Time's Triumph and Fortune's

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Historical Records

Performance Records

Playlists in Philip Henslowe's diary

Fol. 26v (Greg I, p. 52)

Aprell 1597
|13| . . . . . . tt at times triumpe & fortus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 01|05|01 — 00 — 03



Theatrical Provenance

The single appearance of "Time's Triumph" in Henslowe's records for the Admiral's men at the Rose in April 1957 is the only recorded evidence of the play's existence and theatrical provenance.


Probable Genre(s)

Moral? (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Information welcome.

References to the Play

Information welcome.

Critical Commentary

Malone has no comment to make about this title, but he does read the spelling as "times triumph and foztus" (p. 299). Collier remarks that Henslowe's phrasing of the play title makes it sound "as if two different pieces had been performed on the same day" (p. 86), but has no comment on the play itself.

Fleay,BCED, as is often his inclination, identifies the play with a later one: in this case, a play by Thomas Heywood he calls Timon or Misanthrope, apparently lost (2. #148, p. 301). Fleay also considers that "Times Triumph" might have been one of the pieces in either "Five Plays in One" or "Four Plays in One" (1.#8, p. 287). In apparent contradiction, in A Chronicle History (p. 114), he identifies "Times Triumph" with Heywood's Jupiter and Io (1637) and attributes to it the property in Henslowe's inventory of Argus's head ("Argosse heade" Greg, Papers, APX. I, art. 1, p. 117, l.66)

Greg II rejects all of Fleay's supposes about what other play "Times Triumph" might be. He reads Henslowe's "& fortus" to be "and fortune," and a more compelling suggestion has yet to be offered (#104).

Over time, the play title has acquired an apostrophe "s": Harbage, p. 52; Gurr, p. 228. Wiggins, Catalogue considers the possibility that "Fortune's" was meant to modify some word (now missing) other than "Triumph" ( #1022).

For What It's Worth

Fleay, BCED, in a collective note on Henslowe's plays from 1594 to 1597 that are not marked "ne," avers that they all "must have belonged to the Admiral's men on 3 June 1594 [and] have been originally produced before June 1592" (2, p. 302).

According to Greg II, Fleay read the "fortus" in Henslowe's title as Faustus (as in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, which Fleay then saw as a double billing on 13 April 1597 with a separate plays called "Times Triumph" (#104, p. 184). Greg did not specify where this claim by Fleay is in print.

Works Cited

Fleay, Frederick Gard. A Chronicle History of the London Stage, 1559-1642. 1890. New York: Burt Franklin, 1964.
Gurr, Andrew. Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.



Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 19 November 2019.