Tasso's Melancholy

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Historical records

Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)

y^e 11 of aguste 1594	ne….	Res at tassoes mellencoley	……….	iij^ll iiij^s
y^e 18 of aguste 1594	……….	Res at tassoes mallencoley	……….	xxxxvij^s

F. 10 (Greg I. 19)

y^e 3 of septembȝ 1594	……….	Res at Tasso	……….	xxxxvj^s
y^e 18 of septembȝ 1594	……….	Res at tasso	……….	xxvij^s vj^d
y^e 8 of octobȝ 1594	……….	Res at tasso	……….	xxvij^s

F. 10^v (Greg I. 20)

y^e 23 of octobȝ 1594	……….	Res at tasso	……….	xxiij^s
y^e 12 of novembȝ 1594	……….	Res at tasso	……….	xxv^s
y^e 3 of desembȝ 1594	……….	Res at tasso	……….	vj^s

F. 11 (Greg I. 21)

y^e 11 of Jenewary 159[4]5	……….	Res at tasso	……….	xx^s
y^e 21 of Jenewary 1595	……….	Res at tasso	……….	xxxvj^s
y^e 15 of febreary 1595	……….	Res at tasso	……….	xix^s

F. 11^v (Greg I. 22)

y^e 14 of maye 1595

……….

Res at tasso

……….

xx^s

Henslowe Papers

Greg, Papers (Appx. I, art. 1, p. 117. l. 75)

Under the heading “The Enventary tacken of all the properties for my Lord Admeralles men, the 10 of Marche 1598”:

Item, ... Tasso picter ...

Under the heading “The Enventorey of all the aparell of the Lord Admeralles men, taken the 13 of Marche 1598, as followeth”:

Item, Tasoes robe.

Payments to Playwrights (Henslowe’s Diary)

F. 96 (Greg I.153)

Lent vnto Thomas deckers at the a||}

poyntment of the company the 16 of||}

Janewary 1601 toward the alterynge of||} xx^s

tasso the some of .....||}

F. 108 (Greg I.171)

Lent vnto my sone E Alleyn the 3 of novembȝ 1602||}

to geue vnto thomas deckers for mendinge of the||} xxxx^s

playe of tasso the some of .....||}

F. 108^v (Greg I.172)

Lent vnto w^m birde the 4 of desembȝ 1602||}

to paye vnto thomas deckers in pt of pay||} xx^s

ment for tasso the some of .....||}

Theatrical Provenance

Henslowe records performances by the Admiral's Men at the Rose in 1594-5.

The records of payment to Thomas Dekker for revisions in 1602 suggest that a revival by the Admiral's Men at the Fortune was at least planned.

Probable Genre(s)

Romance (Wiggins #963)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

The poet Torquato Tasso (who died in 1595, the year after this play premiered) was mentally ill and for a time was incarcerated in an asylum for the insane. Lea and Gang (25-30) show that English writers of the 1590s were aware of Tasso's poetry; they were also aware of his mental troubles, but no surviving English text is detailed enough to have served as a source for the play.

Lea and Gang (28) note that the most substantial pre-1594 description of Tasso's madness appears in John Eliot's Ortho-Epia Gallica (1593):

"Torquato Tasso, a fine scholer truly, who is yet living, the last Italian Poet who is of any great fame in our age, but worthie of the first honour; besides that he is a divine Poet, he is also a most eloquent Oratour and Rhetoricyan, as his missive Epistles do shew very well. This Youth fell mad for the love of an Italian lasse descended of a great house, when I was in Italie." (G3^v)

They also note Gabriel Harvey's brief allusion to it in Pierce's Superogation (1593), which refers to the "surmounting rage of Tasso in his furious angoy [sic]" (D2^r)

Wiggins (#963) also notes an undated epigram by Sir John Harington (d.1612), which has a more detailed description of Tasso's madness:

43 to Itis, alias Ioyner, an vcleanly token, conuayed in cleanly tearmes.

Torquato Tasso, for one little fault,

That did perhaps deserue some small rebuke,

Was by his sharp and most vngratefull Duke,

Shut vp close prisoner in a loathsome vault;

Where wanting Pen and Inke by Princes order,

His wit, that wals of Adamant could pierce,

Found meanes to write his mind in excellent verse:

For want of Pen and Inke, with pisse and ordure.

But thy dull wit damn'd by Appollos crew,

To dungeon of disgrace, though free thy body,

With pen, nay Print, doth publish like a noddy

Base taunts, that turn'd vpon thy selfe, are true.

And wanting salt thy wallowish stile to season,

And being of uncouth tearmes a senslesse coyner,

Thou call'st thy selfe vnproperly, a Ioyner,

Whose verse hath quite disseuer'd rime and reason:

Deseruing for such rayling, and such bodging,

For this, Torquatos Inke, for that, his Lodging.

(201-2)

References to the Play

Wiggins (#963) speculates that Antony Scoloker's description of Tasso's madness in Daiphantus, or the Passions of Love' '(1604), which compares him with Hamlet, might be based on memories of the play:

Now with his fingers, like a Barber snaps,

Playes with the fire-pan, as it were a Lute,

Vnties his shoe-strings, then his lips he laps,

Whistles awhile, and thinkes it is a Flute:

At length, a glasse presents it to his sight,

Where well he acts, fond loue in passions right.

His chin he strokes, sweares beardles men kisse best,

His lips anoynts, sayes Ladyes vse such fashions,

Spets on his Napkin; termes that the Bathing Iest,

Then on the dust, describes the Courtiers passion.

Then humble cal's: though they do still aspire,

"Ladies then fall, when Lords rise by Desire.

Then stradling goes, saies Frenchmen feare no Beares

Vowes he will trauaile, to the Siege of Brest,

Swears Captaines, they doe all against the heare:

Protests Tabacco, is A smoke-dride Iest,

Takes vp his pen, for a Tabacco-pipe;

Thus all besmeard, each lip the other wipe.

His breath, he thinkes the smoke; his tongue a cole,

Then calls for bottell-ale; to quench his thirst:

Runs to his Inke-pot, drinkes, then stops the hole,

And thus growes madder, then he was at first.

Tasso, he finds, by that of Hamlet, thinkes.

Tearmes him a mad-man; than of his Inkhorne drinks.

Calls Players fooles, the foole he iudgeth wisest,

Will learne them Action, out of Chaucers Pander:

Proues of their Poets bawdes euen in the highest,

Then drinkes a health; and sweares it is no slander.

Puts off his cloathes; his shirt he onely weares,

Much like mad-Hamlet; thus as Passion teares.

(E4^r-v)

Critical commentary

Based on Eliot, Harington and Scoloker (see above), Wiggins (#963) constructs a speculative plot summary.

Works Cited

Harington, Sir John. The Letters and Epigrams of Sir John Harington. Ed. Norman Egbert McClure (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1930).

Lent vnto Thomas deckers at the a\|\|}
poyntment of the company the 16 of\|\|}
Janewary 1601 toward the alterynge of\|\|}	xx^s
tasso the some of .....\|\|}

Lent vnto my sone E Alleyn the 3 of novembȝ 1602\|\|}
to geue vnto thomas deckers for mendinge of the\|\|}	xxxx^s
playe of tasso the some of .....\|\|}

Lent vnto w^m birde the 4 of desembȝ 1602\|\|}
to paye vnto thomas deckers in pt of pay\|\|}	xx^s
ment for tasso the some of .....\|\|}