Love of a Grecian Lady, The

Anon. Play Titles A (1594)

Historical Records

Performance Records

Playlists in Philip Henslowe's diary

Fol. 10 (Greg, I.19)

y^e 4 of octobʒ 1594

. . . . . . . . .

Res at the love of a gresyan lady . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xxvj^s

Fol. 10^v (Greg, I.20)

y^e 13 of novembʒ 1594		Res at the gresyan ladye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xv^s
y^e 23 of novembʒ 1594		Res at the greasyon comodey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	x^s
y^e 1 of decembʒ 1594	———	Res at the gresyan comody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	iiij^s

Fol. 11 (Greg, I.21)

y^e 25 of decembʒ 1594	^{S steuen}	Res at the greasyane comodey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxxxvj^s
y^e 10 of Jenewary 159[4]5		Res at the greasyon comodey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxviij^s
y^e 25 of Jenewary 1594		Res at the greasyan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xv^s
y^e 31 of Jenewary 1594		Res at the gresyan comody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxviij^s

Fol. 11^v (Greg, I.22)

y^e 22 of febreary 1594	. . . . . . . . .	Res at the gresyan comodey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xx^s
y^e 24 of ap^rell 1595		Res at the gresyan ladye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	lj^s
y^e 16 of maye 1595		Res at the greasyan comodey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxxiij^s

Fol. 13 (Greg, I.25)

y^e 10 of octobʒ 1595

. . . . . . . .

Res at the gresyan comody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

x^s

Theatrical Provenance

A play called "The Love of a Grecian Lady" was performed by the Admiral's men at the Rose playhouse beginning in October 1594 according to the records of Philip Henslowe. See Critical Commentary below for scholarly opinion on the independence of that play from one called "The Grecian Comedy" in Henslowe's records.

Probable Genre(s)

Comedy

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Information welcome.

References to the Play

Information welcome.

Critical Commentary

Malone does not suggest in a note on the initial appearance of "The Love of a Grecian Lady" that it might be some other play in disguise, but Collier seems to think that Malone had linked this play with George Peele's "The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek" (Malone did link the anonymous "Mahomet" in Henslowe's lists to the lost play by Peele [p. 295]). Collier, though making no comment on Henslowe's entries for "The Love of a Grecian Lady," does note at the entry of "The Grecian Comedy" that it was "[p]ossibly the same play as that before called the Love of a Grecian Lady" (p. 45, n.3). Fleay, BCED assigns "The Love of a Grecian Lady" number 136 and adds "The Grecian Comedy" in parenthesis without further comment (2.301 #136).

Greg II, in a somewhat garbled fashion, repeats previous scholarly associations of "The Love of a Grecian Lady" with Peele's lost "Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek." Of more significance, he explores in considerable detail a lumping by Fleay, BCED of "The French Doctor" with Thomas Dekker's lost "Jew of Venice" (Fleay, BCED, 2.301, #137; Greg II p. 170, #57). Fleay's chain (connecting the "Grecian" plays in Henslowe's diary with some combination of Dekker-French Doctor-Jew of Venice) is relevant to Greg's thinking on "The Love of a Grecian Lady" primarily because Greg—by following Fleay's lumping—arrived at last to a collapse of the three Henslowe plays into one: "The Love of a Grecian Lady" with "The Love of an English Lady" and "The Grecian Comedy" (p. 170, #57).

Knutson considers the cluster of similar titles in the context of the Admiral's repertory, asking whether "the data imply that a company could have administered the repertory system in such as way as to increase its profits" (p. 26). She observes that, were the titles of "The Love of a Grecian Lady," "The Love of an English Lady" and "The Grecian Comedy" indeed three separate plays, the Admiral's men "spent rehearsal time and incurred production expenses that they then wasted by retiring two of the plays ... after two performances each"; however, if there was one playbook for the three titles, it appears "that the Admiral's men handled the repertory system efficiently and profitably" by giving a single play (though variously named) fourteen performances over a period of thirteen months (p. 26).

Gurr does not give "The Love of a Grecian Lady" its own entry in Appendix I, "The Plays." He merges the dates on which Henslowe recorded it with "The Grecian Comedy" (as is done in Historical Records above). In a note to the item in the appendix, Gurr clarifies that the title variations "[p]robably" indicate a single play (pp. 209-10, n. 24).

Wiggins, Catalogue #785 subsumes the title, "The Love of a Grecian Lady" under that of "The Grecian Comedy" and takes the opportunity of an absent "ne" for either title to contemplate the provenance of the play/s as having belonged to the earlier company of Admiral's men and thus having been on stage before 1591.

For What It's Worth

See Critical Commentary on the pages for "The Love of an English Lady," "The Venetian Comedy," and "Grecian Comedy" for alternative opinions on the relationship of this play-set in the Admiral's repertory at the Rose in the fall of 1594.

Works Cited

Gurr, Andrew. Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Knutson, Roslyn Lander. The Repertory of Shakespeare's Company, 1594-1613. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1991.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; 10 August 2020.