Dido

(1598?)

Historical Records

Payments, Miscellaneous (Henslowe's Diary)

F. 44 (Greg I, 83)

Layd [of] owte for copr lace for the littell boye & for a valle for the boye a}

geanste the playe of dido & enevs the 3 of Jenewary 1597 } xxixs

Lent vnto the company when they fyrst played}

dido at nyght the some of thirtishillynges}

w^ch wasse the 8 of Jenewary 1597 J saye… } xxx^s

Henslowe's Inventories of Properties and Apparel

Greg, Papers, Apx. I, 1.116

The Enventary tacken of all the properties for my Lord Admeralles men, the 10 of Marche 1598.

Item, j tome of Guido, j tome of Dido, j bedsteade.

Greg, Papers, Apx. I. 1.118, 120

The Enventorey of all the aparell of the Lord Admeralles men, taken the 13th of Marche 1598, as followeth:

Item, Dides robe.

Theatrical Provenance

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Probable Genre(s)

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Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

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References to the Play

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Critical Commentary

Marlowe and Nashe's play?

Scholars have differed in assessing the likelihood of whether or not the Admiral's play may have represented some form of Dido, Queen of Carthage by Marlowe and Nashe (printed 1594). Fleay found the identification with Marlowe and Nashe's play "doubtful" given the absence of any evidence for the Admiral's acquisition of it (II.148, 306). Greg agreed, noting that the tomb listed in the Admiral's inventory of properties does not appear in the Marlovian play (Papers, 116n).

Collier 117; Gurr 231

Jonson's play?

Having dismissed Marlowe and Nashe as authors of the Admiral's "Dido", Fleay proposed Jonson: "on 3rd Dec. 1597 there is an entry of a plot of a play by Jonson to be delivered at Christmas, and this Dido apparently was delivered at Christmas; certainly no other play by Jonson was so" (II.306-7). He went on to propose that this may have been the source of the Dido and Aeneas play in Shakespeare's Hamlet, described as "caviare to the general" and "never acted above once." Greg rejected Fleay's hypothesis, finding it difficult to imagine the characteristically slow Jonson moving from plot to completion by 8 January, moreover without publishing the finished play (II.189-90).

Pembroke's Men's play?

Greg found the most likely possibility for the play's provenance that it was "an old play brought in by Pembroke's Men" (Greg II.190).

For What It's Worth

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Works Cited

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