Pelops

Richard Lateware (1588?)

N.B. The title is a modern conjecture. Given Lateware's references to "Pelopis domum", the title "The House of Pelops" may also be appropriate.

Historical Records

Exequiae Illustratissimi Equitis D. Philippi Sidnaei (1587)

Lateware (also spelled Latewar) refers to the composition of the play in one of the 21 elegiac poems he contributed to an Oxford collection, published in 1587, commemorating the death of Sir Philip Sidney:

Avthor meorum carminum,

Trinæ causa Tragædiæ,

   Cræsi, Philotæ, (proh scelus)

Et sæuæ Pelopis domus,

   Quas inchoaram prosperè

Nitens auspicijs tuis

   Sidnæe vates occidis.

Cuius sæua Tragædia

   Fato poetæ seuior

Trinam sola Tragædiam

   Cræsum, Philotam perdidit,

Et sæuam Pelopis domum. (Gager, sig. F2r)

Author of my songs, reason for my three tragedies, Croesus, Philotas (oh the crime!), and the one about the savage house of Pelops, which I happily began, relying on your auspices, bard Sidney, you are dead. Your savage tragedy, more savage than a fate invented by a poet, has destroyed my triple tragedies Croesus, Philotas, and the one about the savage house of Pelops. (trans. Dana Sutton)

At the time, Lateware was a student at St. John's College, Oxford: he had graduated BA in 1584 and would proceed MA in May 1588. In 1585–86, Lateware was paid by St. John's to compose a Latin poem on the life of Thomas White, the College's founder (Höltgen 424–25; STC 15266.5).

Theatrical Provenance

Unknown. The play may have not been finished, or it may have been performed at St. John's College, Oxford, as Lateware's "Philotas" ultimately was.

Probable Genre(s)

Tragedy (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

[Information welcome.]

References to the Play

[Information welcome.]

Critical Commentary

Höltgen (433) notes that Lateware refers to two tragedies besides "Philotas" and comments that "it is uncertain whether they were ever finished."

For What It's Worth

Might there be a relationship between Lateware's play and Pelopidarum secunda (The Second of the Descendants of Pelops)? That play (British Library, MS Harley 5110, fols. 27–81) is a five-act tragedy in English verse, clearly composed before 1603 as its references to the Queen make clear. Wiggins (British Drama, #840), Greenfield and Cowling associate it with Winchester College, partly because of the epilogue's reference to William Wykeham (c. 1324–1404), founder of Winchester College as well as New College, Oxford.

Works Cited

Daniel, Samuel. The Whole Workes of Samuel Daniel Esquire in Poetrie. London, 1623.

Greenfield, Peter, and Jane Cowling, ed. Records of Early English Drama: Hampshire.

Höltgen, Karl Josef. "Richard Latewar, Elizabethan Poet and Divine." Anglia 89 (1971): 417–38

Sutton. Dana F. "William Gager (ed.), Exequiae Illustratissimi Equitis D. Philippi Sidnaei, Gratissimae Memoriae ac Nomini Impensae (1587)." The Philological Museum. February 22, 2006. <https://philological.cal.bham.ac.uk/exequiae/>

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