Queen of Ethiopia, The?

Anon. (1578)

Historical Records

Listed in the Bristol Mayor's audits (31 August-6 September): "Item paid to my lord Charles haward players at the end of their play before master mayer and the Aldermen in the yeld hall their matter was of the Queen of Ethiopia (REED: Bristol, 116). Note that the reference is to the "matter" of the play and not necessarily the title.

Theatrical Provenance

Howard's at Bristol. If this was the play seen by Stephen Gosson (see sources below), then it was played in one of the theaters in London, perhaps the Theater, where Gosson's own plays were reportedly performed.

Probable Genre(s)

Heroical Romance (Harbage 49).

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Much about this play can be learned from its possible sources. Wiggins (183) cautiously speculates that this play might be identified with Chariclea of Ethiopia (and the subject of an earlier play), although he concludes that there is "no knowing" the exact source or this play's association with an earlier play. If this play adapted the story of Chariclea, then the plot would have been drawn from Heliodorus.

Additional evidence, though, allows for a stronger argument that this play was in fact based on the story of Chariclea. The translated versions of Heliodorus's history of Theagenes and Chariclea would have been well known in London during the time of this production. In Plays Confuted in Five Actions (1582), Stephen Gosson lists the Aethiopian History as one of the books "ransackt to furnish the Play houses in London" (D6v). The STC lists a printing of An Aethiopian History around 1569 that was translated from a Greek text by Thomas Underdowne (STC (2nd ed.), 13041). This edition was reprinted in 1577 (STC (2nd ed.), 13042).

The story of the Queen of Ethiopia was also translated from the French by James Sandford in 1567, a supplement to his translation of a work entitled The Amorous and Tragicall Tales of Plutarch (STC (2nd ed.), 20072).

This evidence strengthens the narrative connection of this play to the lost play entitled Chariclea (Theagenes and Chariclea) in 1572.

The romance is the story of Chariclea, the daughter of King Hydaspes and Queen Persinna of Ethiopia, who was born white because her mother gazed upon a painting of Andromeda while Chariclea was being conceived. This happened just after the queen was rescued by Perseus. The queen fears being accused of adultery. So Persinna leaves the baby Chariclea in the care of Sisimithras, who takes the baby to Egypt and in turn leaves her in the care of a Pythian priest.

Chariclea is later taken to Delphi, and made a priestess of Artemis. When Theagenes the Thessalian comes to Delphi, the two fall in love. Theagenes runs off with Chariclea with the help of Calasiris, an Egyptian employed by Queen Persinna to find Chariclea. Theagenes and Chariclea go through a number of trials, having encounters with pirates and thieves. The plot culminates with Chariclea taken and offered as a sacrifice to the gods by her own father. But her birth is made known, and Chariclea and Theagenes are married.

References to the Play

Stephen Gosson in 1582 lists the Aethiopian History, the probable source text for this play, as one of the books "ransackt to furnish the Play houses in London" (D6v).

Critical Commentary

See Wiggins, serial number 625.

For What It's Worth

It is worth noting that popular interest in Ethiopia and Africa in general may have been escalated by the publication of The History of Travayle in the West and East Indies (1576), Richard Willes' complete version of Richard Eden's translations of travel writing that began in 1553 and over the following years included the writings of Sebastian Münster, Pietro Martire Anghiera's, and Martín Cortés.

Also this play seems to fall within the scope of Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan's work on representations of Sub-Saharan Africans during the early modern period. There is of course a connection here with Shakespeare's Othello.

Works Cited

Gosson, Stephen. Plays Confuted in Five Actions. London: Thomas Gossson, 1582.

Heliodorus, of Emesa. An Aethiopian History. trans. Thomas Underdowne. London: Frauncis Coldocke, 1577.

Sidney, Philip. Sir Philip Sidney: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics) ed. Katherine Duncan-Jones (Oxford: OUP, 2009).

Vaughan, Alden and Virginia Mason. "Before Othello: Elizabethan Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans." The William and Mary Quarterly, 54.1 (Jan., 1997), 19-44.

Wiggins, Volume II .

Site created and maintained by Thomas Dabbs, Aoyama Gakuin University; updated 23 May, 2016.