https://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Todd+A.+Borlik&feedformat=atomLost Plays Database - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T07:00:25ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.39.6https://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12305Pythagoras2013-11-07T19:14:22Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues */</p>
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<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
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===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
{| <br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n87/mode/1up F.14 (Greg I.27)]:<br> <br />
|<span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 16 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| ne . . .<br> <br />
| Rd at pethageros . . . . . . . . .<br> <br />
| iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n88/mode/1up F.14v (Greg I.28)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 23 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 28 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagoros . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 9 of Febreary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 15 of Febreary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxv <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 23 of Febreary 1595<br><br />
| shroft tewsday <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n90/mode/1up F.15v (Greg I.30)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 21 of aprell 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xviij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 4 of maye 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 22 of maye 1596 <br><br />
| mr pd <br><br />
| Rd at pethagoros . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxvij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 31 of maye <br><br />
| whittsenmvnday<br> <br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| iij <sup>li</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 15 of June 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxiij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 1[3]4 of July 1596<br><br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|}<br />
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NB. On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "[[paradox]]" instead:<br />
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{| {{table}}<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21<sup>v</sup> / Greg 1.42] ||<span style="color: white">. . . .</span>|| y<sup>e</sup> 1 of Ju[''n'']ley 1596||<span style="color: white">. . . .</span>||ne . . <span style="color: white">. . . .</span>||R[d] at <peth> paradox . . . . . . . . . .||xxxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
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===Payments to Playwrights (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n146/mode/1up F.45<sup>v</sup> / Greg 1.86]<br />
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:Lente vnto the company the 16 of maye 1598 to bye<br />
:v boocks of martine slather called ij p''ar''tes of hercolus<br />
:& focas & pethagores & alyxander & lodicke w<sup>ch</sup> laste<br />
:boock he hath not yet delyuerd the some of . . . . . . . . . . vij<sup>li</sup><br />
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===''Henslowe Papers''===<br />
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Another reference to this lost play occurs in an inventory of Admiral's men's plays made by Henslowe. Dulwich Library lent the inventory papers to Edmond Malone, whose transcriptions were published in 1790; subsequently, the originals were lost. Malone's transcriptions are here reprinted as by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowepapersbe00hensuoft#page/121/mode/1up Appx. I, i.121]). <br />
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:Heading: "''A note of all suche bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3rd of March 1598''"<br />
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::In the 2nd column of the list of playbooks, Henslowe lists “Pethagores”.<br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
Marked "ne," the play was performed by the Admiral's men at the Rose on 16 January 1595[6].<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. On the possibility Pythagoras could have been a "magus" play, see the [[#"For What It's Worth|For What It's Worth]]" section below.<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
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Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses,'' which was one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
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:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
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Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
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The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers—including Pythagoras—in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is thought to be a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
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Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play first appeared in Henslowe's ''Diary''). <br />
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Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578), a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
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The most accessible biography of Pythagoras, however, would be that found in William Baldwin's ''Treatise of Moral Philosophy: Contayning the Sayings of the Wise''. The book includes over two dozen sayings of Pythagoras, as well as a three-page vita chronicling some of his most famous deeds and proverbs: his travels abroad, his discovery of music, his coining the word "philosopher," his analogy between a philosopher and a spectator at a public games, his scorning of riches and meat, and his sect's idealization of friendship. First published in 1547, Baldwin's book went through six editions prior to 1595, and a seventh appeared in 1596 - the year the ''Pythagoras'' play premiered.<br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
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Except for the cumulative records in Henslowe's diary and inventory, there appears to be no other documentation of the play, "Pythagoras." <br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
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Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays into the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
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In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
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<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
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Based on the fact that Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Ioppolo proposes him as a candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
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Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater on 16 May 1598, and it was kept in inventory, it is possible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
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===Contemporary allusions that associate Pythagoras with magic===<br />
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It is noteworthy that "Pythagoras" entered the repertory of the Admiral's men at a time (January 1596) when the company featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). "Pythagoras" might have been another such magus play.<br />
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1. References to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)—in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
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2. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertory, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
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3. Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r).<br />
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4.Another work that may have contributed to his popular reputation as a necromancer is ''A brefe and pleasaunte worke and science of the phelosopher Pictagoras'' (c. 1560?). Based on their astrological sign, readers choose from a selection of pre-set questions about their future health and fortune. They then pick a number between one and twelve. The corresponding answers are supplied by one 36 "judges" in the back of the book. The names of these judges have a diabolical ring: several of them appear in Johan Weyer's ''Pseudomonarchia Daemonum''. While the title-page claims that this system of divination is "taken and gethered out of ye sayde Pictagoras worke," this is patently false, as none of the philosopher's writing survive. Nevertheless, this text would have buttressed Baldwin's claim that Pythagoras was "well skilled in necromancy" (24).<br />
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===Contemporary allusions to the philosopher by Shakespeare===<br />
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1. ''The Merchant of Venice''<br />
<blockquote><br />
''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) makes one explicit mention of Pythagoras: <br />
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:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
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:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
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It contains three additional references to Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the extant Elizabethan play, ''Damon and Pithias,'' by Richard Edwards (Q1571):<br />
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:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
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Second, Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher, “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. <br />
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Third, Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
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:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
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:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
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Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger, Ferguson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
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</blockquote><br />
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2. ''As You Like It'' <br />
<blockquote><br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line—“All the world’s a stage”—is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. </blockquote><br />
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3. ''Twelfth Night''<br />
<blockquote>Yet another Shakespearean allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). </blockquote><br />
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===Some other Pythagoras?===<br />
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One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see above), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theaters: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men 1594-1603.'' Boston: D.C. Heath, 1935.</div> <br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category: Martin Slater]]<br />
[[category: Magician]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12304Pythagoras2013-11-07T18:38:52Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
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===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
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{| <br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n87/mode/1up F.14 (Greg I.27)]:<br> <br />
|<span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 16 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| ne . . .<br> <br />
| Rd at pethageros . . . . . . . . .<br> <br />
| iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n88/mode/1up F.14v (Greg I.28)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 23 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 28 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagoros . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 9 of Febreary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 15 of Febreary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxv <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 23 of Febreary 1595<br><br />
| shroft tewsday <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n90/mode/1up F.15v (Greg I.30)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 21 of aprell 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xviij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 4 of maye 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 22 of maye 1596 <br><br />
| mr pd <br><br />
| Rd at pethagoros . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxvij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 31 of maye <br><br />
| whittsenmvnday<br> <br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| iij <sup>li</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 15 of June 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxiij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 1[3]4 of July 1596<br><br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
NB. On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "[[paradox]]" instead:<br />
<br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21<sup>v</sup> / Greg 1.42] ||<span style="color: white">. . . .</span>|| y<sup>e</sup> 1 of Ju[''n'']ley 1596||<span style="color: white">. . . .</span>||ne . . <span style="color: white">. . . .</span>||R[d] at <peth> paradox . . . . . . . . . .||xxxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===Payments to Playwrights (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n146/mode/1up F.45<sup>v</sup> / Greg 1.86]<br />
<br />
:Lente vnto the company the 16 of maye 1598 to bye<br />
:v boocks of martine slather called ij p''ar''tes of hercolus<br />
:& focas & pethagores & alyxander & lodicke w<sup>ch</sup> laste<br />
:boock he hath not yet delyuerd the some of . . . . . . . . . . vij<sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===''Henslowe Papers''===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in an inventory of Admiral's men's plays made by Henslowe. Dulwich Library lent the inventory papers to Edmond Malone, whose transcriptions were published in 1790; subsequently, the originals were lost. Malone's transcriptions are here reprinted as by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowepapersbe00hensuoft#page/121/mode/1up Appx. I, i.121]). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
:Heading: "''A note of all suche bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3rd of March 1598''"<br />
<br />
::In the 2nd column of the list of playbooks, Henslowe lists “Pethagores”.<br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
Marked "ne," the play was performed by the Admiral's men at the Rose on 16 January 1595[6].<br />
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<br><br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. On the possibility Pythagoras could have been a "magus" play, see the [[#"For What It's Worth|For What It's Worth]]" section below.<br />
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<br><br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses,'' which was one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers—including Pythagoras—in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is thought to be a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
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<br><br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play first appeared in Henslowe's ''Diary''). <br />
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<br><br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578), a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
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<br><br />
<br><br />
The most accessible biography of Pythagoras, however, would be that found in William Baldwin's ''Treatise of Moral Philosophy: Contayning the Sayings of the Wise''. The book includes over two dozen sayings of Pythagoras, as well as a three-page vita chronicling some of his most famous deeds and proverbs: his travels abroad, his discovery of music, his coining the word "philosopher," his analogy between a philosopher and a spectator at a public games, his scorning of riches and meat, and his sect's idealization of friendship. First published in 1547, Baldwin's book went through six editions prior to 1595, and seventh appeared in 1596 - the year the ''Pythagoras'' play premiered.<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
Except for the cumulative records in Henslowe's diary and inventory, there appears to be no other documentation of the play, "Pythagoras." <br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays into the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
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In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br><br />
<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
<br><br />
Based on the fact that Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Ioppolo proposes him as a candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater on 16 May 1598, and it was kept in inventory, it is possible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
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===Contemporary allusions that associate Pythagoras with magic===<br />
<br />
It is noteworthy that "Pythagoras" entered the repertory of the Admiral's men at a time (January 1596) when the company featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). "Pythagoras" might have been another such magus play.<br />
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1. References to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)—in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
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2. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertory, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
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3. Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r).<br />
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4.Another work that may have contributed to his popular reputation as a necromancer is ''A brefe and pleasaunte worke and science of the phelosopher Pictagoras'' (c. 1560?). Based on their astrological sign, readers choose from a selection of pre-set questions about their future health and fortune. They then pick a number between one and twelve. The corresponding answers are supplied by one 36 "judges" in the back of the book. The names of these judges have a diabolical ring: several of them appear in Johan Weyer's ''Pseudomonarchia Daemonum''. While the title-page claims that this system of divination is "taken and gethered out of ye sayde Pictagoras worke," this is patently false, as none of the philosopher's writing survive. Nevertheless, this text would have buttressed Baldwin's claim that Pythagoras was "well skilled in necromancy" (24).<br />
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===Contemporary allusions to the philosopher by Shakespeare===<br />
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1. ''The Merchant of Venice''<br />
<blockquote><br />
''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) makes one explicit mention of Pythagoras: <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
<br />
:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
<br />
It contains three additional references to Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the extant Elizabethan play, ''Damon and Pithias,'' by Richard Edwards (Q1571):<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Second, Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher, “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. <br />
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Third, Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
<br />
:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
<br />
Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger, Ferguson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
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</blockquote><br />
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2. ''As You Like It'' <br />
<blockquote><br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line—“All the world’s a stage”—is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. </blockquote><br />
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3. ''Twelfth Night''<br />
<blockquote>Yet another Shakespearean allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). </blockquote><br />
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===Some other Pythagoras?===<br />
<br><br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see above), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theaters: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men 1594-1603.'' Boston: D.C. Heath, 1935.</div> <br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category: Martin Slater]]<br />
[[category: Magician]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12303Pythagoras2013-11-07T18:19:19Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Contemporary allusions that associate Pythagoras with magic */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
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===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
{| <br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n87/mode/1up F.14 (Greg I.27)]:<br> <br />
|<span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 16 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| ne . . .<br> <br />
| Rd at pethageros . . . . . . . . .<br> <br />
| iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n88/mode/1up F.14v (Greg I.28)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 23 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 28 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagoros . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 9 of Febreary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 15 of Febreary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxv <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 23 of Febreary 1595<br><br />
| shroft tewsday <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n90/mode/1up F.15v (Greg I.30)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 21 of aprell 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xviij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 4 of maye 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 22 of maye 1596 <br><br />
| mr pd <br><br />
| Rd at pethagoros . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxvij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 31 of maye <br><br />
| whittsenmvnday<br> <br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| iij <sup>li</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 15 of June 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxiij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 1[3]4 of July 1596<br><br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
NB. On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "[[paradox]]" instead:<br />
<br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21<sup>v</sup> / Greg 1.42] ||<span style="color: white">. . . .</span>|| y<sup>e</sup> 1 of Ju[''n'']ley 1596||<span style="color: white">. . . .</span>||ne . . <span style="color: white">. . . .</span>||R[d] at <peth> paradox . . . . . . . . . .||xxxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
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===Payments to Playwrights (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n146/mode/1up F.45<sup>v</sup> / Greg 1.86]<br />
<br />
:Lente vnto the company the 16 of maye 1598 to bye<br />
:v boocks of martine slather called ij p''ar''tes of hercolus<br />
:& focas & pethagores & alyxander & lodicke w<sup>ch</sup> laste<br />
:boock he hath not yet delyuerd the some of . . . . . . . . . . vij<sup>li</sup><br />
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===''Henslowe Papers''===<br />
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Another reference to this lost play occurs in an inventory of Admiral's men's plays made by Henslowe. Dulwich Library lent the inventory papers to Edmond Malone, whose transcriptions were published in 1790; subsequently, the originals were lost. Malone's transcriptions are here reprinted as by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowepapersbe00hensuoft#page/121/mode/1up Appx. I, i.121]). <br />
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:Heading: "''A note of all suche bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3rd of March 1598''"<br />
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::In the 2nd column of the list of playbooks, Henslowe lists “Pethagores”.<br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
Marked "ne," the play was performed by the Admiral's men at the Rose on 16 January 1595[6].<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. On the possibility Pythagoras could have been a "magus" play, see the [[#"For What It's Worth|For What It's Worth]]" section below.<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses,'' which was one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
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The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers—including Pythagoras—in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is thought to be a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
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Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play first appeared in Henslowe's ''Diary''). <br />
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Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578), a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
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Except for the cumulative records in Henslowe's diary and inventory, there appears to be no other documentation of the play, "Pythagoras." <br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
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Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays into the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
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In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
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<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
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Based on the fact that Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Ioppolo proposes him as a candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
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Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater on 16 May 1598, and it was kept in inventory, it is possible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
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===Contemporary allusions that associate Pythagoras with magic===<br />
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It is noteworthy that "Pythagoras" entered the repertory of the Admiral's men at a time (January 1596) when the company featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). "Pythagoras" might have been another such magus play.<br />
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1. References to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)—in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
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2. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertory, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
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3. Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r).<br />
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4.Another work that may have contributed to his popular reputation as a necromancer is ''A brefe and pleasaunte worke and science of the phelosopher Pictagoras'' (c. 1560?). Based on their astrological sign, readers choose from a selection of pre-set questions about their future health and fortune. They then pick a number between one and twelve. The corresponding answers are supplied by one 36 "judges" in the back of the book. The names of these judges have a diabolical ring: several of them appear in Johan Weyer's ''Pseudomonarchia Daemonum''. While the title-page claims that this system of divination is "taken and gethered out of ye sayde Pictagoras worke," this is patently false, as none of the philosopher's writing survive. Nevertheless, this text would have buttressed Baldwin's claim that Pythagoras was "well skilled in necromancy" (24).<br />
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===Contemporary allusions to the philosopher by Shakespeare===<br />
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1. ''The Merchant of Venice''<br />
<blockquote><br />
''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) makes one explicit mention of Pythagoras: <br />
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:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
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:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
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It contains three additional references to Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the extant Elizabethan play, ''Damon and Pithias,'' by Richard Edwards (Q1571):<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
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Second, Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher, “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. <br />
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Third, Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
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:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
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:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
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Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger, Ferguson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
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</blockquote><br />
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2. ''As You Like It'' <br />
<blockquote><br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line—“All the world’s a stage”—is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. </blockquote><br />
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3. ''Twelfth Night''<br />
<blockquote>Yet another Shakespearean allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). </blockquote><br />
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===Some other Pythagoras?===<br />
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One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see above), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theaters: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men 1594-1603.'' Boston: D.C. Heath, 1935.</div> <br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category: Martin Slater]]<br />
[[category: Magician]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12302Pythagoras2013-11-07T18:17:54Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* For What It's Worth */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
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===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
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{| <br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n87/mode/1up F.14 (Greg I.27)]:<br> <br />
|<span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 16 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| ne . . .<br> <br />
| Rd at pethageros . . . . . . . . .<br> <br />
| iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n88/mode/1up F.14v (Greg I.28)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 23 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 28 of Jenewary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagoros . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 9 of Febreary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 15 of Febreary 1595<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxv <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 23 of Febreary 1595<br><br />
| shroft tewsday <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n90/mode/1up F.15v (Greg I.30)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 21 of aprell 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xviij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 4 of maye 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagorus . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xx <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 22 of maye 1596 <br><br />
| mr pd <br><br />
| Rd at pethagoros . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxvij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br> <br />
| <br><br />
|-<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 31 of maye <br><br />
| whittsenmvnday<br> <br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| iij <sup>li</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 15 of June 1596<br> <br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxiij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|-<br />
| <br> <br />
| <span style="color: white">. . . .</span> y<sup>e</sup> 1[3]4 of July 1596<br><br />
| <br><br />
| Rd at pethagores . . . . . .<br> <br />
| xxij <sup>s</sup><br><br />
|}<br />
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NB. On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "[[paradox]]" instead:<br />
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{| {{table}}<br />
| [http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21<sup>v</sup> / Greg 1.42] ||<span style="color: white">. . . .</span>|| y<sup>e</sup> 1 of Ju[''n'']ley 1596||<span style="color: white">. . . .</span>||ne . . <span style="color: white">. . . .</span>||R[d] at <peth> paradox . . . . . . . . . .||xxxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
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===Payments to Playwrights (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n146/mode/1up F.45<sup>v</sup> / Greg 1.86]<br />
<br />
:Lente vnto the company the 16 of maye 1598 to bye<br />
:v boocks of martine slather called ij p''ar''tes of hercolus<br />
:& focas & pethagores & alyxander & lodicke w<sup>ch</sup> laste<br />
:boock he hath not yet delyuerd the some of . . . . . . . . . . vij<sup>li</sup><br />
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===''Henslowe Papers''===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in an inventory of Admiral's men's plays made by Henslowe. Dulwich Library lent the inventory papers to Edmond Malone, whose transcriptions were published in 1790; subsequently, the originals were lost. Malone's transcriptions are here reprinted as by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowepapersbe00hensuoft#page/121/mode/1up Appx. I, i.121]). <br />
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:Heading: "''A note of all suche bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3rd of March 1598''"<br />
<br />
::In the 2nd column of the list of playbooks, Henslowe lists “Pethagores”.<br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
Marked "ne," the play was performed by the Admiral's men at the Rose on 16 January 1595[6].<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. On the possibility Pythagoras could have been a "magus" play, see the [[#"For What It's Worth|For What It's Worth]]" section below.<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses,'' which was one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers—including Pythagoras—in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is thought to be a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play first appeared in Henslowe's ''Diary''). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578), a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
Except for the cumulative records in Henslowe's diary and inventory, there appears to be no other documentation of the play, "Pythagoras." <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays into the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br><br />
<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
<br><br />
Based on the fact that Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Ioppolo proposes him as a candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater on 16 May 1598, and it was kept in inventory, it is possible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
===Contemporary allusions that associate Pythagoras with magic===<br />
<br />
It is noteworthy that "Pythagoras" entered the repertory of the Admiral's men at a time (January 1596) when the company featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). "Pythagoras" might have been another such magus play.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
1. References to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)—in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
2. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertory, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
3. Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
4.Another work that may have contributed to his popular reputation as a necromancer is ''A brefe and pleasaunte worke and science of the phelosopher Pictagoras''''Italic text'' (c. 1560?). Based on their astrological sign, readers choose from a selection of pre-set questions about their future health and fortune. They then pick a number between one and twelve. The corresponding answers are supplied by one 36 "judges" in the back of the book. The names of these judges have a diabolical ring: several of them appear in Johan Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. While the title-page claims that this system of divination is "taken and gethered out of ye sayde Pictagoras worke," this is patently false, as none of the philosopher's writing survive. Nevertheless, this text would have buttressed Baldwin's claim that Pythagoras was "well skilled in necromancy" (24). <br />
===Contemporary allusions to the philosopher by Shakespeare===<br />
<br />
1. ''The Merchant of Venice''<br />
<blockquote><br />
''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) makes one explicit mention of Pythagoras: <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
<br />
:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
<br />
It contains three additional references to Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the extant Elizabethan play, ''Damon and Pithias,'' by Richard Edwards (Q1571):<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Second, Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher, “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Third, Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
<br />
:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
<br />
Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger, Ferguson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
2. ''As You Like It'' <br />
<blockquote><br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line—“All the world’s a stage”—is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. </blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br />
3. ''Twelfth Night''<br />
<blockquote>Yet another Shakespearean allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). </blockquote><br />
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<br><br />
<br />
===Some other Pythagoras?===<br />
<br><br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see above), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
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<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theaters: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men 1594-1603.'' Boston: D.C. Heath, 1935.</div> <br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category: Martin Slater]]<br />
[[category: Magician]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12274Pythagoras2013-10-10T20:59:50Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Henslowe's Diary===<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Henslowe Papers===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. On the possibility Pythagoras could have been a "magus" play, see the "For What It's Worth" section below....<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)---a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays into the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br><br />
<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopolo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes explicit mentions of Pythagoras in three plays; the first, in ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose: <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
<br />
:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
<br />
''Merchant of Venice'' contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play ''Damon and Pythias'':<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
<br />
:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
<br />
Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger, Ferguson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--–in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men 1594-1603.'' Boston: D.C. Heath, 1935.</div> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category: Martin Slater]]<br />
[[category: Magician]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12273Pythagoras2013-10-10T20:57:06Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Henslowe's Diary===<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Henslowe Papers===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. On the possibility Pythagoras could have been a "magus" play, see the "For What It's Worth" section below....<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)---a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays into the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br><br />
<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopolo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes explicit mentions of Pythagoras in three plays; the first, in ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose: <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
<br />
:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
<br />
''Merchant of Venice'' contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play ''Damon and Pythias'':<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
<br />
:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
<br />
Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger, Ferguson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--–in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men 1594-1603.'' Boston: D.C. Heath, 1935.</div> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12272Pythagoras2013-10-06T14:08:30Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Works Cited */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Henslowe's Diary===<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Henslowe Papers===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)---a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays in the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br><br />
<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopolo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes explicit mentions of Pythagoras in three plays; the first, in ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose: <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
<br />
:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
<br />
''Merchant of Venice'' contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play ''Damon and Pythias'':<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
<br />
:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
<br />
Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger, Ferguson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--–in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men 1594-1603.'' Boston: D.C. Heath, 1935.</div> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12271Pythagoras2013-10-06T14:08:01Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Works Cited */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Henslowe's Diary===<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Henslowe Papers===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)---a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays in the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br><br />
<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopolo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes explicit mentions of Pythagoras in three plays; the first, in ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose: <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
<br />
:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
<br />
''Merchant of Venice'' contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play ''Damon and Pythias'':<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
<br />
:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
<br />
Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger, Ferguson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--–in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres: Shakespeare's Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral's Men 1594-1603'' Boston: D.C. Heath, 1935.</div> <br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12270Pythagoras2013-10-06T14:06:10Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* For What It's Worth */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Henslowe's Diary===<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
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<br><br />
===Henslowe Papers===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br><br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
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<br><br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)---a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays in the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
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<br><br />
In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br><br />
<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
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<br><br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopolo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes explicit mentions of Pythagoras in three plays; the first, in ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose: <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
<br />
:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
<br />
''Merchant of Venice'' contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play ''Damon and Pythias'':<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
<br />
:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
<br />
Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger, Ferguson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
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<br><br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
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Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
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Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). <br />
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Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
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Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--–in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
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One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
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Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres''.</div> <br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Cutlack&diff=6655Cutlack2013-10-04T14:24:52Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Critical Commentary */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1594]])<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
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===''Henslowe's Diary''===<br />
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'''F. 9 ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n76/mode/2up Greg I.17])'''<br />
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Under the play list for "my lord admeralls men" on 14-16 May 1594:<br />
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:R''es'' at Cvlacke the 16 of maye 1594 xxxxij<sup>s</sup><br />
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Under the play list "begininge at newington for "my Lord Admeralle men & my Lorde chamberlen men" for 10 performances, June 3-13:<br />
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:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 6 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xj<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
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In Henslowe's play lists beginning 15 June 1594, the date on which W. W. Greg decided that the Admiral's players had returned to the Rose after their 10-day run at Newington with the Chamberlain's players:<br />
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:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 17 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cutlacke||||||xxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 24 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 27 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cvttlacke||||||xxxvj<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
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'''F. 9<sup>v</sup> ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n78/mode/2up Greg I.18])'''<br />
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:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 4 of Julye 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxiiij<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 15 of Julye 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 29 of Julye 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxix<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 8 of aguste 1594||||||R''es'' at cvttlacke||||||xiij<sup>s</sup> vj<sup>d</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 22 of aguste 1594||||||R''es'' at cvttlacke||||||xxiij<sup>s</sup> vj<sup>d</sup><br />
|}<br />
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<br />
'''F. 10 ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n78/mode/2up Greg I.19])'''<br />
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:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 6 of septemb[er] 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xj<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 26 of septmb[er] 1594||||||R''es'' at cuttlacke||||||xiiij<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
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NB: The entry 8 August 1594 is one of several in the diary that shares a calendar date with another play. In this instance, Henslowe entered "[[Philipo and Hippolito]]" for 7 August and ''The Massacre at Paris'' for 8 August, duplicating those dates with the assignment of the 7th to ''The Jew of Malta'' and the 8th to "Cutlack."<br><br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
The newly formed Admiral's men introduced "Cutlack" without the enigmatic sign "ne" on 16 May 1594 when they acquired the lease at the Rose playhouse that they were to maintain until their move to the Fortune in the fall of 1600. They gave the play 12 performances before retiring it, apparently for good, as it does not reappear in records from Henslowe's diary. The absence of a "ne" suggests a prior history with another company before May 1594.<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Tragedy? (Harbage)<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
In ''Annals'' Harbage offers "Guthlac ?" as a possible identification of the character Geoffrey of Monmouth calls "Guichlac" (III.2-4, 11). Guichlac was the king of the Danes in the time of [[Belinus, Brennus | Belinus and Brennius]], sons of Mulmutius Dunwallow ("[[Mulmutius Dunwallow|Mulmutius Dunwallow]]"). The identification is supported by the following evidence: first, the narrative of Guichlac in Geoffrey's ''The History of the Kings of Britain'' (the name is spelled "Ginchtalacus" in the 1966 Penguin edition); second, the connection of the name "Gutlack," or "Cutlake," with that narrative:<br />
<br />
<u>Guichlac's story, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth in ''The History of the Kings of Britain''</u>: [http://www.archive.org/stream/geoffreyofmonmou00geofuoft#page/58/mode/2up Internet Archive] <br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"><br />
:• Brennius was returning to Britain with a force of Norwegian warriors to defend his holdings against the military take-over of his brother, Belinus, when Guichlac followed and attacked him.<br />
:• In the course of the battle, Guichlac saw and desired the woman Brennius had married. Boarding Brennius's ship, Guichlac kidnapped the wife. <br />
:• A storm arose suddenly, scattering the ships of both factions. In a curious turn of fate, Guichlac's ship beached in Northumbria where Belinus was encamped (on Brennius's territory). Belinus took Guichlac and Brennius's bride as prisoners to use as pawns of his revenge against Brennius. <br />
:• Meanwhile Brennius landed with his Norwegians in Scotland; Belinus sought him out and defeated him. <br />
:• At a council at York, Belinus released Guichlac, who offered yearly tribute in return for allowing him to go home to Denmark with Brennius's stolen bride. <br />
:• There Guichlac remained until Belinus's son, Gurguint Barbtruc, invaded his home, killed him, and subjugated his people, all because Guichlac refused to pay to the son the tribute he had paid the father, Belinus.</div><br />
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<u>"Gutlack" and "Cutlake" as variant spellings of "Guichlac" in the late 16th century</u>:<br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">B. G. [Bernard Garter], ''The ioyfull receyuing of the Queenes most excellent Maiestie into hir Highnesse citie of Norvvich the things done in the time of hir abode there: and the dolor of the citie at hir departure …''. 1578. [http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:6011:7 EEBO]</div><br />
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<br />
:King ''Gurgunt'' I am hight, King ''Belins'' eldest sonne,<br />
:Whose syre ''Dunwallo'' first, the Brittish crowne did weare.<br />
:Whom truthlesse ''Gutlack'' forste to passe the surging seas,<br />
:His falshode to reuenge, and Denmarke land to spoile.<br />
::: (B3<sup>r</sup>)<br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">William Warner, ''Albions England Or historicall map of the same island … Continuing the same historie vnto the tribute to the Romaines, entrie of the Saxones, inuasion by the Danes, and conquest by the Normaines …''. 1586. [http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/fulltext?ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000998468900000&SOURCE=var_spell.cfg&DISPLAY=AUTHOR&WARN=N&FILE=../session/1268131696_22074 EEBO]</div><br />
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<br />
:My Brothers Kingdome seemes, forsooth, an Ouer-match to myne,<br />
:My Kingdome, Cutlake, therefore is an Under-match to thyne?<br />
:Nay, giue (and so I hope ye will) the Prize to me, and than,<br />
:Let Cutlake with his Crowne of Danske vn-crowne me, if he can.<br />
::: (p. 63)<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Cutlack's narrative was well known to Spenser. In Book II of ''The Faerie Queene'', in the history book Arthur reads in the library at Alma's castle, Spenser tells the story of [[Mulmutius Dunwallow]] in some detail, but he truncates the actions of the bellicose sons. He thus omits the sub-plot of the Danish king, Guichlac, except to say that Belinus's son, Gurgunt, "Danmarke wonne,/ And ... did foy and tribute raise,/ The which was dew in his dead fathers dayes" (II.x.41.3-5).<br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
In Epigram #43, "Of ''Clodius''," Everard Guilpin mocks a braggart who copies moves from characters in plays, one of which is ''Cutlack'' ([http://books.google.com/books?id=WTjeq7bwYv8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=everard+guilpin&source=bl&ots=Xhoyt-hO2t&sig=Rz44I8bFGhkbpqFn8GQmO2E-rQo&hl=en&ei=szKVS9uAFoKUNavfpacN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=&f=false Google Books]):<br />
<br />
:''Clodus'' me thinks lookes passing big of late, <br />
:With ''Dunstons'' browes, and ''Allens Cutlacks'' gate : <br />
:What humours haue possest him so, I wonder, <br />
:His eyes are lightning, and his words are thunder: <br />
:What meanes the Bragart by his alteration? <br />
:He knows he's known too wel, for this fond fashion : <br />
:To cause him to be feared : what meanes he than ? <br />
: Belike, because he cannot play the man. <br />
:Yet would be awde, he keepes this filthy reuell, <br />
:Stalking and roaring like to ''Job's'' great deuill. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Collier ([http://www.archive.org/stream/diaryphiliphens00hensgoog#page/n72/mode/2up ''Diary'', p. 34]), Fleay ([http://www.archive.org/stream/abiographicalch02fleagoog#page/n311/mode/2up ''BCED'', 2.301]), and Greg ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary02hensuoft#page/162/mode/2up II. Item 40, p. 163]) identified the reference to the play in Guilpin's epigram.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Gurr interprets "''Allens'' ''Cutlacks'' gate" as a reference to the gait, or stride, of the character in the Admiral's play as performed by Edward Alleyn (203n). In another context, Gurr characterizes Cutlack as "heroic" (50).<br />
<br><br><br />
See also [[WorksCited|Wiggins]] serial number 858.<br />
<br><br><br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br><br />
Theatrical interest in the historical time of Cutlack continued into 1598, when the Admiral's men purchased "[[Mulmutius Dunwallow|Mulmutius Dunwallow]]" from William Rankins on 3 October 1598.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The fact that King Gurgunt is a major figure in the Norwich pageant welcoming the queen to the city on 16 August 1578 suggests some currency at least in one part of England for the ancillary characters in Gurgunt's story, one of whom is Cutlack. (Gurgunt was the son of Belinus, nephew of Brennius. He sought the tribute his late father had won from Cutlack; failing to receive it, Gurgant invaded Cutlack's territory, killing Cutlack and subjecting his people.) <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Based on the evidence that "Cutlack" was the Danish king, Guichlac, the genre of the play might as well be "history" as Harbage's guess of "tragedy."<br />
[[category:all]]<br />
<br><br><br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Borlik, Todd A. "Caliban and the fen demons of Lincolnshire: The Englishness of Shakespeare's ''Tempest''." '' Shakespeare'' 9:1 (Spring 2013): 21-51.<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">B. G., ''The ioyfull receyuing of the Queenes most excellent Maiestie into hir Highnesse citie of Norvvich the things done in the time of hir abode there: and the dolor of the citie at hir departure. Wherein are set downe diuers orations in Latine, pronounced to hir Highnesse by Sir Robert Wood Knight, now Maior of the same citie, and others: and certaine also deliuered to hir Maiestie in vvriting: euery of the[m] turned into English''. 1578. [http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:6011:7 EEBO]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Collier, John Payne, ed. ''The Diary of Philip Henslowe, from 1591 to 1609''. London: Shakespeare Society, 1845.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Geoffrey of Monmouth. ''History of the Kings of Britain''. trans. Sebastian Evans. London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1904. [http://www.archive.org/stream/geoffreyofmonmou00geofuoft#page/58/mode/2up Internet Archive]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Guilpen, Everard. ''Skialetheia''. 1598. [http://books.google.com/books?id=WTjeq7bwYv8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=everard+guilpin&source=bl&ots=Xhoyt-hO2t&sig=Rz44I8bFGhkbpqFn8GQmO2E-rQo&hl=en&ei=szKVS9uAFoKUNavfpacN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=&f=false Google Books]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Gurr, Andrew. ''Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div> <br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Warner, William. ''Albions England Or historicall map of the same island: … proffitably, briefly, and pleasantly, performed in verse and prose by William Warner''. 1586. [http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/fulltext?ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000998468900000&SOURCE=var_spell.cfg&DISPLAY=AUTHOR&WARN=N&FILE=../session/1268131696_22074 EEBO]</div><br />
<br />
[[category:Admiral's]] [[category:Newington]] [[Category:Rose]] [[category:Denmark]][[category: Geoffrey of Monmouth]][[category:Roslyn L. Knutson]]<br />
<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[Roslyn L. Knutson]], Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 8 March 2010.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Cutlack&diff=6654Cutlack2013-10-04T14:21:07Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Works Cited */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1594]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===''Henslowe's Diary''===<br />
<br />
<br />
'''F. 9 ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n76/mode/2up Greg I.17])'''<br />
<br />
Under the play list for "my lord admeralls men" on 14-16 May 1594:<br />
<br />
:R''es'' at Cvlacke the 16 of maye 1594 xxxxij<sup>s</sup><br />
<br><br />
<br />
Under the play list "begininge at newington for "my Lord Admeralle men & my Lorde chamberlen men" for 10 performances, June 3-13:<br />
<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 6 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xj<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
In Henslowe's play lists beginning 15 June 1594, the date on which W. W. Greg decided that the Admiral's players had returned to the Rose after their 10-day run at Newington with the Chamberlain's players:<br />
<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 17 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cutlacke||||||xxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 24 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 27 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cvttlacke||||||xxxvj<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
'''F. 9<sup>v</sup> ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n78/mode/2up Greg I.18])'''<br />
<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 4 of Julye 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxiiij<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 15 of Julye 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 29 of Julye 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxix<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 8 of aguste 1594||||||R''es'' at cvttlacke||||||xiij<sup>s</sup> vj<sup>d</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 22 of aguste 1594||||||R''es'' at cvttlacke||||||xxiij<sup>s</sup> vj<sup>d</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
'''F. 10 ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n78/mode/2up Greg I.19])'''<br />
<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 6 of septemb[er] 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xj<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 26 of septmb[er] 1594||||||R''es'' at cuttlacke||||||xiiij<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
NB: The entry 8 August 1594 is one of several in the diary that shares a calendar date with another play. In this instance, Henslowe entered "[[Philipo and Hippolito]]" for 7 August and ''The Massacre at Paris'' for 8 August, duplicating those dates with the assignment of the 7th to ''The Jew of Malta'' and the 8th to "Cutlack."<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
The newly formed Admiral's men introduced "Cutlack" without the enigmatic sign "ne" on 16 May 1594 when they acquired the lease at the Rose playhouse that they were to maintain until their move to the Fortune in the fall of 1600. They gave the play 12 performances before retiring it, apparently for good, as it does not reappear in records from Henslowe's diary. The absence of a "ne" suggests a prior history with another company before May 1594.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Tragedy? (Harbage)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
In ''Annals'' Harbage offers "Guthlac ?" as a possible identification of the character Geoffrey of Monmouth calls "Guichlac" (III.2-4, 11). Guichlac was the king of the Danes in the time of [[Belinus, Brennus | Belinus and Brennius]], sons of Mulmutius Dunwallow ("[[Mulmutius Dunwallow|Mulmutius Dunwallow]]"). The identification is supported by the following evidence: first, the narrative of Guichlac in Geoffrey's ''The History of the Kings of Britain'' (the name is spelled "Ginchtalacus" in the 1966 Penguin edition); second, the connection of the name "Gutlack," or "Cutlake," with that narrative:<br />
<br />
<u>Guichlac's story, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth in ''The History of the Kings of Britain''</u>: [http://www.archive.org/stream/geoffreyofmonmou00geofuoft#page/58/mode/2up Internet Archive] <br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"><br />
:• Brennius was returning to Britain with a force of Norwegian warriors to defend his holdings against the military take-over of his brother, Belinus, when Guichlac followed and attacked him.<br />
:• In the course of the battle, Guichlac saw and desired the woman Brennius had married. Boarding Brennius's ship, Guichlac kidnapped the wife. <br />
:• A storm arose suddenly, scattering the ships of both factions. In a curious turn of fate, Guichlac's ship beached in Northumbria where Belinus was encamped (on Brennius's territory). Belinus took Guichlac and Brennius's bride as prisoners to use as pawns of his revenge against Brennius. <br />
:• Meanwhile Brennius landed with his Norwegians in Scotland; Belinus sought him out and defeated him. <br />
:• At a council at York, Belinus released Guichlac, who offered yearly tribute in return for allowing him to go home to Denmark with Brennius's stolen bride. <br />
:• There Guichlac remained until Belinus's son, Gurguint Barbtruc, invaded his home, killed him, and subjugated his people, all because Guichlac refused to pay to the son the tribute he had paid the father, Belinus.</div><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<u>"Gutlack" and "Cutlake" as variant spellings of "Guichlac" in the late 16th century</u>:<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">B. G. [Bernard Garter], ''The ioyfull receyuing of the Queenes most excellent Maiestie into hir Highnesse citie of Norvvich the things done in the time of hir abode there: and the dolor of the citie at hir departure …''. 1578. [http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:6011:7 EEBO]</div><br />
<br><br />
<br />
:King ''Gurgunt'' I am hight, King ''Belins'' eldest sonne,<br />
:Whose syre ''Dunwallo'' first, the Brittish crowne did weare.<br />
:Whom truthlesse ''Gutlack'' forste to passe the surging seas,<br />
:His falshode to reuenge, and Denmarke land to spoile.<br />
::: (B3<sup>r</sup>)<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">William Warner, ''Albions England Or historicall map of the same island … Continuing the same historie vnto the tribute to the Romaines, entrie of the Saxones, inuasion by the Danes, and conquest by the Normaines …''. 1586. [http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/fulltext?ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000998468900000&SOURCE=var_spell.cfg&DISPLAY=AUTHOR&WARN=N&FILE=../session/1268131696_22074 EEBO]</div><br />
<br><br />
<br />
:My Brothers Kingdome seemes, forsooth, an Ouer-match to myne,<br />
:My Kingdome, Cutlake, therefore is an Under-match to thyne?<br />
:Nay, giue (and so I hope ye will) the Prize to me, and than,<br />
:Let Cutlake with his Crowne of Danske vn-crowne me, if he can.<br />
::: (p. 63)<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Cutlack's narrative was well known to Spenser. In Book II of ''The Faerie Queene'', in the history book Arthur reads in the library at Alma's castle, Spenser tells the story of [[Mulmutius Dunwallow]] in some detail, but he truncates the actions of the bellicose sons. He thus omits the sub-plot of the Danish king, Guichlac, except to say that Belinus's son, Gurgunt, "Danmarke wonne,/ And ... did foy and tribute raise,/ The which was dew in his dead fathers dayes" (II.x.41.3-5).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
In Epigram #43, "Of ''Clodius''," Everard Guilpin mocks a braggart who copies moves from characters in plays, one of which is ''Cutlack'' ([http://books.google.com/books?id=WTjeq7bwYv8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=everard+guilpin&source=bl&ots=Xhoyt-hO2t&sig=Rz44I8bFGhkbpqFn8GQmO2E-rQo&hl=en&ei=szKVS9uAFoKUNavfpacN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=&f=false Google Books]):<br />
<br />
:''Clodus'' me thinks lookes passing big of late, <br />
:With ''Dunstons'' browes, and ''Allens Cutlacks'' gate : <br />
:What humours haue possest him so, I wonder, <br />
:His eyes are lightning, and his words are thunder: <br />
:What meanes the Bragart by his alteration? <br />
:He knows he's known too wel, for this fond fashion : <br />
:To cause him to be feared : what meanes he than ? <br />
: Belike, because he cannot play the man. <br />
:Yet would be awde, he keepes this filthy reuell, <br />
:Stalking and roaring like to ''Job's'' great deuill. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Collier ([http://www.archive.org/stream/diaryphiliphens00hensgoog#page/n72/mode/2up ''Diary'', p. 34]), Fleay ([http://www.archive.org/stream/abiographicalch02fleagoog#page/n311/mode/2up ''BCED'', 2.301]), and Greg ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary02hensuoft#page/162/mode/2up II. Item 40, p. 163]) identified the reference to the play in Guilpin's epigram.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Gurr interprets "''Allens'' ''Cutlacks'' gate" as a reference to the gait, or stride, of the character in the Admiral's play as performed by Edward Alleyn (203n). In another context, Gurr characterizes Cutlack as "heroic" (50).<br />
<br><br><br />
See also [[WorksCited|Wiggins]] serial number 858.<br />
<br><br><br><br />
<br />
Todd Borlik has speculated that the Cutlack play may be based on legends surrounding the Anglo-Saxon saint and fen-dweller Guthlac.<br />
Interest in this hermit revived in the late sixteenth century due to the antiquarian research of William Camden and the contemporary land-improvement schemes to drain the the area of the Lincolnshire fens (known as Crowland) where Guthlac settled. Adducing parallels from Camden and medieval hagiographies (in which Guthlac resides on an island in the fens, battles native fen demons who speak a foreign language, foils a murderous conspiracy by his servant, and commands an angelic familiar), Borlik argues the lost play could have provided an impetus for Shakespeare's Tempest.<br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br><br />
Theatrical interest in the historical time of Cutlack continued into 1598, when the Admiral's men purchased "[[Mulmutius Dunwallow|Mulmutius Dunwallow]]" from William Rankins on 3 October 1598.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The fact that King Gurgunt is a major figure in the Norwich pageant welcoming the queen to the city on 16 August 1578 suggests some currency at least in one part of England for the ancillary characters in Gurgunt's story, one of whom is Cutlack. (Gurgunt was the son of Belinus, nephew of Brennius. He sought the tribute his late father had won from Cutlack; failing to receive it, Gurgant invaded Cutlack's territory, killing Cutlack and subjecting his people.) <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Based on the evidence that "Cutlack" was the Danish king, Guichlac, the genre of the play might as well be "history" as Harbage's guess of "tragedy."<br />
[[category:all]]<br />
<br><br><br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Borlik, Todd A. "Caliban and the fen demons of Lincolnshire: The Englishness of Shakespeare's ''Tempest''." '' Shakespeare'' 9:1 (Spring 2013): 21-51.<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">B. G., ''The ioyfull receyuing of the Queenes most excellent Maiestie into hir Highnesse citie of Norvvich the things done in the time of hir abode there: and the dolor of the citie at hir departure. Wherein are set downe diuers orations in Latine, pronounced to hir Highnesse by Sir Robert Wood Knight, now Maior of the same citie, and others: and certaine also deliuered to hir Maiestie in vvriting: euery of the[m] turned into English''. 1578. [http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:6011:7 EEBO]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Collier, John Payne, ed. ''The Diary of Philip Henslowe, from 1591 to 1609''. London: Shakespeare Society, 1845.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Geoffrey of Monmouth. ''History of the Kings of Britain''. trans. Sebastian Evans. London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1904. [http://www.archive.org/stream/geoffreyofmonmou00geofuoft#page/58/mode/2up Internet Archive]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Guilpen, Everard. ''Skialetheia''. 1598. [http://books.google.com/books?id=WTjeq7bwYv8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=everard+guilpin&source=bl&ots=Xhoyt-hO2t&sig=Rz44I8bFGhkbpqFn8GQmO2E-rQo&hl=en&ei=szKVS9uAFoKUNavfpacN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=&f=false Google Books]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Gurr, Andrew. ''Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div> <br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Warner, William. ''Albions England Or historicall map of the same island: … proffitably, briefly, and pleasantly, performed in verse and prose by William Warner''. 1586. [http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/fulltext?ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000998468900000&SOURCE=var_spell.cfg&DISPLAY=AUTHOR&WARN=N&FILE=../session/1268131696_22074 EEBO]</div><br />
<br />
[[category:Admiral's]] [[category:Newington]] [[Category:Rose]] [[category:Denmark]][[category: Geoffrey of Monmouth]][[category:Roslyn L. Knutson]]<br />
<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[Roslyn L. Knutson]], Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 8 March 2010.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Cutlack&diff=6653Cutlack2013-10-04T14:19:26Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Critical Commentary */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1594]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===''Henslowe's Diary''===<br />
<br />
<br />
'''F. 9 ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n76/mode/2up Greg I.17])'''<br />
<br />
Under the play list for "my lord admeralls men" on 14-16 May 1594:<br />
<br />
:R''es'' at Cvlacke the 16 of maye 1594 xxxxij<sup>s</sup><br />
<br><br />
<br />
Under the play list "begininge at newington for "my Lord Admeralle men & my Lorde chamberlen men" for 10 performances, June 3-13:<br />
<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 6 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xj<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
In Henslowe's play lists beginning 15 June 1594, the date on which W. W. Greg decided that the Admiral's players had returned to the Rose after their 10-day run at Newington with the Chamberlain's players:<br />
<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 17 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cutlacke||||||xxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 24 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 27 of June 1594||||||R''es'' at cvttlacke||||||xxxvj<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
'''F. 9<sup>v</sup> ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n78/mode/2up Greg I.18])'''<br />
<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 4 of Julye 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxiiij<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 15 of Julye 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxxv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 29 of Julye 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xxix<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 8 of aguste 1594||||||R''es'' at cvttlacke||||||xiij<sup>s</sup> vj<sup>d</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 22 of aguste 1594||||||R''es'' at cvttlacke||||||xxiij<sup>s</sup> vj<sup>d</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
'''F. 10 ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n78/mode/2up Greg I.19])'''<br />
<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 6 of septemb[er] 1594||||||R''es'' at cvtlacke||||||xj<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 26 of septmb[er] 1594||||||R''es'' at cuttlacke||||||xiiij<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
NB: The entry 8 August 1594 is one of several in the diary that shares a calendar date with another play. In this instance, Henslowe entered "[[Philipo and Hippolito]]" for 7 August and ''The Massacre at Paris'' for 8 August, duplicating those dates with the assignment of the 7th to ''The Jew of Malta'' and the 8th to "Cutlack."<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
The newly formed Admiral's men introduced "Cutlack" without the enigmatic sign "ne" on 16 May 1594 when they acquired the lease at the Rose playhouse that they were to maintain until their move to the Fortune in the fall of 1600. They gave the play 12 performances before retiring it, apparently for good, as it does not reappear in records from Henslowe's diary. The absence of a "ne" suggests a prior history with another company before May 1594.<br />
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<br><br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Tragedy? (Harbage)<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
In ''Annals'' Harbage offers "Guthlac ?" as a possible identification of the character Geoffrey of Monmouth calls "Guichlac" (III.2-4, 11). Guichlac was the king of the Danes in the time of [[Belinus, Brennus | Belinus and Brennius]], sons of Mulmutius Dunwallow ("[[Mulmutius Dunwallow|Mulmutius Dunwallow]]"). The identification is supported by the following evidence: first, the narrative of Guichlac in Geoffrey's ''The History of the Kings of Britain'' (the name is spelled "Ginchtalacus" in the 1966 Penguin edition); second, the connection of the name "Gutlack," or "Cutlake," with that narrative:<br />
<br />
<u>Guichlac's story, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth in ''The History of the Kings of Britain''</u>: [http://www.archive.org/stream/geoffreyofmonmou00geofuoft#page/58/mode/2up Internet Archive] <br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"><br />
:• Brennius was returning to Britain with a force of Norwegian warriors to defend his holdings against the military take-over of his brother, Belinus, when Guichlac followed and attacked him.<br />
:• In the course of the battle, Guichlac saw and desired the woman Brennius had married. Boarding Brennius's ship, Guichlac kidnapped the wife. <br />
:• A storm arose suddenly, scattering the ships of both factions. In a curious turn of fate, Guichlac's ship beached in Northumbria where Belinus was encamped (on Brennius's territory). Belinus took Guichlac and Brennius's bride as prisoners to use as pawns of his revenge against Brennius. <br />
:• Meanwhile Brennius landed with his Norwegians in Scotland; Belinus sought him out and defeated him. <br />
:• At a council at York, Belinus released Guichlac, who offered yearly tribute in return for allowing him to go home to Denmark with Brennius's stolen bride. <br />
:• There Guichlac remained until Belinus's son, Gurguint Barbtruc, invaded his home, killed him, and subjugated his people, all because Guichlac refused to pay to the son the tribute he had paid the father, Belinus.</div><br />
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<u>"Gutlack" and "Cutlake" as variant spellings of "Guichlac" in the late 16th century</u>:<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">B. G. [Bernard Garter], ''The ioyfull receyuing of the Queenes most excellent Maiestie into hir Highnesse citie of Norvvich the things done in the time of hir abode there: and the dolor of the citie at hir departure …''. 1578. [http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:6011:7 EEBO]</div><br />
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<br />
:King ''Gurgunt'' I am hight, King ''Belins'' eldest sonne,<br />
:Whose syre ''Dunwallo'' first, the Brittish crowne did weare.<br />
:Whom truthlesse ''Gutlack'' forste to passe the surging seas,<br />
:His falshode to reuenge, and Denmarke land to spoile.<br />
::: (B3<sup>r</sup>)<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">William Warner, ''Albions England Or historicall map of the same island … Continuing the same historie vnto the tribute to the Romaines, entrie of the Saxones, inuasion by the Danes, and conquest by the Normaines …''. 1586. [http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/fulltext?ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000998468900000&SOURCE=var_spell.cfg&DISPLAY=AUTHOR&WARN=N&FILE=../session/1268131696_22074 EEBO]</div><br />
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:My Brothers Kingdome seemes, forsooth, an Ouer-match to myne,<br />
:My Kingdome, Cutlake, therefore is an Under-match to thyne?<br />
:Nay, giue (and so I hope ye will) the Prize to me, and than,<br />
:Let Cutlake with his Crowne of Danske vn-crowne me, if he can.<br />
::: (p. 63)<br />
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<br />
Cutlack's narrative was well known to Spenser. In Book II of ''The Faerie Queene'', in the history book Arthur reads in the library at Alma's castle, Spenser tells the story of [[Mulmutius Dunwallow]] in some detail, but he truncates the actions of the bellicose sons. He thus omits the sub-plot of the Danish king, Guichlac, except to say that Belinus's son, Gurgunt, "Danmarke wonne,/ And ... did foy and tribute raise,/ The which was dew in his dead fathers dayes" (II.x.41.3-5).<br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
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In Epigram #43, "Of ''Clodius''," Everard Guilpin mocks a braggart who copies moves from characters in plays, one of which is ''Cutlack'' ([http://books.google.com/books?id=WTjeq7bwYv8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=everard+guilpin&source=bl&ots=Xhoyt-hO2t&sig=Rz44I8bFGhkbpqFn8GQmO2E-rQo&hl=en&ei=szKVS9uAFoKUNavfpacN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=&f=false Google Books]):<br />
<br />
:''Clodus'' me thinks lookes passing big of late, <br />
:With ''Dunstons'' browes, and ''Allens Cutlacks'' gate : <br />
:What humours haue possest him so, I wonder, <br />
:His eyes are lightning, and his words are thunder: <br />
:What meanes the Bragart by his alteration? <br />
:He knows he's known too wel, for this fond fashion : <br />
:To cause him to be feared : what meanes he than ? <br />
: Belike, because he cannot play the man. <br />
:Yet would be awde, he keepes this filthy reuell, <br />
:Stalking and roaring like to ''Job's'' great deuill. <br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Collier ([http://www.archive.org/stream/diaryphiliphens00hensgoog#page/n72/mode/2up ''Diary'', p. 34]), Fleay ([http://www.archive.org/stream/abiographicalch02fleagoog#page/n311/mode/2up ''BCED'', 2.301]), and Greg ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary02hensuoft#page/162/mode/2up II. Item 40, p. 163]) identified the reference to the play in Guilpin's epigram.<br />
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Gurr interprets "''Allens'' ''Cutlacks'' gate" as a reference to the gait, or stride, of the character in the Admiral's play as performed by Edward Alleyn (203n). In another context, Gurr characterizes Cutlack as "heroic" (50).<br />
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See also [[WorksCited|Wiggins]] serial number 858.<br />
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<br />
Todd Borlik has speculated that the Cutlack play may be based on legends surrounding the Anglo-Saxon saint and fen-dweller Guthlac.<br />
Interest in this hermit revived in the late sixteenth century due to the antiquarian research of William Camden and the contemporary land-improvement schemes to drain the the area of the Lincolnshire fens (known as Crowland) where Guthlac settled. Adducing parallels from Camden and medieval hagiographies (in which Guthlac resides on an island in the fens, battles native fen demons who speak a foreign language, foils a murderous conspiracy by his servant, and commands an angelic familiar), Borlik argues the lost play could have provided an impetus for Shakespeare's Tempest.<br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
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Theatrical interest in the historical time of Cutlack continued into 1598, when the Admiral's men purchased "[[Mulmutius Dunwallow|Mulmutius Dunwallow]]" from William Rankins on 3 October 1598.<br />
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The fact that King Gurgunt is a major figure in the Norwich pageant welcoming the queen to the city on 16 August 1578 suggests some currency at least in one part of England for the ancillary characters in Gurgunt's story, one of whom is Cutlack. (Gurgunt was the son of Belinus, nephew of Brennius. He sought the tribute his late father had won from Cutlack; failing to receive it, Gurgant invaded Cutlack's territory, killing Cutlack and subjecting his people.) <br />
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Based on the evidence that "Cutlack" was the Danish king, Guichlac, the genre of the play might as well be "history" as Harbage's guess of "tragedy."<br />
[[category:all]]<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">B. G., ''The ioyfull receyuing of the Queenes most excellent Maiestie into hir Highnesse citie of Norvvich the things done in the time of hir abode there: and the dolor of the citie at hir departure. Wherein are set downe diuers orations in Latine, pronounced to hir Highnesse by Sir Robert Wood Knight, now Maior of the same citie, and others: and certaine also deliuered to hir Maiestie in vvriting: euery of the[m] turned into English''. 1578. [http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:6011:7 EEBO]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Collier, John Payne, ed. ''The Diary of Philip Henslowe, from 1591 to 1609''. London: Shakespeare Society, 1845.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Geoffrey of Monmouth. ''History of the Kings of Britain''. trans. Sebastian Evans. London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1904. [http://www.archive.org/stream/geoffreyofmonmou00geofuoft#page/58/mode/2up Internet Archive]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Guilpen, Everard. ''Skialetheia''. 1598. [http://books.google.com/books?id=WTjeq7bwYv8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=everard+guilpin&source=bl&ots=Xhoyt-hO2t&sig=Rz44I8bFGhkbpqFn8GQmO2E-rQo&hl=en&ei=szKVS9uAFoKUNavfpacN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=&f=false Google Books]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Gurr, Andrew. ''Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div> <br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Warner, William. ''Albions England Or historicall map of the same island: … proffitably, briefly, and pleasantly, performed in verse and prose by William Warner''. 1586. [http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/fulltext?ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000998468900000&SOURCE=var_spell.cfg&DISPLAY=AUTHOR&WARN=N&FILE=../session/1268131696_22074 EEBO]</div><br />
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[[category:Admiral's]] [[category:Newington]] [[Category:Rose]] [[category:Denmark]][[category: Geoffrey of Monmouth]][[category:Roslyn L. Knutson]]<br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Roslyn L. Knutson]], Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 8 March 2010.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12269Pythagoras2013-10-04T14:00:04Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* For What It's Worth */</p>
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<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
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===Henslowe's Diary===<br />
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F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
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16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
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F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
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23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
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28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
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9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
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15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
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23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
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F.15v (I.30)<br />
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21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
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4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
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22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
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F.21v (I.42)<br />
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31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
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15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
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On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
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1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
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1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
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===Henslowe Papers===<br />
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Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
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“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
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Pethagores<br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
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Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
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:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
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The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
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Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
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Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)---a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
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Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays in the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
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In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
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<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
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Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopolo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
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By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes explicit mentions of Pythagoras in three plays; the first, in ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose: <br />
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:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
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:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
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''Merchant of Venice'' contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play ''Damon and Pythias'':<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
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Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
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:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
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Scholars have commented on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems possible that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
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In the same year Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
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Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
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Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). <br />
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Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
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Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--–in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres''.</div> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12268Pythagoras2013-10-04T12:55:54Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1596]])<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Henslowe's Diary===<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Henslowe Papers===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)". Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of [[Wise Man of West Chester, The|"The Wise Man of West Chester"]]). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s ''Dialogues of the Dead''. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)---a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<blockquote>A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (sig.O7.Ii <sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe, like F. G. Fleay one of few theater historians to bring lost plays in the conversation, does advance some unsubstantiated conjectures about the influence of those plays. "Pythagoras," he contends, "seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89). While metempsychosis was rather infamous prior to 1596, it is possible the lost play may have contributed to its notoriety and circulation on the stage. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature'', Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br><br />
<blockquote>Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire. (33)</blockquote> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopolo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes explicit mentions of Pythagoras in three plays; the first, in ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose: <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak'st me wauer in my faith,<br />
:to hold opinion with Pythagoras,<br />
:that soules of Animalls infuse themselues<br />
:into the trunks of men<br />
<br />
:(4.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/4.1#tln-1963 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1963-66])<br />
<br />
''Merchant of Venice'' contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where euery man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-83 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 83-84]). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play ''Damon and Pythias'':<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratiano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/1.1#tln-99 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 91]), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:there's not the smallest orbe which thou beholdst<br />
:but in his motion like an Angell sings,<br />
:still quiring to the young eyde Cherubins;<br />
:such harmonie is in immortall soules,<br />
:but whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:dooth grosly close it in, we cannot heare it<br />
<br />
:(5.1; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/MV/Q1/scene/5.1#tln-2392 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2392-97]) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled "Pythagoras" was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philosopher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed ''The Devil Conjured'' (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in ''As You Like It'' when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras' time” (3.2.161; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/AYL/M/scene/3.2#tln-1373 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 1373]). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he wilfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in ''Twelfth Night'' when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2; [http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Texts/TN/M/scene/4.2#tln-2036 Internet Shakespeare Editions TLN 2036]). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593). Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--–in which he retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres''.</div> <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[Todd A. Borlik]], Bloomsburg University; updated 27 September 2013.<br />
[[category:all]] <br />
[[category:Admiral's]]<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
[[category:Classical]]<br />
[[category:Todd A. Borlik]]</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12265Pythagoras2013-09-27T21:38:05Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Works Cited */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary) ==<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
=== Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genres ==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative Sources or Dramatic Analogues ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<br />
:A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to <br />
:learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of <br />
:great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche <br />
:signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and <br />
:Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, <br />
:and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a <br />
:marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of <br />
:them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had <br />
:been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and <br />
:therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: <br />
:wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: <br />
:but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, <br />
:whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after <br />
:mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their <br />
:wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
:To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
:That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
:Into the trunks of men.<br />
<br />
:(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
:But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
:Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
:Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
:But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
<br />
:(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
Borlik, Todd A. ''Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature''. New York: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Harbage, Alfred and Samuel Schoenbaum. ''Annals of English Dram''a. Third Edition. <br />
<br />
Ioppolo, Grace. D''ramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood''. New York: Routledge, 2013.<br />
<br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres''. <br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12264Pythagoras2013-09-27T21:36:19Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* For What It's Worth */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary) ==<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
=== Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genres ==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative Sources or Dramatic Analogues ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<br />
:A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to <br />
:learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of <br />
:great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche <br />
:signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and <br />
:Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, <br />
:and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a <br />
:marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of <br />
:them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had <br />
:been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and <br />
:therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: <br />
:wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: <br />
:but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, <br />
:whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after <br />
:mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their <br />
:wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (196). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
:To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
:That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
:Into the trunks of men.<br />
<br />
:(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
:But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
:Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
:Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
:But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
<br />
:(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
Borlik, Todd A. Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature. New York: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Harbage, Alfred and Samuel Schoenbaum. Annals of English Drama. Third Edition. <br />
<br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. The Real War of the Theatres. <br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12263Pythagoras2013-09-27T21:32:09Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* For What It's Worth */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary) ==<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
=== Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genres ==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative Sources or Dramatic Analogues ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<br />
:A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to <br />
:learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of <br />
:great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche <br />
:signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and <br />
:Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, <br />
:and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a <br />
:marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of <br />
:them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had <br />
:been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and <br />
:therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: <br />
:wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: <br />
:but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, <br />
:whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after <br />
:mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their <br />
:wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (176). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
:To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
:That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
:Into the trunks of men.<br />
<br />
:(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
:There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
:But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
:Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
:Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
:But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
:Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
<br />
:(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
Borlik, Todd A. Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature. New York: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Harbage, Alfred and Samuel Schoenbaum. Annals of English Drama. Third Edition. <br />
<br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. The Real War of the Theatres. <br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12262Pythagoras2013-09-27T21:30:30Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* Possible Narrative Sources or Dramatic Analogues */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary) ==<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
=== Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genres ==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative Sources or Dramatic Analogues ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers-–including Pythagoras-–in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<br />
:A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to <br />
:learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of <br />
:great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche <br />
:signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and <br />
:Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, <br />
:and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a <br />
:marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of <br />
:them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had <br />
:been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and <br />
:therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: <br />
:wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: <br />
:but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, <br />
:whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after <br />
:mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their <br />
:wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier.<br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (176). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
:To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
:That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
:Into the trunks of men.<br />
<br />
:(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
Borlik, Todd A. Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature. New York: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Harbage, Alfred and Samuel Schoenbaum. Annals of English Drama. Third Edition. <br />
<br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. The Real War of the Theatres. <br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12261Pythagoras2013-09-27T21:28:02Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>== Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary) ==<br />
<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
=== Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genres ==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative Sources or Dramatic Analogues ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers---–including Pythagoras------––in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--––a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<br />
:A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to <br />
:learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of <br />
:great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche <br />
:signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and <br />
:Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, <br />
:and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a <br />
:marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of <br />
:them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had <br />
:been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and <br />
:therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: <br />
:wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: <br />
:but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, <br />
:whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after <br />
:mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their <br />
:wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier. <br />
<br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (176). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
:To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
:That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
:Into the trunks of men.<br />
<br />
:(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
Borlik, Todd A. Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature. New York: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Harbage, Alfred and Samuel Schoenbaum. Annals of English Drama. Third Edition. <br />
<br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. The Real War of the Theatres. <br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12260Pythagoras2013-09-27T21:26:27Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>== === '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
==<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
=== Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
<br />
<br />
= Probable Genre(s) =<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative Sources or Dramatic Analogues ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers---–including Pythagoras------––in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--––a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<br />
:A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to <br />
:learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of <br />
:great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche <br />
:signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and <br />
:Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, <br />
:and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a <br />
:marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of <br />
:them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had <br />
:been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and <br />
:therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: <br />
:wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: <br />
:but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, <br />
:whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after <br />
:mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their <br />
:wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier. <br />
<br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (176). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
:To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
:That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
:Into the trunks of men.<br />
<br />
:(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
Borlik, Todd A. Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature. New York: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Harbage, Alfred and Samuel Schoenbaum. Annals of English Drama. Third Edition. <br />
<br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. The Real War of the Theatres. <br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12259Pythagoras2013-09-27T21:23:29Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>== === '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
==<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
=== <br />
Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
== === <br />
== Probable Genre(s) === ==<br />
==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
<br />
== == == <br />
Possible Narrative or Dramatic Sources or Analogues == == ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers---–including Pythagoras------––in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--––a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<br />
:A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to <br />
:learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of <br />
:great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche <br />
:signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and <br />
:Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, <br />
:and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a <br />
:marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of <br />
:them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had <br />
:been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and <br />
:therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: <br />
:wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: <br />
:but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, <br />
:whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after <br />
:mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their <br />
:wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier. <br />
<br />
== <br />
References to the Play<br />
==<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
<br />
== <br />
Critical Commentary<br />
==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
== <br />
For What It’s Worth<br />
==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (176). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
:To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
:That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
:Into the trunks of men.<br />
<br />
:(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br />
== Works Cited<br />
==<br />
Borlik, Todd A. Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature. New York: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Harbage, Alfred and Samuel Schoenbaum. Annals of English Drama. Third Edition. <br />
<br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. The Real War of the Theatres. <br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12258Pythagoras2013-09-27T21:19:48Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>== === '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
==<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
=== <br />
Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
== === <br />
== Probable Genre(s) === ==<br />
==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
== == <br />
Possible Narrative or Dramatic Sources or Analogues == ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers---–including Pythagoras------––in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--––a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<br />
:A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to <br />
:learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of <br />
:great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche <br />
:signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and <br />
:Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, <br />
:and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a <br />
:marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of <br />
:them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had <br />
:been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and <br />
:therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: <br />
:wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: <br />
:but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, <br />
:whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after <br />
:mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their <br />
:wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier. <br />
<br />
== References to the Play<br />
==<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
== <br />
Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
== For What It’s Worth<br />
==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (176). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
:To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
:That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
:Into the trunks of men.<br />
<br />
:(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
:Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
:Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br />
== Works Cited<br />
==<br />
Borlik, Todd A. Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature. New York: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Harbage, Alfred and Samuel Schoenbaum. Annals of English Drama. Third Edition. <br />
<br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. The Real War of the Theatres. <br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12257Pythagoras2013-09-27T21:17:45Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>== === '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
==<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
=== <br />
Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
== === <br />
== Probable Genre(s) === ==<br />
==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
== == <br />
Possible Narrative or Dramatic Sources or Analogues == ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
:To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
:To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
:(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers---–including Pythagoras------––in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--––a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
<br />
:A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to <br />
:learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of <br />
:great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche <br />
:signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and <br />
:Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue years, <br />
:and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a <br />
:marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of <br />
:them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had <br />
:been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and <br />
:therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: <br />
:wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: <br />
:but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, <br />
:whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after <br />
:mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their <br />
:wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier. <br />
<br />
== References to the Play<br />
==<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
== <br />
Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
== For What It’s Worth<br />
==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (176). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
Into the trunks of men.<br />
(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.<br />
<br />
Works Cited<br />
<br />
Borlik, Todd A. Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature. New York: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Harbage, Alfred and Samuel Schoenbaum. Annals of English Drama. Third Edition. <br />
<br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. The Real War of the Theatres. <br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12256Pythagoras2013-09-26T20:08:21Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>== === '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
==<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
=== <br />
Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
== === <br />
== Probable Genre(s) === ==<br />
==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
== == <br />
Possible Narrative or Dramatic Sources or Analogues == ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers---–including Pythagoras------––in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--––a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
:<br />
A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue yeares, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier. <br />
<br />
== References to the Play<br />
==<br />
Apart from Henslowe’s Diary and the Admiral’s inventory of recently purchased playbooks, there appears to be no other external documentation of the Pythagoras play. <br />
== <br />
Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
Robert B. Sharpe contends that this lost play “seems to have had a considerable influence on the thought of the times, through a discussion of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis” (89).<br />
The references to transmigration in Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne, support that statement. <br />
<br />
In Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature, Todd Borlik speculates about the nature of the lost play:<br />
<br />
“Though the legends surrounding the philosopher would offer some irresistible comic material (perhaps involving beans and talking oxen), if it was not a straight-forward satire like Aristophanes’ Clouds, it may have presented Pythagoras as a learned, yet dangerous sage in the tradition of other Elizabethan conjuror plays (Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon) in the company’s repertoire” (33). <br />
<br />
== For What It’s Worth<br />
==<br />
Since Pythagoras was one of the play-books in the possession of Martin Slater, Grace Iopollo proposes he could be a potential candidate for the author: “it is possible, although not known as an author, Slater wrote or collaborated in the writing of plays” (176). <br />
<br />
By piecing together contemporaneous allusions to Pythagoras it may be possible to speculatively reconstruct some features of the lost play. Shakespeare makes three explicit mentions of Pythagoras; the first, in Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is concurrent with the performance of the Pythagoras play at the Rose. <br />
<br />
:Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith<br />
To hold opinion with Pythagoras<br />
That souls of animals infuse themselves<br />
Into the trunks of men.<br />
(4.1.129-132)<br />
<br />
Merchant of Venice contains three additional references Pythagorean teachings. First, in the opening scene Antonio compares the world to “a stage where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one” (1.1.77-78). These lines rehash a well-known Pythagorean maxim, quoted in the Elizabethan play Damon and Pythias:<br />
<br />
Pythagoras said this world was like a stage<br />
Whereon many play their parts. (7.71-72)<br />
<br />
Gratziano’s subsequent mockery of the taciturn philosopher “Sir Oracle” (1.1.93), who tries to gain a reputation for wisdom by sparing-ness of speech likely spoofs Pythagoras and the vow of silence he imposed upon his pupils. The final allusion is more positive: Shakespeare pays tribute to one of Pythagoras’s most notorious doctrines in Lorenzo’s celebrated speech on the music of the spheres:<br />
<br />
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st<br />
But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.<br />
Such harmony is in immortal souls,<br />
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br />
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.<br />
(5.1.59-64) <br />
<br />
Scholars have remarked on the Pythagorean underpinnings of this speech (Heninger and Danson), but have failed to remark that it was composed at a time when a play entitled Pythagoras was in performance at the Rose. It thus seems a fair assumption that the lost play aired the philospher’s theory on the harmony of the spheres. <br />
<br />
In the same year Thomas Lodge composed The Devil Conjured (1596), which attributes similar ideas about the body to the philosopher: “Pythagoras seeing one of his followers pampering his flesh, and affecting belly chear, why (Saith he) art thou about to build a prison for thy self?” (B3r). <br />
<br />
Shakespeare makes another overt allusion to the Greek sage in As You Like It when Rosalind cracks wise about her prior life as a rat in “Pythagoras time” (3.2.161). Earlier in the play, Celia cites the Pythagorean adage that friendship makes two into one, while the Duke references the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres. The cerebral Jaques in particular exhibits Pythagorean tendencies: he denounces the hunt and equates it with political tyranny, just as the Greek sage denounced blood-sport and meat-eating and defied the tyrant Polycrates. Like Pythagoras, he willfully seeks solitude, he praises silence, and his most famous line––“All the world’s a stage”––is a twist on the same Pythagorean maxim cited above. <br />
<br />
Shakespeare’s final allusion to Pythagoras occurs in Twelfth Night when Feste quizzes Malvolio on “the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl” (4.2.44). <br />
<br />
Given that the Admiral’s Men opted to purchase the playbook from Martin Slater in 1598, it seems feasible that the play was revived sometime after that date.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12255Pythagoras2013-09-24T20:00:47Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>== === '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
==<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
=== <br />
Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in ''Henslowe Papers'' (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
== === <br />
== Probable Genre(s) === ==<br />
==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his ''Annals of English Drama'' (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of ''Faustus'' (whose protagonist mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
== == <br />
Possible Narrative or Dramatic Sources or Analogues == ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers---–including Pythagoras------––in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ ''Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'' was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s ''Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus'' (1578)--––a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
:<br />
A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue yeares, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in ''Doctor Faustus'' the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in ''Faustus'' supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' (c. 1590) and Thomas Nashe’s ''Summer’s Last Will and Testament'' (c. 1593).Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s ''Endymion'' (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his ''History of Rome'', Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier. <br />
<br />
References to the Play</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12254Pythagoras2013-09-24T19:54:21Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>== === '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
==<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij <sup>li</sup> j <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.14v (Greg I.28)<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx <sup>s</sup> <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.15v (I.30)<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
F.21v (I.42)<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij <sup>li</sup><br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv <sup>s</sup><br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij <sup>s</sup><br />
=== <br />
Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in Henslowe Papers (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
== === <br />
Probable Genre(s) ===<br />
==<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his Annals of English Drama (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. It is noteworthy that Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays (and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester"). So the lost play may have been a magus play in the tradition of Faustus (who mentions Pythagoras in his final soliloquy).<br />
== <br />
Possible Narrative or Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
<br />
Most educated Elizabethans would have been familiar with Pythagoras from his lengthy oration in Book 15 of Ovid’s Metamorphosis--––one of the most popular sourcebooks for Renaissance dramatists. <br />
<br />
:Heere dwelt a man of Samos Ile, who for the hate he had <br />
To Lordlynesse and Tyranny, though unconstreyned was glad<br />
To make himself a bannisht man.<br />
(15.66-68)<br />
<br />
Ovid’s account, however, is rather skimpy in terms of biographical detail. He mentions Pythagoras’s quarrel with the tyrant Polycrates, his subsequent exile and settlement in Croton, and his (historically impossible) advising of King Numa. Perhaps these could have furnished a crude outline for the narrative. But the bulk of the speech is a redaction of key tenets of Pythagoras’s moral and natural philosophy: vegetarianism, the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis), the nature of the four elements, and mutability (the paradox of constant change). Philosophy lectures do not, as a rule, make for gripping drama on stage. So Ovid may merely have imparted a basic knowledge of Pythagorean doctrine, which the playwright(s) could have spun out into any number of conceivable plots.<br />
<br />
The comic dialogues of the Roman satirist Lucian could also have inspired the author(s) of the lost play. In “Philosophies for Sale,” Zeus and Hermes auction off philosophers---–including Pythagoras------––in a parody of an Athenian slave-market. Lucian’s works were available in Latin in Elizabethan London; Marlowe’s celebrated line about Helen of Troy’s face is a paraphrase of a macabre query in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. <br />
<br />
Although a few terse anecdotes about Pythagoras and his followers appear in scattered sources such as Plato and Herodotus, much of our knowledge of this enigmatic sage derives from the third-century CE biographies of Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus. A Latin translation of Diogenes Laertitus’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers was published in Geneva in 1570 and reissued in 1585. A parallel Greek-Latin version of Iamblichus’ biography appeared in Paris 1598 (two years after the lost play premiered). <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most detailed vita of Pythagoras in Elizabethan English is the entry in Thomas Cooper’s Thesaurus linguae Romanae & Britannicae tam accurate congestus (1578)--––a popular reference work in Tudor England. <br />
:<br />
A man of excellent witte, borne in an yle called Samos, which countrey being subdued by the tyranne of Polycrates, he forsooke and went into Aegipt and Babilonia, to learne mysticall sciences, and afterwarde came into Italy, where he continued the rest of his lyfe. Hee was the first that named himself Philosopher, where before men of great learning were called wyse men: and bycause he woulde eschewe the note of arrogancie, when one demaunded of hyme what hee was, hee sayde, Philosophus, whiche signifyeth a louer of wysedome. He was in sharpnesse of wit passing al other and found the subtile conclusions and misteries of Arithmetike, (Image 861) Musike, and Geometrie. Plato wondreth at his wisedome: his doctrine was diuine and compendious: the which he teachynge to other[s], enioyned them to keepe silence fiue yeares, and heare him diligentlye, ere they demaunded of him any question. He neuer would do sacrifice with any bloud, he woulde eate nothing that had lyfe, and lyued in a marueylous abstinence, and continence, and was in such authortie among hys disciples, that when in disputation they maintained their opinion, if on demaunded of them, why it should bee as they spake, they would aunswere onely, Ipse dixit, he sayde so, meaning Pythagoras: which aunswere was reputed as sufficient, as if it had been prooued with an ineuitable reason: so much in estimation was he for his approoued truth an incomparable learning. He was noted to be expert in magyke: and therefore it is written of him, that nigh to the citie of Tarentum, he behlde an Oxe byting the toppes of beanes there growing, and treading them down with his feete: wherefore he bade the heardman to aduise his Oxe that he should absteyne from graine: the heardman laughing at him, sayde, that he neuer learned to speake as an Oxe: but thou (sayde he) that seemest to haue experience therin, take myne office upon thee. Foorthwith Pythagoras went to the Oxe, and laying his mouth to his eare, whistered somewhat of his Arte. A marueylous thing, the Oxe, as if he had beene taught left eating of the corne, nor neuer after touched any: but many yeares after mildely walked in the citie, and tooke his meate onely of them that woulde gyue it him. Many lyke wonderfull things are written of him. Finally his disciples, for their wysedome and temperance, were always had in great estimation. He was before the incarnation of Christ. 522 yeares. (Ooooooo.Ii r-v)<br />
<br />
Pythagoras did enjoy some notoriety on the Elizabethan stage prior to 1596. Famously, in Doctor Faustus the eponymous conjuror wishes his soul could transmigrate into an animal’s body rather than suffer eternal damnation. Given the popularity of Marlowe’s play in the Admiral’s repertoire, it is possible that this moment in Faustus supplied an impetus for the lost play.<br />
<br />
Other references to Pythagoras occur in Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (c. 1590), Thomas Nashe’s Summer’s Last Will and Testament (c. 1593), and (as elucidated below) in several plays by Shakespeare composed shortly after the lost play premiered at the Rose. Pythagoras himself actually appears on stage in Lyly’s Endymion (c.1591)--––in which retracts his heretical teachings and defers to the wisdom of Cynthia--, a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth. Cumulatively, these allusions all associate Pythagoras with occult magic, raising the odds the lost play would have trafficked in magical spectacle. <br />
<br />
One other possible analogue must also be mentioned. In his History of Rome, Livy tells of a heroic Spartan captain named Pythagoras who defends the town of Argos against a Roman siege. Given the rash of jokes about metempsychosis in Elizabethan drama after 1596 (see below), however, it seems far more likely that the lost play dealt with the exploits of the notorious Greek philosopher rather than an obscure Spartan soldier. <br />
<br />
References to the Play</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12253Pythagoras2013-09-24T19:26:39Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: </p>
<hr />
<div>=== '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij li j s<br />
<br />
F.14v<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj s<br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx s <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx s<br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv s<br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij s<br />
<br />
F.15v<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij s<br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx s<br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij s<br />
<br />
F.21v<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij li<br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij s<br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[n]ley 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv s<br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij s<br />
=== <br />
Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone and reprinted by Greg in Henslowe Papers (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
<br />
Pethagores<br />
=== <br />
Probable Genre(s) ===<br />
<br />
Since the play presumably centers on the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, it could perhaps fall under the category of Classical History. Harbage offers the tentative suggestion "Classical Biography(?)" in his Annals of English Drama (64-65). Pythagoras, however, was a magnet for colorful legends and apocryphal tales and his earliest biographies did not appear until several centuries after his death. So the label “Classical Biography” may give a misleading impression of historical accuracy. Since Pythagoras premiered at a time when the Admiral's repertoire featured a number of conjuror-and-devil plays and in the midst of a successful run of "Wise Men of West Chester" the play may have been a magus play in the tradition of Faustus.</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12252Pythagoras2013-09-24T19:02:48Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: /* = */</p>
<hr />
<div>=== '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij li j s<br />
<br />
F.14v<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj s<br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx s <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx s<br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv s<br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij s<br />
<br />
F.15v<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij s<br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx s<br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij s<br />
<br />
F.21v<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij li<br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij s<br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[ne]ly 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv s<br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij s<br />
=== <br />
Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone <br />
in his Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare and reprinted by Greg in Henslowe Paper (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
Pethagores</div>Todd A. Borlikhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Pythagoras&diff=12251Pythagoras2013-09-24T18:59:50Z<p>Todd A. Borlik: Created page with "=== '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)''' === F.14 (Greg I.27) 16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij li j s F.14v 23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at petha..."</p>
<hr />
<div>=== '''Performance Records (Henslowe’s Diary)'''<br />
===<br />
F.14 (Greg I.27)<br />
<br />
16 of Jenewary 1595 ne––Rd at pethageros . . . iij li j s<br />
<br />
F.14v<br />
<br />
23 of Jenewary 1595 Rd at pethagorus . . . xxxvj s<br />
<br />
28 of Jenewary 1595` Rd at pethagoros . . . xxx s <br />
<br />
9 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xx s<br />
<br />
15 of Febreary 1595 Rd at pethagores . . . xxxv s<br />
<br />
23 of Febreary 1595 shroft tewsday Rd at pethagores xxxiiij s<br />
<br />
F.15v<br />
<br />
21 of aprell 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xviij s<br />
<br />
4 of maye 1596 Rd at pethagorus . . . xx s<br />
<br />
22 of maye 1596 mr pd Rd at pethagoros . . . xxvij s<br />
<br />
F.21v<br />
<br />
31 of maye whittsenmvnday Rd at pethagores . . . iij li<br />
<br />
15 of June 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxiij s<br />
<br />
On July 1st, 1596 Henslowe entered the takings from a new play. It appears that he began to write pethagores, but crossed it out and wrote "paradox" instead. <br />
<br />
1 of Ju[ne]ly 1596 ne––Rd at [peth] paradox ... xxxxv s<br />
<br />
1[3]4 of July 1596 Rd at pethagores . . . xxij s<br />
=== <br />
Henslowe Papers ===<br />
<br />
45v<br />
<br />
Lente vnto the company the 16 of maye 1598 to bye <br />
v boockes of martine slather called ij ptes of hercolus <br />
& focas & pethagores & elyxander & lodicke wch laste<br />
boocke he hath not yet delyuerd the some of . . . . . vij li<br />
<br />
Another reference to this lost play occurs in a company inventory, transcribed and published by Malone <br />
in his Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare and reprinted by Greg (121) <br />
<br />
“A Note of all bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of March 1598.”<br />
Pethagores</div>Todd A. Borlik