Telomo

Anon. (1583)

Historical Records

Court Records

Accounts of the Office of the Revels

Christmas Twelftide & Shrouetide and makeing choise of plaies. Anno Regni Regine Elizabethe: xxv^o 1582

A historie of Telomo shewed before her maiestie at Richmond on Shrovesondaie at night Enacted by the Earle of Leicesters servauntes, for which was prepared and Imployed, one Citty, one Battlement of canvas iij. Ells of sarcenet and viij. paire of gloves. And furnished with sondrey other garmentes of the store of the office &c.

(Feuillerat 350)

Theatrical Provenance

Performed for the court by Leicester's Men at Richmond on Shrove Sunday (10 February) 1583.

Probable Genre(s)

(Under construction.)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

(Under construction.)

References to the Play

None known.

Critical Commentary

Probably following Collier (22), Harbage suggests this play might the same as "Ptolemy", performed at the Bull Inn in the late 1570s.

Wiggins points out that Harbage's identification is quite problematic, especially because by 1583 the play would have been too old to be staged before the Queen (serial number 736). He also hypothesises that there may be a connection between "Telomo" and the romance Palmerin d'Oliva, where Ptolome is the name of one of the main character's friends. If a connection exists, however, it would be to the original Spanish (1511) or the French translation (1546) rather than to Anthony Munday's English translation, which was only published in 1588. As a matter of fact, Wiggins indicates 1581 as the date of publication of Palmerin d'Oliva, which is in fact the year when one of the other romances in the Palmerin cycle, namely Palmerin of England, was entered into the Stationers' Register. However, Palmerin of England does not feature Ptolome as a character. Interestingly enough, the character's Spanish name in Palmerin de Oliva is Tolomé, which is indeed even closer to Telomo.

MacLean remarks that for the members of Leicester's Men who had obtained the royal patent in 1574 the performance of "Telomo" must have been one of the last before joining the newly-formed Queen's Men in March 1583 (261-262).

For What It's Worth

(Under construction.)

Works Cited

Collier, John Payne. "History of the English Drama and Stage to the Time of Shakespeare." Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, and Poems. 6 vols. London: Whittaker, 1858. 1:1—38. Google Books, open access

MacLean, Sally-Beth. "Tracking Leicester's Men: The Patronage of a Performance Troupe." Paul Whitfield White, Suzanne R. Westfall (eds). Shakespeare and Theatrical Patronage in Early Modern England. Cambridge: CUP, 2006. 246-271.

Site created and maintained by Domenico Lovascio, University of Genoa; updated 02 March 2015.