Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio, The

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Historical Records

Performance Records

Playlists in Henslowe's diary

Fol. 7 Greg I, 13

	Res at spanes comodye donne oracoe the 23 of febreary 1591	......................... xiijs vjd
	Res at the comodey of doneoracio the 13 marche 1591	......................... xxviiijs
	Res at doneoracio the 30 of marche 1591	......................... xxxixs

Fol. 7^v Greg I, 14

	Res at the comodey of Jeronymo the 10 of aprell 1591			......................... xxviijs
	Res at the comodey Jeronymo the 22 of aprell 1591			......................... xvijs
	Res at the comodey of Jeronymo the [12]21 of maye 1592			......................... xxviijs

Fol. 8 Greg I, 15

	Res at the comodey of Jeronymo the 20 of June 1592	............... xvs

Theatrical Provenance

Lord Strange's men performed "The Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio" at the Rose in 1592. Its performances were woven into the run of Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, during which the two were paired four times (March 13 & 14, March 30 & 31, April 22 & 24,^† and May 21 & 22. "The Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio" was consistently scheduled first in the pairing. However, in December 1592, when Strange's men returned to the Rose, The Spanish Tragedy was continued in the repertory without "The Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio."

^†a day intervened, but that day was a Sunday (typically a day on which no performances were scheduled)

Probable Genre(s)

Comedy

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Scholars have broadly agreed that the narrative of "The Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio" was (as the title implies) the backstory set up in the prologue to The Spanish Tragedy.

References to the Play

Information welcome.

Critical Commentary

Malone made no comment on "The Comedy of Don Horatio" (290), but Collier laid out the explanation that scholars accept today in various forms, namely that it and "Jeronymo" (first recorded by Henslowe on 14 March 1592) were "different productions" (21, n3). Collier was persuaded by the fact that "they were certainly sometimes performed on successive days," and he asserted further that "one [was] called the Spanish Tragedy, printed in, and before, 1599, and the other Jeronymo, printed in 1605" (21, n3). Fleay, BCEB implied a far tighter relationship between Henslowe's "Comedy of Don Horatio" and The Spanish Tragedy, explaining that the "play" was appropriated "c. 1599" by "the Chapel boys," and "altered"; he thus "conveniently" called "the first part of Jeronymo, or The Spanish Comedy, as Henslow calls it" (2.30). Making evidence elastic, he perceived Henslowe's two plays as one, separating them post-599 because the children's version refers to "the hero ... as of low stature" (2.30).

Greg II agreed with Collier that "The Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio" was "a fore-piece" to Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, but he did not think the play was "necessarily" Kyd's; he was skeptical also that this play was revised into The First Part of Jeronimo, offering as one reason that the childen's play was "certainly not a comedy" (#4, p. 150).

Freeman

Erne

Manley and MacLean

Wiggins, Catalogue #909

Works Cited

Erne, Lukas . Beyond ‘The Spanish Tragedy’: A Study of the Works of Thomas Kyd. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001.

Freeman, Arthur. Thomas Kyd: Facts and Problems. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 13 July 2020.