Truth's Supplication to Candlelight

Thomas Dekker (1600)

Historical Records

Payments to Playwrights (Henslowe's Diary)

F. 67 (Greg I.117)

Lent vnto Thomas towne the 18 of Janewary 1599

to lend thomas dickers in earneste of a playe Boocke

called trewghtes [c]suplication to candelighte some of ... xx^s

                                                        ^{as may a pere}

Lent vnto Thomas dickers at the apoyntment

of the company the 30 of Janewary 1599 in erneste

of a Boocke called trewth suplication to candelithe

R[d] by w^m harton for hime ... xx^s

F. 30^v (Greg I.58)

Receiued by me william Haughton for the vse

of Thomas dickers on the 30^th. of Januarie

the some of ... 20^s

Jn parte of payement for the booke of truths

supplycation to candle light

Diary fragment in the collection of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle

Foakes, Henslowe's Diary (267)

                        18. die Januarij. 1599

<R>eceaved by mee Thomas Dekker at the handes of M^r

<Ph>illip Hynchlow the Somme of twenty Shillinges in ernest

<of> a play Called Truethes supplication to Candle-light

                               By mee Thomas Dekker

wittnes

thomas towne

Theatrical Provenance

The Admiral's Men, at the Rose in January 1600 but looking ahead to their move to the Fortune by the end of the year, paid 40s. to Thomas Dekker toward the playbook of "Truth's Supplication to Candlelight." This sum does not seem sufficient to indicate that the play was completed.

Probable Genre(s)

Allegorical Hist[ory] (Harbage)

Critical Commentary

Greg, following F. G. Fleay's suggestion, identified the play with Dekker's Whore of Babylon (S. R. 20 Apr. 1607; Q1607). For him, the "mention of a robe for Time" purchased in April 1600 and "the extreme appropriateness" of the 1600 title made "the identification practically certain" (II. 210, Item # 195). He did not resolve the apparent contradiction of purchasing apparel in 1600 for a play in 1607, or those of internal evidence in Whore of Babylon that mix references to events in Elizabeth's reign with those in James's. He seemed skeptical, however, that Dekker in 1600 "should have represented as contemporary events which happened in 1587." He mentioned but provided no reference for a possible allusion to the play "under its later title" in Satiromastix, 1601.

Bowers repeats the suggested connection of Truth's Supplication to Candlelight with The Whore of Babylon, adding that E. K. Chambers was skeptical that a play on Mary, Queen of Scots, would be acceptable subject matter in 1600 (2:493).

Hoy essentially dismisses the connection between the 1600 and 1607 plays, declaring the proposed evidence to be "very slight grounds" (2:304). He finds many more reasons to declare The Whore of Babylon a discrete project belonging to 1606. In a note on Fleay's identification, Hoy points out distinct flaws in the argument, including the wrenched logic of an allusion in a 1602 play to one not yet written (303n); Hoy does identify the perceived allusion in Satiromastix: "whore a Babilon" (IV.i.147-148).

Foakes identifies the autograph signatures of Dekker and Towne in the receipt that survives in a diary fragment now in the collection of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle (267).

For What It's Worth

Greg connected the purchase of a robe for Time in Henslowe's Diary on 2 April 1600 with Truth's Supplication to Candlelight, persuaded apparently of its connection to Dekker's Whore of Babylon in which the character of Time appears (II. 210, Item # 195). The diary entry is as follows:

F. 68^v (Greg I.120)

Lent vnto Robart shaw the 2 of ap^rell 1600 for

to by a Robe for tyme some of ... xxxx^s

Works Cited

Bowers, Fredson. The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. 4 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1953-61.

Foakes, R. A. Henslowe's Diary, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002.

Hoy, Cyrus. Introductions, Notes, and commentaries to Texts in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, Edited by Fredson Bowers. 4 vols. New York: Cambridge UP. 1980.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 15 November 2009.