Pilades and Horestes (Folger MS X.d.391)

Anon. (unknown date)

Historical Records

Folger Shakespeare Library MS fragment

A single quarto leaf of the manuscript of this lost play exists (Folger MS X.d.391). The following transcription is taken from G. R. Proudfoot's Malone Society edition of "Five Dramatic Fragments":

τ τελοσ y<ea> ust m<e.> S . . .τελοσ . . .he<

σσσσ . . . . . . . . . . . . . Q . . . <H> . . .B

σ

__________________________________________
. . . . . . .Pilades. / horestes. / Campo. <T T>

py. . . . .Ho ho sir? I pray yow from what qu<a
. . . . . . the world haue yow travelled toe<
. . . . . . good my frend horestes? / ho. / no no not <
. . . . . . I pray yow old acquaintance from wh<
. . . . . . haue yow landed tell me frend myn<e> p<
py. . . . surly your question smelethe frend an<
ho./ . . .yow haue sayde, your questione indede may b<
. . . . . . in the foles caldron and by the in y<
. . . . . . therofe increase more foles. pi’/ what what ? m<
. . . . . . yow as hot as a tost al[e]redye. I pce<a
. . . . . . pathe wch I walke in liethe hid from <
. . . . . . and yet yt shoewethe the readye<.t>way that I <
. . . . . . to goe. / ho./ harke o pilades <
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . smith<
. . .<E>nd . . .I . . . . . . . . . .Ihon . . . . . .[When as v we
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R M for]*
. . . . . .Wh
. . . . . . . . . . /12695

Theatrical Provenance

Unknown (incomplete/unacted?). Proudfoot notes that "The scribbles of τελοσ suggest that the lines were written on the end flyleaf of a printed or manuscript book by a student or schoolboy---a view which the untidy informal English hand and the tone of the dialogue tend equally to support" (57).

Probable Genre(s)

Classical. Harbage merely lists this as "Dramatic fragment in verse, c. 1620." (Supplementary List I). Proudfoot notes that this description "seems to be mistaken in supposing that the lines are metrical" (58).

References to the Play

(Information welcome)

Critical Commentary

On the dating of the manuscript, Harbage speculates "c.1620," but Proudfoot thinks Harbage "may offer rather too late a date" (58). He argues instead for a turn-of-the-century date based on the handwriting: "The words 'y<ea t>rust m<e.' in line 1 are in a hand other than that of the author but which, like his, probably dates from the last years of the sixteenth century or the very beginning of the seventeenth" (57).

For What It's Worth

It has been speculated that the MS may be a Collier forgery: "Doubts of its genuineness might be raised by the fact that it was among several loose papers discovered in a copy of John Payne Collier's The History of English dramatic poetry, 3 vols. (1879), annotated by the author [now in the Folger Library: shelfmark W.a. 189]. ... This leaf was found at vol.ii, p.413 (a location of no apparent significance): it was removed for separate cataloguing at the Folger Library on 27 August 1945" (Proudfoot 57).

Works Cited

Anon. Fragment from a play [manuscript], ca. 1620. MS. X.d.391. Folger Shakespeare Library.

Proudfoot, G. R. “Five Dramatic Fragments,” Collections, Volume IX. The Malone Society. Oxford: OUP, 1971 (1977). pp.52-75. Print.

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