BB: Is
there not Law too for stealing away a mans slumbers, as well as for
shetes off from hedges (B4v); and BL: Where to steale Hens, and from
what hedges to fetch sheets (C4r). All excerpts refer to the practice of
drying laundry on hedges, where it was an easy target for thieves.
Similarity: 1H4: Prince. Why, thou owest God a death./ Falstaff. Tis
not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his day (V.i.126-8) vs.
Sat.: I owe God a death, and he will make mee payt against my will, Ile
say tis hard dealing (H1r).
Division of 1H4 Between Marlowe and Nashe

I tentatively divide 1H4 between Marlowe and Nashe as follows (W. J.
Craig edition), with the stipulation that at times one could have revised the
work of the other, especially in areas where one author transitions to the
other. I see no particular reason to involve any additional revising hands:
Marlowe: I.i; I.ii.217-238; I.iii, except 28-69 with Nashe; II.iii with
Nashe; III.i with Nashe; III.ii; III.iii.215-28; IV.i; IV.iii; IV.iv; V.i.1-120;
V.ii; V.iii except Falstaff; V.iv except Falstaff; and V.v.
Nashe: I.ii.1-216; I.iii.28-69 with Marlowe; II.i; II.ii; II.iii with
Marlowe; II.iv; III.i with Marlowe; III.iii.1-214; IV.ii; V.i.121-43; V.iii
Falstaff; and V.iv Falstaff.
On the basis of the distribution of similarities, it seems to me that both
Marlowe and Nashe wrote lines for Hotspur, with Nashes contributions
appearing in his early speeches, making Hotspur sound rougher. Falstaff,
through and through, is Nashe, while the nobility, with the exception of
Prince Henry in some of the tavern scenes, is Marlowe.
262
Chapter Eleven
Notes
1
Edward Malone reported this parallel in 1790. Richard S. M. Hirsch, A Second

Echo of Edward II in I.iii. of 1 Henry IV, Notes & Queries 220 (1975): 168.
2
Marjorie Garber, Marlovian Vision/Shakespearean Revision, Research
Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 22 (1979): 3-9, p. 4.
3
Garber, 7.
4
David Bevington, Christopher Marlowe: The Late Years, Placing the Plays of
Christopher Marlowe. Fresh Cultural Contexts, ed. Sarah Munson Deats and
Robert A. Logan (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 209-23, 211-2.
5
Bevington, 213.
6
Bevington, 222.
7
The First Part of the History of Henry IV, ed. John Dover Wilson (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1946), 191-5 plus notes throughout; Supplement to
Henry IV, Part 1: A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore
Evans (New York: Shakespeare Society of America, 1956); and J. J. M. Tobin,
Nashe and I Henry IV, Notes & Queries 223 (1978): 129-31, 131.
8
Tobin, Nashe and I Henry IV, 129-31.
9
R. P. Cowl, Echoes of Henry the Fourth in Elizabethan Drama, Times Literary
Supplement Oct. 22, 1925.
10
Reported in Wilson, The First Part of the History of Henry IV, 191.
11
Corbin and Sedge, 31.
12
Cecil C. Seronsy, Dekker and Falstaff, Shakespeare Quarterly 4 (1953): 3656.
13
G. Blakemore Evans, Shakespeares I Henry IV and Nashe, Notes & Queries
204 (1959): 250.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CONCLUSION
According to Brian Gibbons, There is a profoundly Protean quality in

his [Marlowes] creative genius, adopting in swift succession a wide
diversity of poetic and dramatic forms, yet investing each with a new
potency and expressive rangeThe plays are experiments in separate
modes of theatre.1 I have sought to enlarge Marlowes diverse canon by
providing evidence that he wrote Caesars Revenge, The True
Tragedy/3H6, and Edward III by himself, and co-authored The Taming of
a Shrew, The Contention/2H6, Titus Andronicus, Thomas of Woodstock,
Romeo and Juliet, and 1 Henry IV.
In doing so, I track the growth of Marlowe from the high astounding
terms of his c. 1586-7 period, to the glimmers of greatness in history plays
c. 1590, to a continued maturing in Edward III and Titus Andronicus, to
the brilliant fruition of stagecraft, poetry, and plotting in Romeo and Juliet
and 1H4. I have endeavored to demonstrate that the plays discussed
represent a Marlowe-Shakespeare continuum, with similarities to Marlowe
predominating in Caesars Revenge, a play written in Marlowes early
Tamburlaine style which nevertheless exhibits linguistic ties to
Shakespeare, through 1H4, a Shakespearean play which nevertheless
contains muted linguistic ties to Marlowe. Each play that I have attributed
in whole or part to Marlowe via a combination of Matches, Near Matches,
and other similarities, Rare Scattered Word Clusters, Image Clusters,
Strong Parallels, logic, and biographical connections fits along this
timeline.
As for Thomas Nashe, I have proposed a Marlowe-Nashe partnership
beginning as early as DF c. 1588 (see Appendix A), with Marlowe
penning the marvelous poetry and wisdom, and Nashe the wit in works
that they co-authored. I have also fingered Thomas Nashe as a co-author
of The Jew of Malta (see Appendix B), The Taming of a Shrew, Thomas of
Woodstock, The Contention (it is unclear whether he helped rewrite it as
2H6), Romeo and Juliet, and 1 Henry IV.
264
Chapter Twelve
Perhaps their partnership began earlier, with Tamburlaine, c. 1587. In

the letter to readers prefacing his 1590 edition of 1T and 2T, the printer
R[obert] J[ones] wrote:
I have purposely omitted and left out some fond and frivolous jestures,
digressing and, in my poor opinion, far unmeet for the matter, which I
thought might seem more tedious unto the wise than any way else to be
regardedthough, haply, they have been of some vain conceited fondlings
greatly gaped at, what times they were showed upon the stage in their
graced deformities. Nevertheless, now to be mixtured in print with such
matter of worth, it would prove a great disgrace to so honourable and
stately a history.
I raise the possibility that Nashe made a non-extant contribution

because Nashe & Dekker mentioned Tamburlaine in a total of sixteen
pieces: Tears, Saffron, Strange, OF, SH, BMC, Sat., WY, BB, FHT, SDS,
NFH, JMM, Over., OA, and SD. Although Nashe & Dekkers referring to a
work does not necessarily mean that he had a hand in writing it, this seems
sometimes to have been the case, and perhaps at times he did so
intentionally as a clue signaling his involvement. If the authorship
attributions I made to Nashe & Dekker in The Mysterious Connection
between Thomas Nashe, Thomas Dekker, and T. M. are correct, works in
which he was involved and where he elsewhere referred to them include a
nod to 1H6 in Pierce; to Pierce Penniless in BB; to DF or its character
Mephistopheles in BB, SD, SH, and Sat.; to WY in SDS; to PC in WY and
NFH; to BL in LC; to WH in RG; to WE in MML; and to RA, BL, and LC in
OA. He praised himself (Thomas Nashe) in NFH, and defended himself
(Thomas Nashe) in FHT.
If I am proposing that Nashe and Marlowe co-authored so many early
plays, why do I not credit them both for Dido, which is the only play to
name both on its cover? Because Nashes voice is missing. His style is
absent. If I am correct that Nashe was not involved in penning Dido, his
inclusion on its cover could have been an honest mistake. It is also
possible, however, that Nashes name was added as a ruse, to intentionally
cause style confusion. If we accepted that Nashe co-authored Dido, then
wed have to admit that he could write like Marlowe. Thus, so might
others have been able to write like Marlowe, including Shakespeare.
As for other works attributed to Shakespeare, each must be examined
individually to determine probable involvement by Marlowe and/or Nashe.
At this point, I would go on record as stating that Marlowe wrote Venus
and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, the Sonnets, Richard II, and Richard III
by himself. I believe that Marlowes was the main hand behind the other
Conclusion
265
Shakespeare plays, with the possible exception of The Merry Wives of

Windsor. I view The Comedy of Errors, a play to which Dekker referred in
MG, Sat., NFH, and 1HW, as a work primarily by Marlowe that also
involved Thomas Nashe.
This is not to hypothesize that Marlowe did not pen comic elements in
Shakespeare. His was the main hand behind TOAS and, it seems to me,
the only hand behind The Taming of the Shrew. Regarding other plays
discussed in this book, there is a single comedic line in Edward III, which
I have found to be solely written by Marlowe, when the King instructs
Lodowick to write a love letter, and Lodowick asks if he is to write to a
woman. The King responds, What, thinkst thou I did bid thee praise a
horse? (II.i.98).
Acts I and II of JM, surely by Marlowe, drip with ironic humor. When
the Christian Ferneze tells the Jewish Barabas he must forfeit half of his
estate, he justifies himself with the claim that Jews killed Jesus: Tis not
our fault, but thy inherent sin. Barabas replies, What? Bring you
scripture to confirm your wrongs?/ Preach me not out of my possessions
(I.ii.110-2). In a richly ironic scene in MP (Sc. xi.1-13), Catholic soldiers
discuss how to dispose of the body of the Admiral, a Protestant who had
been shot, then stabbed to death. They opt not to burn it, because that
would infect the air with him, and therefore themselves, nor to throw him
in the river, because that would corrupt the water, then the fish, then all
who eat the fish.
Barabas, who is anything but, is called good seven times, in the same
ironic sense that Othellos Iago, an outrageous liar, is termed honest
Iago five times. We hear the same technique when Mark Antony, in a
Julius Caesar speech awash in irony, terms Caesars murderers
honourable ten times, and when the protagonist in Timon of Athens calls
two men he despises honest seven times in a row.
And there is the gentler humor of Hero and Leander, such as when
Hero is likened to a fish: Thus having swallowed Cupids golden hook,/
The more she strived, the deeper was she strook and her protests to
Leander: Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid?/ Aye me, such
words as these should I abhor,/ And yet I like them for the orator (Sestiad
I.333-4, 338-40).
As for studies which have found that Marlowe did not write
Shakespeare, including ones by Ward E. Y. Elliott & Robert J. Valenza,
Thomas Merriam, Gary Taylor & Stanley Wells, and Neal Fox, Omran
Ehmoda & Eugene Charniak, if Marlowe and Nashe co-authored some of
the Shakespeare plays, researchers have not been comparing apples and
apples.2 As Taylor and Wells noted, In establishing a reliable
266
Chapter Twelve
Shakespearean norm one must begin with an uncontroversial core of

undisputed works, and for the purposes of their function word testing,
they excluded twelve works of doubtful or collaborative status.3 They
nevertheless included the plays Rom. and 1H4. Comparing Marlowe to a
Shakespearean norm derived from writing by two or more playwrights
establishes nothing. In addition, such tests do not sufficiently compensate
for changes in Marlowe over time, given how very different Edward II is
from his early works that were heavily influenced by The Faerie Queene:
the Tamburlaine plays and, I have proposed, Caesars Revenge. Lastly,
they fail to account for the possibility that an already great playwright
vowed to mount higher, redoubling his efforts at his craft, while at the
same time deliberately attempting to sound less like his former self who
was, after all, dead.
My research indicates that the story of Shakespeare is something other
than that of a provincial, little-schooled actor, an inexplicable genius,
writing some of the greatest plays of all time. It indicates the story instead
is that of a scholar who studied hard at university, wrote poetry and plays
from a young age, was accused of heresy and faked his own death to avoid
execution, and then continued to devote himself to his craft, elevating it to
heights which mankind has appreciated ever since. The story is more
likely that travel abroad combined with self-sacrifice, the support of
friends, the influence of vast amounts of reading material, including
hermetic texts, moments of joy when he wrote, and of despair when he
contemplated his situation, contributed to the wisdom on display in the
Shakespeare plays; and that co-authorship with others, particularly
Thomas Nashe, contributed to some of the wit and variance in writing
style.
Through Marlowes study of Ovid, he well knew that poets could
achieve immortality through writing. What bitter irony if he could do so
only by living outside his homeland as Ovid had, part of the time, writing
under someone elses name. Yet what sweet success in the end, not only
for him, but for Thomas Nashe, and for all of us who continue to enjoy the
fruits of the labor of William Shakespeare.
Notes
1
Brian Gibbons, Unstable Proteus: Marlowes The Tragedy of Dido Queen of

Carthage, Christopher Marlowe, ed. Brian Morris (New York: Hill and Wang,
1968), 27-46, 28.
2
Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and William Montgomery.
William Shakespeare, a Textual Companion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 80-
Conclusion
267
3; T. V. N. Merriam, Marlowes Hand in Edward III, Literary and Linguistic

Computing 8 (1993): 59-72; Ward E. Y. Elliott and Robert J. Valenza, And Then
There Were None: Winnowing the Shakespeare Claimants, Computers and the
Humanities 30 (1996): 191-245; and Neal Fox, Omran Ehmoda and Eugene
Charniak, Statistical Stylometrics and the Marlowe-Shakespeare Authorship
Debate, (Providence, RI: Brown University M A. Thesis, 2012). The Elliott and
Valenza study has been the topic of hot debate, including an original back and
forth with Donald Foster: Donald W. Foster, Response to Elliot and Valenza,
And Then There Were None, Computers and the Humanities 30 (1996): 247-55;
Ward E. Y. Elliott and Robert J. Valenza, The Professor Doth Protest Too Much,
Methinks: Problems with the Foster Response, Computers and the Humanities
32 (1998): 425-90; Donald W. Foster, The Claremont Shakespeare Authorship
Clinic: How Severe Are the Problems? Computers and the Humanities 32 (1998):
491-510; and Ward E. Y. Elliott and Robert J. Valenza, So Many Hardballs, So
Few of Them Over the Plate: Conclusions from our Debate with Donald Foster,
Computers and the Humanities 36 (2002), 455.
3
Wells and Taylor 81. They note, If you take the Marlowe canon as a unified
group you can confidently say that the group is statistically incompatible with the
Shakespeare group. On the other hand, if you consider some of the works in the
Marlowe group [such as E2] individually, you could not prove, on the basis of this
[function word] test alone, that Shakespeare did not write them, 83.
APPENDIX A
THOMAS NASHE AND DOCTOR FAUSTUS
Doctor Faustus is generally dated 1588-92 and attributed to

Christopher Marlowe, the sole name on its title page.1 Paul Kocher, with
later support by H. W. Crundell, made an impressive case that Nashe
wrote humorous prose in Doctor Faustus on the basis of its similarity to
Nashes other works, but Kocher believed that Nashe added this prose in
1594.2
I propose that the play was originally co-authored by Thomas Nashe
and on the boards by 29 March, 1588, the date Perimedes the BlackeSmith was registered. In his preface to Perimedes, Robert Greene states:
Latelye two Gentlemen Poets, made two mad men of Rome beate it out of
their paper bucklers: & had it in derision, for that I could not make my
verses jet upon the stage in tragicall buskins, everie worde filling the
mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heaven with that
Atheist Tamburlan, or blaspheming with the mad preest of the sonne: but
let me rather openly pocket up the Asse at Diogenes hand: then wantonlye
set out such impious instances of intolerable poetrie: such mad and
scoffing poets, that have propheticall spirits, as bred of Merlins race, if
there be anye in England that set / the end of scollarisme in an English
blanck verse, I thinke either it is the humor of a novice that tickles them
with selfe-love, or to[o] much frequenting the hot house (to use the
Germaine proverbe) hath swet out all the greatest part of their wits, which
wasts Gradatim, as the Italians say Poco poco. If I speake darkely
Gentlemen, and offend with this digression, I crave pardon, in that I but
answere in print, what they have offered on the Stage3
Greenes references to Marlowes Tamburlaine and to Merlin have

enabled scholars to identify his preface as a complaint, in part, against
Christopher Marlowe, whose name was recorded as Marlin (pronounced
the same as Merlin) in Cambridge University scholarship stipend
records. As Park Honan noted, Greene was likely upset that Marlowe and
someone else had mocked his first attempt at a play, Alphonsus, King of
Aragon, a poor imitation of Tamburlaine which is thought to have been
written in 1587.4
269
In my view, Doctor Faustus parodies Greene. Robert Greenes

nickname was Robin, and Mephistopheles transforms a clownish
character named Robin into an ape. Robin steals one of Faustus conjuring
books and imitates him by raising the devil. Angry over being summoned,
the devil changes Robin into an ape and his friend Rafe into a dog,
according to the 1604 A-text of Doctor Faustus. In the 1616 B-text, twice
the reference is to Robin being turned into a dog and his friend Dick into
an ape, yet once Robin says the devil gave him an apes face. According to
this interpretation, Greene not only was an ape in the sense of being a
copier, but was literally turned into an ape on-stage in Doctor Faustus. No
wonder he was upset.
Additional support that Greene was speaking about Doctor Faustus in
the Perimedes preface stems from Charles Nicholls finding that the mad
priest of the sun was Hermetist Giordano Bruno, who advocated
Copernicus theory that the earth revolved around the sun during lectures
in England, 1583-5.5 Since Greene mentions impious instances (plural) of
intolerable poetry, his comment about the mad priest of the sun may well
have been an allusion to another play in addition to Tamburlaine. Scholars
have found echoes of Bruno in the character of Doctor Faustus, and
Doctor Faustus could certainly be viewed as impious, so it is logical that
Greene had that play in mind.
Greene scoffs at those who set the end of scholarism in an English
blank verse. In Doctor Faustus prologue, the chorus presents Doctor
Faustus as a fine theological student, graced with scholarism. Then
Faustus takes the stage and, speaking in English blank verse, opines that
there must be something more than Aristotelian analytics and logical
dispute. He bids farewell to the study of divinity, physic, and law, and
finds that something more beyond scholarism in magic. In this speech,
Faustus utters the word end four times in a row. Since Marlowe was an
innovator and Greene an imitator whose preface was a response, Greene
may well have lifted scholarism and its association with end from
Doctor Faustus.
In this regard, it is worth noting that the first two listings of
scholarism in both the OED and EEBO, comprised of 15,000 works at
the time of my research, are in Greenes preface to Perimedes the BlackeSmith and in Doctor Faustus (if Doctor Faustus was written by the end of
1588). It is an uncommon word, elsewhere occurring but seven more times
in EEBO, including two pieces by Greene which my timeline places
subsequent to Doctor Faustus.6
The English Faust Book was published in Germany in 1587, and one of
Doctor Faustus sources was its English translation, the first-edition
270
Appendix A
publication date of which is unknown. We do know that the published

translation was named on an inventory of the possessions of someone who
died in late 1589.7 Even if the translation existed only in manuscript by
March, 1588, Marlowe might have gotten hold of it. The well-connected
playwright read manuscripts of Edmund Spensers The Faerie Queene and
Paul Ives The Practise of Fortification prior to publication.
Greene targeted two Gentlemen Poets, implying that two poets
authored or co-authored a play or plays which mocked him. In marginalia
likely penned between 1589 and 1590, Gabriel Harvey associated Doctor
Faustus with scaring people:
If there be any Coniuring; woold not A troupe of Diuels, make ye brauist
harts in ye world to quake, & to pisse for feare? If Ismael Mursa, could
command thunderbolts & tempests: or if Doctor Faustus could rear Castles,
& arm Devils at pleasure8
This jibes with contemporary accounts that Doctor Faustus frightened

both audiences and actors.9 Now, when Harvey spoke of Aretine and the
Devils Orator in Foure Letters (1592) and Pierces Supererogation
(1593), he meant Marlowe and Nashe.10 Harvey assailed these two in
Foure Letters as ones who scare multitudes of plaine folke. Comic
author Nashe is not otherwise known to have written anything frightening
by 1592.
An early date for Doctor Faustus dilutes W. W. Gregs argument
against Nashe being the co-author: that had he been involved, the comic
scenes ought to have possessed rather more savour.11 Nashe would have
been writing at the beginning of his career, before Martin Marprelates
style affected his own. McGinn and McKerrow noted that Nashe mocked
Greene in Anatomy of Absurdity, 1589.12 Making fun of Greene in the
prose sections of Doctor Faustus would have been in character for Nashe
writing prior to his preface to Greenes Menaphon (registered August 23,
1589) wherein he called Greene sweet friend. Lastly, Nashe himself
quoted Doctor Faustus in marginalia that may have been written in 1589.13
Following is a bawdy, Nasheian excerpt from Doctor Faustus:
Robin. O, this is admirable! here I ha stolen one of Doctor
Faustus conjuring books, and, ifaith, I mean to search some
circles for my own use. Now will I make all the maidens in our
parish dance at my pleasure stark naked before me, and so by that
means I shall see more than eer I felt or saw yet.
Enter Rafe, calling Robin.
271
Rafe. Robin, prithee, come away. There[s] a gentleman tarries to

have his horse, and he would have his things rubbed and made
clean; he keeps such a chafing with my mistress about it, and she
has sent me to look thee out. Prithee, come away.
Robin. Keep out, keep out, or else you are blown up, you are
dismembered, Rafe! Keep out, for I am about a roaring piece of
work.
Rafe. Come, what dost thou with that same book? Thou canst not
read.
Robin. Yes, my master and mistress shall find that I can readhe
for his forehead, she for her private study. Shes born to bear with
me, or else my art fails.
Rafe. Why, Robin, what book is that?
Robin. What book! Why the most intolerable book for conjuring
that eer was invented by any brimstone devil.
Rafe. Canst thou conjure with it?
Robin. I can do all these things easily with it: first, I can make thee
drunk with hippocras at any tavern in Europe for nothing. Thats
one of my conjuring works.
Rafe. Our Master Parson says thats nothing.
Robin. True, Rafe, and more, Rafe, if thou hast any mind to Nan
Spit, our kitchen maid, then turn her and wind her to thy own use,
as often as thou wilt, and at midnight.
Rafe. O brave Robin! Shall I have Nan Spit, and to mine own use?
On that condition Ill feed thy devil with horse-bread as long as he
lives, of free cost.
Robin. No more, sweet Rafe. Lets go and make clean our boots,
which lie foul upon our hands, and then to our conjuring, in the
devils name. (Sc. vi.1-34)
Humor in the A-text of Doctor Faustus was freshened, probably for a
1594 revival. If Nashe were the original co-author, he would have been the
logical candidate to add references to Doctor Lopez and Martin
Marprelate. Lopez was arrested for attempting to poison Queen Elizabeth
in January, 1594. DF employs the spelling Lopus, a spelling of Lopez
elsewhere used by Nashe, although the spelling Lopez is preferred six to
one in EEBO. DFs Martin Martlemas beef is a take-off on Martin
Marprelate, whose first tract was published in October, 1588. Nashe, who
battled Marprelate in An Almond for a Parrot, elsewhere employed the
phrases Martin Momus, Martin Makebate, and Martin Martinus.
272
Appendix A
Division of Doctor Faustus Between Marlowe and Nashe

With the caveat that neither quarto which has come down to us, Doctor
Faustus-A published in 1604 or Doctor Faustus-B dated 1616, contains
exactly the original version, and may have been revised by others, I would
tentatively assign to Nashe Scenes ii, iv, vi, vii.109-62, viii.50-99, ix
(except for ix.36-41), and xi.1-28, 35-85, and Marlowe the remainder, in
the 1604 version edited by Frank Romany and Robert Lindsey, 2003.
Notes
1
This appendix is a revised version of Donna N. Murphy, The Date and CoAuthorship of Doctor Faustus, Cahiers lisabthains 75 (2009): 43-4. Reprinted
with permission. For a summary of the evidence regarding the dating of this play,
see David Wooten, Doctor Faustus (Indianapolis: Haskett Publishing Co., Inc.,
2005), xxiv-xxvii.
2
Paul H. Kocher, Nashes Authorship of the Prose Scenes in Faustus, Modern
Language Quarterly 3 (1942), 17-40; and H. W. Crundell, Nashe and Doctor
Faustus, Notes & Queries 207 (1962), 327. For a synopsis of the authorship
debate, see Eric Rasmussen, A Textual Companion to Doctor Faustus (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1993), 62-75.
3
Robert Greene, The Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Robert
Greene, ed. Alexander B. Grosart, vol. 7, 7-8.
4
Park Honan, Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005), 184.
5
Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning (London: Vintage, 2002), 246. See also 242-51.
6
The next appearances of scholarism chronologically in EEBO are Alcida.
Greenes Metamorphosis (registered December 9, 1588); Greenes Orpharium
(registered February 9, 1590); and Gabriel Harveys Pierces Supererogation (in a
section dated April 27, 1593).
7
R. J. Fehrenbach, A Pre-1592 English Faust Book and the Date of Marlowes
Doctor Faustus, Library: Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 2 (2001):
327-35.
8
Hale Moore, Gabriel Harveys References to Marlowe, Studies in Philology 23
(1926): 337-57, 346.
9
Andrew Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeares London (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 169.
10
Lynette and Eveline Feasey, The Validity of the Baines Document, Notes &
Queries 194 (1949): 514-517.
11
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus: 1604-1616, ed. W. W. Greg (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1950), 137.
12
Donald J. McGinn, A Quip from Tom Nashe, Studies in English Renaissance
Drama, ed. Josephine W. Bennett, et al (New York: New York University Press,
273
1959), 183; and Thomas Nashe, The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. Ronald B.
McKerrow, vol. 1, 10, 12, 16.
13
Paul Kocher reported that a copy of John Lelands Principum Ac illustrium
aliquot & eruditorum in Anglia virorum Encomia in the Folger Library contained
Nashes signature and a quote from Doctor Faustus that are almost certainly in
Nashes hand. Lelands book was published in 1589, and Nashe referred to it in his
1989 preface to Greenes Menaphon, then never again. According to Kocher,
Lelands book was not popular, nor the sort that one would be likely to reread,
strengthening the likelihood that Nashe wrote his marginalia in 1589. Paul Kocher,
Some Nashe Marginalia Concerning Marlowe, Modern Language Notes 57
(1942): 45-9.
APPENDIX B
THOMAS NASHE AND THE JEW OF MALTA
F. P. Wilson termed Acts I and II of The Jew of Malta (JM) the work
of genius, and maintained that the discrepancy between them and Acts III
through V is so great that one would welcome evidence that the players
lost the manuscript of the last three acts and had to reconstruct them as
best they could. The weakness is most apparent in the fourth act.1
The Jew of Malta was first recorded in Henslowes Diary on February
26, 1592 and registered May 17, 1594, but the first known edition,
attributed solely to Christopher Marlo on the title page, appeared in
1633, with new prologues and epilogues penned by Thomas Heywood for
a revival. The death of the Guise on December 23, 1588 to which the older
prologue refersprovided it was contained in the original versionserves
as a terminus a quo for the play, which is usually dated c. 1589-91. JM
starts out in Marlovian fashion with superb poetry and lengthy speeches,
along with the adept portrayal of a Machiavelian villain. This style
degenerates in Act III and gives way entirely in Act IV.ii, before returning
to some extent in Act V. Partly because a trick played by Barabas and
Ithamore on Friar Jacomo recurs in a subplot to Thomas Heywoods
comedy The Captives, Clarke, Bullen, Fleay, and Tucker Brooke
suggested that Heywood revised JM for a revival in 1632, and that JM
may have been revised for a 1601 revival as well.2
The play as printed in 1633 clearly differs from the original version.
Lines are missing in Act I:
Ferneze. Sir, half is the penalty of our decree.
Either pay that, or we will seize on all.
Barabas. Corpo di Dio! Stay, you shall have half.
Let me be used but as my brethren are.
Ferneze. No, Jew, thou hast denied the articles,
And now it cannot be recalled. (I.ii.89-94)
As A. M. Clarke pointed out, a rebellious speech by Barabas in which
he denies the articles must have been omitted before Fernezes second
275
speech; apparently as a result of it, officials determine to confiscate all of

Barabas wealth instead of half. Ferneze and Barabas are in the same
conversation when, thirty eight lines later, officers who have not yet been
ordered to seize Barabas wealth enter to report they have done so, and
already assessed its value:
Ferneze. Now, officers, have you done?
Officer. Ay, my lord, we have seized upon the goods
And wares of Barabas, which, being valued,
Amount to more than all the wealth in Malta. (I.ii.132-5)
Clarke maintained that cuts were made to make room for insertion of new
action later.
Some changes have therefore been made in the Act I-II section of JM,
but the Marlovian excellence in writing remains intact. In Acts III, IV.i,
and V, the style is diminished and there are a smaller number of linguistic
connections to the Marlowe-Shakespeare continuum. It is on Scenes IV.ii,
IV.iii, and IV.iv that this Appendix shall focus, however, because they
seem to me to contain the hand of Nashe & Dekker.
The Nasheian section, too, could have been revised. IV.ii contains the
servant Ithamores parody of Marlowes The Passionate Shepherd to his
Love, but given Nashes experience in parody with TOAS, either he or
Marlowe might have written it.
Following are the linguistic connections which, taken together, cause
me to propose Nashe & Dekkers hand in IV.ii, IV.iii, and IV.iv.
1. JM: Being driven to a nonplus at the critical aspect of my terrible
countenance (IV.ii.13-4) vs. Strange: Yet yet Gabriell, are not
we set non plus, thy roister doisterdome hath not dasht vs out of
countenance (L1r)EEBO Match: Nonplus near.20 countenance.
2. JM: Within forty foot of the gallows, conning his neck-verse, I
take it, looking of a friars execution, whom I saluted with an old
hempen proverb, Hodie tibi, cras mihi, [Latin for today your
turn, tomorrow mine] and so I left him to the mercy of the
hangman (IV.ii.16-20) vs. Unfortunate: Made vs plainely to
confesse, and crie Miserere [Latin for mercy], ere we had need
of our neck-verse (G2v)EEBO: Mercy/miserere near.30 neck
verse*. Neck verse* also appears in Nashe & Dekkers Preface to
Menaphon, Saffron, and Sat., but not in other works by Marlowe or
Shakespeare. As in this JM excerpt, Nashe & Dekker connect
hempen with the gallows in Almond, Unfortunate, Saffron, OP,
276
Appendix B
SDS, OA, and RA, an association which also occurs in The Hospital
of Incurable Fools, sometimes attributed, at least in part, to Nashe.
Note also Wood.: If ever ye cry Lord have mercy upon me, I
shall hang fort surethe gallows (I.ii.96-7, 101, Nasheian
section).
3. JM: Within forty foot of the gallows, conning his neck-verse, I
take it, looking of a friars execution, whom I saluted with an old
hempen proverb, Hodie tibi, cras mihi, and so I left him to the
mercy of the hangman (IV.ii.16-20) vs. Unfortunate: It shall be
flat treason for any of this fore-mentioned catalogue of the point
trussers, to once name him within fortie foote of an ale-house
(A4r); Strange: Come not in his way, stand fortie foote from the
execution place of his furie (D4v); DF: It were not for you to
come within forty foot of the place of execution, although I do
not doubt to see you both hanged the next sessions (Sc. ii.24-6
Nasheian section); Saffron: I forbidto amend it, or come within
fortie foote of it, and Rope-maker, or come within fortie foot of
it (F4r and I3r); Tears: They would rather foresweare him
[Christ] and defie him, then come within forty foote of him
(Y2v); and Wood.: It shall be henceforth counted high treason for
any fellow with a grey beard to come within forty foot of the court
gates (II.ii.174-5, Nasheian portion)EEBO: Within forty foot of.
Tilley terms He will not come within forty foot of him proverbial
(F581), but cites only two occurrences, in non-dramatic pieces
dated 1616 and 1639, without providing quotes. Dent (F581) is
more complete: his other examples are DF, JM, and George
Chapmans Humorous Days Mirth, which employs on rather
than of: comes within fortie foot on (C2v).
4. JM: An old hempen proverb, Hodie tibi, cras mihi, and so I left
him to the mercy of the hangman (IV.ii.18-20) vs. Almond:
Course hempen quippes, such as our brokerly wits doe fish out of
Bull the Hangmans budget (F2v); and RA: For otherwise a
Hempon plague wil so hang vpon you (RA C1r)EEBO:
Hempen near.20 hang*.
5. JM: A dagger with a hilt like a warming-pan (IV.ii.28) vs. Sat.:
His face puncht full of Oylet-holes like the cover of a warmingpan (L4r)EEBO Match: Like near.10 warming pan(s).
6. JM: As if he had meant to make clean my boots with his lips
(IV.ii.30-1) vs. DF: Lets go make clean our boots which lie foul
upon our hands (Sc. vi.32-3, Nashe portion); Almond: In
consideration of that stipend, he make cleane the patrones bootes
euerye time hee came to towne (C4v); and OA: He cannot make
cleane a paire of bootes without it, Tobacco makes him spit
(E4r)EEBO: Mak*/made clean near.10 boot*. The juxtaposition
is found elsewhere among playwrights in George Chapmans The
Memorable Maske of the two honorable houses or Innes of Court
(with making), pr. 1613; Thomas Heywoods The Famous and
Remarkable History of Sir Richard Whittington, (with making)
pub. 1656; and Thomas Middletons More Dissemblers Besides
Women, although in Middletons case, it is spurs that are being
cleaned: Make clean Spurs, nay, pull of[f] strait Boots (C1r).
Nashe was a sizar at Cambridge University, which meant that he
performed menial duties in exchange for food or sizes. If one of
these duties was the cleaning of boots, it would help account for a
repeated emphasis on the task.
7. JM: What gentry can be in a poor Turk of tenpence? Ill be gone
(IV.ii.38-9) vs. Sat.: Wilt fight Turke-a-ten-pence? Wilt fight
then? (H2r)EEBO Match: Turk* fby.2 ten pence. The other
EEBO occurrence is in John Taylors Works, 1630. Expanding out
to Turk* near.10 ten* pen*/tenpen*/tennepen* yields two more
hits, WH: If all the great Turks Concubins were but like thee, the
ten-penny infidel should neuer keep so many geldings (G1v,
Dekker portion); and Middleton and Rowleys A Fair Quarrel, pr.
1617.
8. JM: He sent a shaggy, tottered, staring slave (IV.iii.6) vs.
Summer: The Poets next, slovenly tatterd slaues (G2r); and WA:
Who had made them slaues to the world, not rewarding them to
their merit: and thereupon striking vp their drum, and spreading
their tottered collors (C4r)EEBO: Tattered/tottered near.20
slave*. Tattered and tottered are variant spellings of the same
word.
9. JM: He sent a shaggy, tottered, staring slave/ That, when he
speaks, draws out his grisly beard (IV.iii.6-7) vs. Tears: To
atheisticall Iulian, (who mockingly called all Christians
Gallileans,) appeared a grizly shaggy-bodied deuill (P4r); and
DD: His eyes flashd fire, grizzled and shaggd his Haire
(C4r)EEBO Match: Shag* near.20 gris*/griz*. This juxtaposition
also occurs in The Richmond Heiress, a play by Thomas DUrfey,
pr. 1693.
10. JM: Whose face has been a grindstone for mens swords,/ His
hands are hacked (IV.iii.9-10) vs. BL: (Being told of it, and the
words iustified to his face) he knows he dares not answere; with
277
278
Appendix B
which hooke holding his nose to the grindstone (I1v)EEBO:

Face* near.20 grindstone*. Note also BMC: No, no, no, deere
features, hold their noses to the grindstone and theyre gone
(F1r). All three excerpts relate the word grindstone to facial
features. In a Nasheian portion of Rom. we hear the name Susan
Grindstone (I.v.9).
11. JM: Oh, if that be all, I can pick ope your locks (IV.iii.36) vs.
JMM: You Iuglers exercise besides, this is picking open the
locks (G2r); and BL: By the spells of Black Art, pick open the
Tramelles or locks (G3r)EEBO Match: Pick* ope* fby.5 lock*.
12. JM: Ithamore. Play, fiddler, or Ill cut your cats guts into
chitterlings/ Barabas. Pardonnez-moi, be no in tune yet
(IV.iv.46-8) vs. VG: And as for common Fidlers; they shall scrape
out a poore liuing out of dryed Cats-guts (G3v)EEBO Match:
Fiddle* near.30 cat* gut*. The juxtaposition occurs among other
playwrights in Edward Ravenscrofts comedy, The English Lawyer,
pr. 1678; and Thomas Southernes play The Wives Excuse, 1692.
Note also WH: Will not these Fidlers be drawn forth? Are they
not in tune yet?...Plague a their [the fiddlers] Cats guts (G1vG2r, Dekker portion).
Similarity: JM: As I would see thee hanged (IV.iii.56) vs. DF: No,
Ill see thee hanged (Sc. vii.149, Nasheian portion); TOAS: Ile see thee
hangd ere Ile fight with thee (751, Nasheian portion); TOTS: Ill see thee
hanged on Sunday first (II.i.294); 1H4: Ill see thee hanged first
(II.i.40, Nasheian portion); and WofE: No, Ill see thee hangd, thou shalt
be damnd first (H5r).
Similarity: JM: Love me little, love me long (IV.iv.30) vs. Summer:
Loue me a little and loue me long (H3r). This expression is proverbial
(Tilley L559), but these are the only appearances of Love fby.2 me fby.3
little fby.10 long* in EEBO works by playwrights.
Similarity: JM: Foh, methinks they stink like a hollyhock (IV.iv.43)
vs. Summer: Fah, he stinkes like a phisicion (G2v); and Saffron: Foh,
what a stinke is heere? (H3v).
The above similarities, combined with the non-Marlovian nature of
IV.ii-iv, cause me to propose that these scenes were penned by Nashe.
279
Notes
1
F. P. Wilson, The Jew of Malta, in Christopher Marlowes The Jew of

Malta. Text and Major Criticism, ed. Irving Ribner (New York: The Odyssey
Press, 1970), 77.
2
Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Parts I and II; Doctor Faustus, A- and Btexts; The Jew of Malta; Edward II, ed. David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), xxviii-xxix; and A. M. Clarke, Thomas
Heywood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931), 287-94.
EDITIONS USED IN THIS BOOK
Quotations are from the following sources. Works by Marlowe and

Shakespeare are listed according to conventional authorship attribution.
Those by Nashe and Dekker (here treated conventionally as two separate
authors) are listed according to attribution in my book The Mysterious
Connection between Thomas Nashe, Thomas Dekker, and T. M. The
Nashe and Dekker works are listed in approximate chronological order,
silent co-authors are added in parentheses, and printer/publisher
information is provided in brackets when added by EEBO. Pr.=printed;
wr.=written;
reg.=registered;
rev.=revised;
anon.=anonymous;
pref.=authors name when provided in prefatory material but not on the
title page.
Marlowe
Marlowe, Christopher. Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Plays, edited
by Frank Romany and Robert Lindsey (New York: Penguin Books, 2003);
Christopher Marlowe. The Complete Poems and Translations, ed. Stephen
Orgel (New York: Penguin Books, 2007); Doctor Faustus B-Text in Ch.
Marklin, The tragicall history of the life and death of Doctor Faustus
(London: Iohn Wright, 1616).
Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works, general editors Stanley Wells
and Gary Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), except when
attributed to the Craig edition; The Complete Works of William
Shakespeare, edited by W. J. Craig (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1904, 1945).
Nashe
T. Nashe, Anatomie of Absurditie (London: I. Charlewood for Thomas
Hacket, 1589, wr. 1588); Robertus Greene, Menaphon, preface by Tho:
Nashe (London: T[homas] O[rwin] for Sampson Clarke, 1589); An
281
Almond for a Parrat, pref: Cutbert Curry-knaue ([London?] : [Eliots

Court Press?], [1589]); Syr P. S. His Astrophel and Stella by Philip
Sydney, preface by Tho: Nashe (London: [John Charlewood] for Thomas
Newman, 1591); Simon Smel-knaue, Fearefull and lamentable effects of
two dangerous Comets (London: J[ohn] C[harlewood] for Iohn Busbie,
[1591]); Tho. Nash, Pierce Pennilesse, his Supplication to the Diuell
(London: Abell Ieffes for I. B[usby], 1592, STC 18373); Thomas Nash, A
Pleasant Comedie, called Summers Last Will and Testament (London:
Simon Stafford for Walter Burre, 1600, wr. 1592); Thomas Nashe, Strange
Newes, Of the intercepting certaine Letters (London: Iohn Danter, 1592,
STC 18377a); Tho. Nash, Christs Teares Ouer Ierulsalem (London:
[George Eld] for Thomas Thorp, 1613, STC 18368, first printed in 1593);
Tho. Nashe, The Terrors of the Night (London: Iohn Danter for William
Iones, 1594); Tho. Nashe, The Unfortunate Traueller (London: T. Scarlet
for C. Burby, 1594, STC 18381); Have with You to Saffron-Walden, pref:
Tho: Nashe (London: Iohn Danter, 1596); Letter to Robert Cotton, ms.,
1596, in Thomas Nashe, The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. Ronald B.
McKerrow (London: A. H. Bullen, 1904-10; Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1958), vol. 5, 194; Ben Jonson (with Thomas Nashe), Every Man in His
Humor (London: [S. Safford] for Walter Burre, 1601, wr. 1598); Nashes
Lenten Stuffe, pref: Th. Nashe ([London: Thomas Judson and Valentine
Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[utbert] B[urby], 1599); The Choise
of Valentines, undated ms. poem, McKerrow vol. 3, 403-16.
Although both Marlowes and Nashes names are on the title page of
the play Dido, Queen of Carthage, pr. 1594, for stylistic and linguistic
reasons, I do not believe Nashe co-authored it.
Dekker: Plays and Pageants

Plays and pageants I attribute in whole or part to Thomas Nashe
writing as Thomas Dekker that are cited in this book: Ben Jonson (with
Thomas Dekker), Every Man in His Humor (London: [S. Safford] for
Walter Burre, 1601, wr. 1598); Old Fortunatus, last page: Tho. Dekker
(London: S. S[tafford] for William Aspley, 1600, wr. 1599, rev. of play
mentioned in Henslowes Diary in 1596?); Patient Grissill, anon. (with
Henry Chettle and William Haughton) (London: [E. Allde] for Henry
Rocket, 1603, wr. 1599); The Shomakers Holiday, anon. (London:
Valentine Sims, 1600, wr. 1599); Cristofer Marloe (Thomas Dekker, John
Day, and William Haughton); Blurt, Master Constable, anon. (London:
[Edward Allde] for Henry Rockytt, 1602, wr. c. 1601-2); Thomas Dekker,
Satiro-Mastix (London: [Edward Allde] for Edward White, 1602, wr.
282
Editions Used in this Book
1601); Thomas Dickers and Iohn Webster, Sir Thomas Wyatt (London:
E[dward] A[llde] for Thomas Archer, 1607, wr. c. 1602); Tho: Decker and
Iohn Webster, West-ward Hoe (London: [William Jaggard], sold by Iohn
Hodgets, 1607, wr. 1604); Tho: Dekker (with Thomas Middleton), The
Honest Whore, With, The Humours of the Patient Man, and the Longing
Wife (London: V[alentine] S[ims and others] for Iohn Hodgets, 1604, wr.
1604); Thomas Dekker, The Second Part of the Honest Whore, with the
Hvmors of the Patient Man, the Impatient Wife (London: Elizabeth All-de
for Nathaniel Butter, 1630, wr. c. 1604-5); Thomas Decker and Iohn
Webster, North-ward Hoe (London: G. Eld, 1607, wr. 1605); Thomas
Dekker, The Whore of Babylon (London: [Eliots Court Press?] for
Nathaniel Butter, 1607, wr. c. 1606); T[homas] D[ekker] (with Thomas
Middleton) The Bloodie Banquet (London: Thomas Cotes, 1639, wr.
1608-9); Tho. Middleton (with Thomas Dekker), No Wit, [No] Help Like a
Womans (London: printed for Humfrey Moseley, 1657, wr. 1611);
Thomas Dekker, If it be not good, the Diuel is in it (London: [Thomas
Creede] for I[ohn] T[rundle], 1612, wr. c. 1611); Tho: Dekker, Match Me
in London (London: B. Alsop and T. Fawcet for H. Selle, 1631, wr. c.
1611-1621); Phillip Messenger and Thomas Decker, The Virgin Martir
(London: Bernard Alsop for Thomas Iones, 1622, wr. 1620); S. R., The
Noble Spanish Souldier (London: [John Beale] for Nicholas Vavasour,
1634, wr. c. 1622, reg. 1631 as by Dekker); The Welsh Embassador, wr. c.
1623, ms.; John Foard and Tho. Decker, The Suns-darling a moral
masque (London: J. Bell for Andrew Penneycuicke, 1656, reg. 1624, rev.
c. 1638).
Dekker: Pamphlets
Pamphlets I attribute in whole or part to Thomas Nashe writing as
Thomas Dekker that are cited in this book: The Penniles Parliament of
Threedbare Poets, in Iacke of Dover, his Quest of Inquirie, anon. (London:
[William White] for William Ferbrand, 1604, first edition prob. 1601); The
Wonderfull yeare, anon. (London: Thomas Creede, 1603); Newes From
Graues-end, Sent to Nobody, anon. (London: T[homas] C[reede] for
Thomas Archer, 1604); The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, anon.
(London: T[homas] C[reede], 1604); Father Hubburds Tales: Or the Ant,
and the Nightingale, pref: T. M. (London: T[homas] C[reede] for William
Cotton, 1604); The Blacke Booke, pref: T. M. (London: T[homas] C[reede]
for Ieffrey Charlton, 1604); Platoes Cap Cast at this Yeare 1604, pref:
Adam Euesdropper (London: [Thomas Purfoot] for Ieffrey Chorlton,
1604); Tho: Dekker, The Seuen Deadly Sinnes of London (London:
283
E[dward] A[llde and S. Safford] for Nathaniel Butter, 1606); Tho: Dekker,
Newes from Hell brought by the Diuells carrier (London: R. B[lower, S.
Stafford, and Valentine Simmes] for W. Ferebrand, 1606); Thomas
Dekker, A Knights Conjuring (London: T[homas] C[reede] for William
Barley, 1607); T. D. and George Wilkins, Iests to make you Merie
(London: for Nathaniell Butter, 1607); The Belman of London anon.
(London: E. Allde for Nathaniell Butter, 1608); T. Dekker, The Dead
Terme (London: [W. Jaggard], sold by Iohn Hodgets, 1608); Lanthorne
and Candle-Light, pref: Thomas Dekker (London: [Edward Allde] for
Iohn Busby, 1609, first edition 1608); Thomas Dekker, Work for
Armourers (London: [Nicholas Okes] for Nathaniel Butter, 1609); The
Ravens Almanacke, pref: T. Deckers (London: E. A. for Thomas Archer,
1609); T. Deckar, The Guls Horne-booke (London: [Nicholas Okes] for R.
S., 1609); O per se O, anon. (London: [Thomas Snodham] for Iohn
Busbie, 1612); Thomas Dekker, A Strange Horse-Race (London:
[Nicholas Okes] for Ioseph Hunt, 1613); Sir Thomas Ouerbury his Wife,
anon. (London: Edward Griffin for Laurence Lisle, 1616, STC 18911);
Villanies Discouered by Lanthorne and Candle-Light, anon. (London:
[William Stansby] for Iohn Busby, 1616); William Fennor, The Compters
Common-weath (London: Edward Griffin for George Gibbes, 1617); The
Owles Almanacke, anon. (London: E[dward] G[riffin] for Lawrence Lisle,
1618, STC 6515.5); Dekker his Dreame, pref: Tho. Dekker (London:
Nicholas Okes, 1620); Vox Graculi, or Iacke Dawes Prognostication, pref:
I[acke] D[awe] (London: I. H[aviland and E. Allde?] for Nathaniel Butter,
1622); Tho. D., A Rod for Run-awayes, pref: Tho. Dekker (London: [G.
Purslowe] for Iohn Trundle, 1625); The Blacke Rod and the White Rod,
anon. (London: B. A. and T. F. for Iohn Cowper, 1630); Penny-wis[e],
Pound-Foolish, anon. (London: A[ugustine] M[athewes] for Edward
Blackmore, 1631); and English Villanies Six Severall Times Prest to Death
by the Printers, pref: Tho. Dekker (London: Augustine Matthewes, 1632).
Anonymous Plays and Works by Other Authors

The First Part of the Contention, 1594 (Oxford: Printed for the Malone
Society at the University Press, 1985); The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke
of York (Henry the Sixth, part III) 1595 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958);
Caesar and Pompey. The Tragedy of Caesars Revenge (London: Printed
for the Malone Society at the Oxford University Press, 1911); Edmund
Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. Thomas P. Roche, Jr. with the assistance
of C. Patrick ODonnell, Jr. (New York: Penguin Books, 1978, 1987); The
Spanish Tragedy, ed. Philip Edwards (Cambridge: Harvard University
284
Editions Used in this Book
Press, 1959); Soliman and Perseda in The Works of Thomas Kyd, ed.
Frederick S. Boas (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1901), 101-229; Arden
of Feversham 1592 (London: Printed for the Malone Society at The
Oxford University Press, 1947); The Woman in the Moon in The Plays of
John Lyly, ed. Carter A. Daniel (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press,
1988), 317-58; The Taming of a Shrew 1594 (Oxford: Published for the
Malone Society at the Oxford University Press, 1998); King Edward III,
ed. Giorgio Melchiori (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);
and Thomas of Woodstock, ed. Peter Corbin and Douglas Sedge
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002).
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INDEX
Alls Well That Ends Well, 32, 200,
227
Alleyn, Edward, 119, 135, 191
Almond for a Parrot, An, 4, 57, 66,
97, 180, 254, 257, 271, 275, 276
Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany,
159, 164, 173
Anatomy of Absurdity, 57, 181, 182,
270
Antony and Cleopatra, 7, 34, 35, 44,
114, 129, 155, 200, 230
Arden of Faversham, 123, 124, 126,
130
As You Like It, 7, 62, 88, 93, 95,
157, 200, 223, 227
Authorship attribution
Challenges, 2, 3
Comparing apples and apples,
265
Image Clusters, 10
Logic, 9
Matches and Near Matches, 58
Rare Scattered Word Clusters, 8
9
Strong Parallels, 9
Stylometrics, 4, 5
Baines, Richard, 12, 85
Baldwin, William, 231
Barnes, Barnabe, 40
Behn, Aphra, 254
Bellman of London, The, 175, 176,
184, 261, 264, 277
Black Book, The, 180, 186, 233,
253, 261, 264
Black Prince (Edward), The, 135,
136, 159, 164
Bloody Banquet, The, 232, 233
Blurt, Master Constable, 156, 183,
233, 236, 256, 264, 278
Brome, Richard, 41, 91, 214
Brooke, Arthur, 39, 223, 224

Bruno, Giordano, 216, 230, 269
Bryskett, Lodowick, 22
Caesars Revenge, 2, 9, 12, 20, 19
46, 51, 82, 83, 86, 90, 111, 112,
115, 116, 117, 121, 129, 140,
144, 151, 155, 171, 179, 191,
200, 207, 212, 221, 263, 266
and The Passionate Shepherd to
his Love, 3334
Chronology, 2022, 43, 44
Image Clusters, 3133
Matches, Near Matches and
other similarities, 3643
Rare Scattered Word Clusters,
2830, 3536
Strong Parallels, 30
Caesarism, 20, 112, 138, 150
Caryll, John, 211
Caxton, William, 231
Chapman, George, 19, 61, 116, 117,
159, 174, 222, 247, 255, 276,
277
Choice of Valentines, The, 232, 233,
234, 236
Christs Tears Over Jerusalem, 180,
183, 185, 186, 234, 236, 237,
240, 255, 256, 258, 260, 264,
276, 277
Cobbler of Canterbury, The, 1, 13,
56, 58, 66
Comedy of Errors, The, 157, 168,
186, 188, 256, 265
Compters Commonwealth, The,
180
Contention, The, Q1 Henry VI, Part
II, 12, 62, 67102, 102, 105, 106,
107, 112, 121, 122, 129, 12129,
140, 156, 157, 164, 174, 175,
296
176, 179, 180, 183, 184, 185,
210, 212, 239, 263
Chronology, 72
Coriolanus, 153, 200, 210
Cowley, Abraham, 211
Cymbeline, 200, 227
Daniel, Samuel, 38, 39, 47
Davenport, Robert, 174
Davies, Sir John, 57, 58
Day, John, 174, 211, 248, 253
Dead Term, The, 235
Dekker his Dream, 260, 277
Dekker, Thomas
and Henry IV, Part I, 25061
and Henry VI, Part II, 94102
and Jew of Malta, The, 27478
and Romeo and Juliet, 235, 230
40
and Taming of a Shrew, The, 55
57
and Woodstock, Thomas of, 163,
18087
as Thomas Nashe, 3, 11
Dido, Queen of Carthage, 6, 9, 10,
29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 43,
45, 48, 49, 50, 61, 65, 75, 77, 78,
79, 80, 82, 83, 92, 109, 110, 112,
115, 121, 123, 124, 126, 129,
131, 141, 155, 157, 174, 178,
191, 192, 193, 194, 200, 201,
202, 209, 210, 214, 216, 222,
247, 264, 266
Chronology, 121
Doctor Faustus, 2, 6, 8, 10, 11, 30,
31, 40, 41, 42, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53,
59, 64, 65, 69, 81, 83, 84, 85, 94,
102, 118, 121, 129, 135, 179,
199, 202, 207, 211, 213, 216,
222, 230, 232, 233, 240, 244,
263, 264, 26872, 276, 278, 280
Division between Marlowe and
Nashe, 272
Donne, John, 123, 124
Drayton, Michael, 91, 151, 156,
174, 209, 210, 213
Index
Dru, Thomas, 253
Dryden, John, 92, 151
Edward II, 2, 6, 7, 8, 20, 33, 39, 40,
41, 42, 56, 62, 77, 78, 81, 82, 85,
86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 102, 107, 108,
114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119,
121, 123, 124, 126, 127, 129,
131, 136, 144, 145, 148, 149,
150, 152, 154, 156, 157, 162,
165, 166, 167, 168, 173, 174,
175, 179, 180, 190, 200, 202,
205, 206, 210, 213, 219, 223,
243, 246, 249, 266
Chronology, 12129
Edward III, 2, 4, 12, 13, 31, 32, 40,
72, 87, 89, 13357, 162, 165,
168, 169, 172, 177, 178, 179,
190, 191, 196, 200, 210, 212,
213, 215, 222, 231, 245, 248,
263, 265
Chronology, 14750
Matches, Near Matches, and
other similarities, 13638,
149, 15057
13943
Edward III, King of England, 108,
136, 162, 164
Edwards, Richard, 237
Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1,
19, 148, 189, 271
Every Man in his Humor, 18, 90,
196, 237
Faerie Queene, The, 45, 83, 170,
202, 266, 270
and Caesars Revenge, 9, 19, 22
28, 38, 40, 43, 45, 83, 191
and Dido, Queen of Carthage,
83, 121
and Doctor Faustus, 83
and Hamlet, 83
and Henry VI, Part III, 113
and Hero and Leander, 83

and Massacre at Paris, The, 83
and Tamburlaine, Parts I and II,
2, 7, 9, 12, 13, 2228, 38, 43,
45, 83, 191
and Titus Andronicus, 9, 13, 191
Famous Victories of Henry V, The,
4, 184
Father Hubbards Tales, 101, 236,
253, 264
Fletcher, John, 3, 4, 91, 121, 156,
211
Ford, John, 4, 122, 178
Fraunce, Abraham, 22
Glapthorne, Henry, 153
Golding, Arthur, 156, 202
Greene, Robert, 1, 2, 3, 20, 21, 22,
42, 48, 56, 58, 60, 71, 90, 103,
119, 135, 147, 159, 191, 254,
268, 269, 270
Greenes Groatsworth of Wit, 90,
119, 191
Gulls Hornbook, The, 98, 236, 237,
238, 239, 252, 254, 256, 257,
258, 259
Hamlet, 83, 93, 118, 145, 177, 192,
194, 200, 213
Harvey, Gabriel, 1, 23, 44, 99, 231,
232, 235, 239, 253, 255, 257,
270
Have With You to Saffron-Walden,
56, 57, 99, 100, 101, 183, 185,
186, 218, 231, 232, 234, 235,
236, 237, 238, 239, 250, 253,
257, 259, 264, 275, 276, 278,
281
Henry IV, Part I, 2, 10, 12, 13, 89,
172, 176, 200, 24361, 263, 266,
278
and Edward II, 250
and Tamburlaine, Parts I and II,
249
Chronology, 243
Nashe, 261
297

25361
24344, 25053
Henry IV, Part II, 7, 154, 162, 260
Henry V, 142, 151, 153, 162, 166,
170, 172, 179, 180, 215
Henry VI, King of England, 122,
162
Henry VI, Part I, 84, 87, 89, 91, 94,
117, 122, 150, 151, 152, 154,
155, 156, 157, 175, 200, 205,
207, 210, 214, 264
Henry VI, Part II, 2, 62, 67102,
105, 106, 107, 116, 118, 122,
123, 129, 133, 140, 141, 149,
150, 151, 154, 156, 157, 164,
165, 168, 174, 175, 176, 179,
180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 186,
187, 200, 201, 210, 211, 214,
239, 244, 257, 263
and Taming of a Shrew, The, 69
72
Chronology, 12129
Nashe, 94
other similarities, 8182, 89
94, 9597, 99102
Rare Nasheian word, 97
7379, 9899
Strong Parallels, 7981, 99
Henry VI, Part III, 2, 10520, 130,
149, 177, 199, 246
Chronology, 12129
11419
10711, 11314
Henry VIII, 3, 10, 151
298
Henslowe, Philip, 3, 19, 21, 48, 121,
123, 126, 129, 274
Hero and Leander, 6, 8, 9, 29, 38,
42, 43, 52, 61, 62, 83, 93, 114,
129, 139, 149, 152, 153, 171,
177, 200, 214, 221, 222, 227,
22427, 229, 245, 247, 265
Heywood, Thomas, 39, 91, 92, 115,
156, 174, 184, 185, 212, 222,
248, 274, 277
Holinsheds Chronicles, 58, 68, 72,
202
Honest Whore, The, Part I, 55, 184,
254, 256, 257, 258, 260, 265
Honest Whore, The, Part II, 233,
236, 237, 259
How a Man May Choose a Good
Wife from a Bad, 71, 254
Howard, Edward, 174
If This Be Not Good, the Devil is in
It, 184, 240
Image Clusters explanation, 10
Ive, Paul, 270
Jests to Make You Merry, 180, 185,
253, 258, 264, 278
Jew of Malta, The, 11, 33, 43, 62,
73, 74, 75, 83, 84, 85, 90, 93,
106, 116, 121, 126, 129, 135,
138, 142, 154, 155, 156, 157,
174, 179, 187, 195, 196, 197,
198, 199, 200, 217, 221, 222,
223, 227, 263, 265, 27478
Chronology, 12129
Jonson, Ben, 18, 90, 153, 155, 196,
211, 237, 247, 281
Julius Caesar, 19, 34, 35, 79, 82,
88, 113, 117, 129, 143, 144, 200,
265
Julius Caesar, Roman general, 19,
20, 34, 112, 122
Killigrew, Henry, 156
King John, 41, 72, 93, 125, 151,
178, 200, 210, 211, 215
King Lear, 3, 173
King Leir, 22, 115, 124
Kirke, John, 41, 152, 155
Index
Knack to Know a Knave, A, 48, 58,
63, 155, 177
Knights Conjuring, A, 101
Kyd, Thomas, 3, 85, 114, 123, 124,
133, 134, 159
Lantern and Candlelight, 183, 184,
238, 264
Lee, Nathaniel, 39, 209, 212
Lenten Stuff, 56, 57, 96, 100, 186,
236, 238, 256, 257, 259, 281
Lodge, Thomas, 3, 13, 41, 66, 92,
209
Loves Labours Lost, 49, 50, 95,
177, 200, 202, 210, 227, 230
Lower, William, 153
Lucan, 20, 82, 202
Lucans First Book, 6, 20, 34, 37,
40, 43, 82, 90, 149, 200, 202,
216, 220
Lyly, John, 3, 56, 127, 128, 129,
253
Macbeth, 41, 89, 115, 146, 210
Marlowe, Christopher, 1
and Caesars Revenge, 1946
and Edward III, 13357
and Henry IV, Part I, 24350,
261
and Henry VI, Part III, 10520
and Romeo and Juliet, 21830,
240
and The Faerie Queene, 22, 23,
24, 28, 83
and The Taming of a Shrew, 48
54, 5763
and Titus Andronicus, 189215
and William Shakespeare, 11
and Woodstock, Thomas of, 161
80
Biographical ties to Edward III,
135, 136
Biographical ties to Henry VI,
Part II, 72

Biographical ties to Romeo and
Juliet, 223
Biographical ties to Taming of a
Shrew, The, 5758
Biographical ties to Taming of
the Shrew, The, 58
Biographical ties to Thomas of
Woodstock, 164
Heresy charges, 12, 85
Inferences about, 44, 46, 60
Knowledge of foreign languages,
202, 216
Mythology, 199200
Partnership with Nashe, 2, 12,
26366
Sonnets, 228, 229, 230, 22730
Sources, 2012
Supposed death, 11
Targeting religious hypocrisy, 84
Wedding of sister, Margaret, in
Canterbury, 5758
Marlowe-Shakespeare continuum,
12, 13, 89, 129, 136, 137, 150,
191, 204, 227, 263, 275
Marston, John, 117, 222, 247, 255
Massacre at Paris, The, 6, 20, 76,
77, 83, 84, 85, 89, 90, 91, 115,
117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 129,
136, 137, 147, 151, 158, 175,
216, 265
Chronology, 12129
Massinger, Philip, 121, 153, 177
Match Me in London, 57, 264
Matches and Near Matches
explanation, 58
May, Thomas, 39, 117, 152, 154,
173, 174
Measure for Measure, 142, 184
Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary,
The, 235, 253, 258, 265
Merchant of Venice, The, 7, 60, 85,
129, 152, 196, 200, 213, 214
Meres, Francis, 67, 218
Merry Wives of Windsor, The, 33,
183, 200, 209
Middleton, Thomas, 3, 4, 176, 277
299
Midsummer Nights Dream, A, 3,

57, 129, 200
Much Ado About Nothing, 7, 118,
184, 185, 186, 200
Munday, Anthony, 3, 56, 91, 238
Nashe, Thomas, 1, 10, 13, 266, 277
and Henry IV, Part I, 25061
and Romeo and Juliet, 23040
and Taming of a Shrew, The, 49,
5457, 57, 62
and Woodstock, Thomas of, 163,
18087
as Thomas Dekker, 3, 11
Partnership with Marlowe, 2, 12,
266, 26366
Representation of in LLL and
AYL, 95
News from Gravesend, 100, 184,
186, 254, 257
News from Hell, 186, 259, 260, 264,
265
No Wit, No Help Like a Womans,
18, 238
Noble Spanish Soldier, The, 257
Northward Ho, 185, 255, 258, 260
O per se O, 275
Old Fortunatus, 100, 101, 184, 232,
237, 240, 257, 258, 264
Orlando Furioso, 21
Othello, 9, 85, 89, 153, 174, 202,
209, 265
Ovid, 12, 60, 156, 199, 201, 202,
205, 211, 224, 266
Ovids Elegies, 11, 42, 57, 61, 93,
109, 152, 174, 200, 205, 230
Owls Almanac, The, 100, 101, 254,
264, 276, 277
Parodies
Soliman and Perseda, 12425
Taming of a Shrew, The, 5960
Passionate Pilgrim, The, 93, 200,
230
300
Passionate Shepherd to his Love,
The, 33, 209, 275
Patient Grissil, 55, 56, 57, 102, 180,
238, 254
Peele, George, 2, 3, 90, 149
and Titus Andronicus, 3, 12, 190,
191
Penniless Parliament of Threadbare
Poets, The, 256
Penny-wise, Pound-Foolish, 258
Pericles, 3, 4
Petowe, Henry, 61
Pierce Penniless, 55, 56, 97, 98,
102, 162, 180, 184, 185, 186,
236, 239, 250, 251, 252, 253,
254, 255, 257, 259, 260, 264
Platos Cap, 239, 254, 264
Plutarch, 20, 34, 35
Powell, George, 153
Preface to Astrophel & Stella, 233,
253
Preface to Menaphon, 275
Rape of Lucrece, The, 9, 88, 113,
119, 152, 179, 190, 200, 201,
203, 204, 209, 212, 213, 214,
222, 223, 264
explanation, 89
Ravens Almanac, The, 184, 233,
234, 240, 264, 276
Rawlin, Thomas, 173
Richard II, 32, 37, 38, 40, 41, 75,
88, 91, 93, 116, 117, 118, 129,
143, 144, 150, 152, 153, 157,
161, 162, 165, 170, 172, 174,
176, 177, 179, 180, 211, 214,
246, 249, 264
Richard II, King of England, 1, 136,
162, 164, 176
Richard III, 30, 37, 38, 39, 41, 85,
87, 90, 93, 94, 115, 117, 119,
149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154,
156, 162, 173, 175, 178, 207,
213, 214, 223, 264
Richards, Nathaniel, 38, 40
Rod for Runaways, A, 56, 181, 182
Index
Romeo and Juliet, 2, 9, 39, 53, 88,
93, 154, 179, 200, 21840, 243,
248, 250, 253, 266, 278
Bawdy language, 23234
Nashe, 240
Fencing language, 234
23234, 23436, 23440
Rare Nasheian word, 232
21920
Sonnets, 22730
Romeus and Juliet, 39, 223, 224,
225
Rowley, Samuel, 4, 175
Rowley, William, 92, 122, 277
Sampson, William, 42, 92
Satiro-Mastix, 183, 231, 255, 256,
260, 261, 264, 265, 275, 276,
277
Seven Deadly Sins, The, 253, 255,
260, 264, 276
Shakespeare, William, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
7, 10, 11, 95, 149, 191, 264, 265,
266
Knowledge of foreign languages,
202, 216
Mythology, 199200
Sonnets, 22730
Sources, 2012
Targeting religious hypocrisy, 85
Shakspere, William, 12, 85, 129,
266
Sharpham, Edward, 213
Shirley, James, 78, 91, 185, 209,
222, 255
Shoemakers Holiday, The, 100,
186, 237, 238, 239, 240, 264
Sir Thomas Overbury his Wife, 256,
264
Sir Thomas Wyatt, 180

Soliman and Perseda, 42, 12326,
129, 130, 131
Parody, 12425
Sonnets, Shakespeares, 7, 118, 152,
153, 200, 214, 227, 229, 230,
264
Spanish Tragedy, The, 47, 114, 123,
124, 125, 126, 130
Spenser, Edmund, 22
Strange Horse-Race, A, 180, 254,
256
Strange News, 48, 56, 98, 99, 100,
190, 239, 264, 275, 276
Strong Parallels explanation, 9
Summers Last Will and Testament,
10, 56, 183, 238, 239, 256, 258,
277, 278
Suns Darling, The, 264
Tamburlaine, Part I, 2, 7, 8, 9, 12,
20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 30, 31, 33, 36,
38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 48, 56,
59, 60, 63, 64, 67, 81, 83, 86, 91,
92, 93, 103, 110, 111, 114, 116,
117, 119, 121, 123, 124, 126,
129, 131, 134, 135, 138, 141,
153, 154, 157, 167, 168, 171,
191, 198, 199, 200, 210, 219,
222, 228, 229, 230, 245, 247,
249, 263, 264, 266, 268
Tamburlaine, Part II, 2, 6, 7, 20, 22,
23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 37, 38,
39, 40, 42, 43, 48, 59, 64, 76, 83,
86, 89, 90, 92, 93, 112, 115, 117,
121, 124, 125, 137, 143, 146,
155, 167, 168, 169, 177, 196,
197, 198, 200, 202, 204, 208,
211, 215, 216, 219, 222, 223,
229, 230, 245, 248, 249, 264
Taming of a Shrew, The, 2, 31, 32,
39, 42, 58, 4863, 63, 64, 65, 69,
70, 71, 72, 73, 85, 86, 94, 121,
123, 125, 129, 157, 176, 179,
200, 208, 211, 212, 222, 223,
249, 263, 265, 275, 278
301
Chronology, 48
Nashe, 62
Parody, 5960
4950, 55
Taming of the Shrew, The, 33, 48,
58, 63, 85, 87, 90, 116, 129, 154,
176, 179, 200, 208, 213, 217,
223, 245, 265, 278
Tate, Nahum, 210
Tatham, John, 174
Tempest, The, 11, 129, 200
Terrors of the Night, The, 100, 156,
180, 183, 234, 236, 238, 259
Timon of Athens, 3, 154, 265
Titus Andronicus, 2, 3, 9, 12, 13, 53,
72, 87, 89, 149, 189215, 219,
222, 244, 245, 263
and Dido, Queen of Carthage,
19294, 2012
and Tamburlaine, Part I, 191
Chronology, 18990
other similarities, 198, 209
15
Mythology, 199
19298, 2025
Sources, 2012
Troilus and Cressida, 7, 32, 194,
200
Troublesome Reign of King John,
The, 91, 116, 212
True Tragedy, The, O1 Henry VI,
Part III, 9, 12, 37, 62, 67, 68, 72,
121, 122, 123, 126, 129, 130,
177, 178, 210, 212, 223, 263
Chronology, 12129
Twelfth Night, 184, 212, 213
Two Dangerous Comets, 233
Two Gentlemen of Verona, The,
157, 173, 175, 176, 200, 205,
215
302
Two Noble Kinsmen, The, 3, 10,
173, 200
Unfortunate Traveler, The, 40, 56,
97, 100, 101, 102, 183, 187, 189,
190, 236, 239, 258, 259, 260,
275, 276
Venus and Adonis, 11, 35, 36, 37,
38, 39, 87, 150, 151, 154, 171,
200, 203, 204, 205, 206, 209,
211, 214, 221, 223, 230, 264
Villainies Discovered by Lantern
and Candlelight, 260
Virgil, 82, 121, 201
Virgin Martyr, The, 180
Vox Graculi, 278
Walsingham, Thomas, 61
Watson, Thomas, 200, 229
Webster, John, 185, 236, 237
Westward Ho, 237, 238, 253, 256,
264, 277, 278
Whore of Babylon, The, 116, 213,
233
Wilkins, George, 3, 4
Index
Wilson, John, 254
Wilson, Robert, 3, 4, 212, 222
Winters Tale, The, 7, 205
Witch of Edmunton, The, 278
Woman in the Moon, The, 12729
Wonderful Year, The, 56, 101, 235,
239, 240, 255, 258, 260, 264
Woodstock, Thomas of, 2, 5, 12, 37,
66, 89, 101, 164, 16187, 200,
213, 223, 234, 239, 248, 254,
257, 258, 259, 263, 276
Chronology, 16163
Nashe, 187
17380, 18081, 187
165, 18183
Work for Armorers, 185, 237, 260,
277

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The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum:

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum:

To Isabel Gortzar, d. April 26, 2013

An extraordinary woman, and a passionate and tireless Marlovian scholar.

List of Abbreviations .................................................................................. ix

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 161

Attributed in whole or part to Dekker (for an explanation of

The Dead Term

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum

Many thanks to those who edited or otherwise offered comments to

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum

verse The Marliad, and publisher of www.marlovian.com; Samuel

Some law of logic should fix the number of

In this book, Donna Murphy provides a host of linguistic and other

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum

The Massacre at Paris weakened the position of English Catholics,

Walsinghams said counselors that might induce a prince to run

These worries were well founded. After James VI of Scotland became

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum

the Bedchamber, Baron Whaddon, Viscount Villiers, Earl of Buckingham,

In 1590, Greene alluded to Marlowe and Alleyn in Francescos

Just as we would instantly recognize Heres looking at you, kid as

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum

It was Edward Alleyn to whom Greene referred as Crow two years

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum

Venus and Adonis:

The Marlowe-Shakespeare Continuum

List of contemporary English authors Nashe referred to by name: Thomas

Marlowe & Peele

Marlowe & Nashe

A book discussing the overthrow of King Richard II enraged Queen

Shakespeare continuum beginning with Caesars Revenge, c. 1586-7;

differences between III Henry VI (3H6), A Midsummer Nights Dream,

We then choose methods to help us detect evidence of the hand of one

Matches and Near Matches

Shakespeare, general editors Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, Oxford,

Matches and Near Matches in the Works of Marlowe

Shakespeare, too, echoed himself in uncommon ways. Below are five

Rare Scattered Word Clusters

Certain playwrights minds operated via Image Clusters, according to

Nashe and Dekker and Marlowe and Shakespeare

experience Nashes comedic style in the dialogue of the servants, the

The Marlowe-Shakespeare continuum tilts toward Shakespeare in

Brian Vickers, Shakespeare and Authorship Studies in the Twenty-First

(NY: Routledge, 2001), 39-56; J. J. M. Tobin, Nashe and Some Shakespearean

(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 55-77 on Tamburlaine and Julius Caesar;

lisabthains 29 (1986): 27-37; Lawrence Danson, Continuity and Character in

anonymously and under the names Thomas Dekker, T. M., Adam

The Tragedie of Caesar and Pompey or Caesars Revenge, usually

While beds of Violets still come betweene

mentioned in his Perimedes the Blacke-Smith (1588 edn, G3v-G4r). His

CR, The Faerie Queene, and Tamburlaine

Spensers The Faerie Queene

1. Jove sometimes maskd in a

1. Lo I the man, whose Muse

2. Well, lovely boys, you shall be

2. Their scepters stretcht from East

3. When all the gods stand gazing at

3. The Gods stand gazing on,

4. Then let the stony dart of

4. Now let the stony dart of