Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio, The
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. 7v 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 called "The Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio" a "companion piece" to The Spanish Tragedy (120). He rejected the identification of the companion piece with the 1605 "First Part of Jeronimo:," but (following Boas) he found it "probable that the extant play represents a revision or rewriting of the original 'spanes commodye', and hence that it is fairly close, at least in plot, to the early fore-piece" (176). In addition, he challenged "a common interpretation" of the reference to a play called "Jeronimo" in the banter among players with the Chamberlain's/King's men in the prologue of The Malcontent as being a joke about the 1605 The First Part of Jeronimo; rather, he thought it was a reference to Kyd's tragedy because the name, Jeronimo, is not associated with "the perished fore-piece" in Henslowe's records (123). Freemen offered the following sequence of events: "at some time between 1600 and 1605, perhaps in conjunction with their theft of the main tragedy, the Children borrowed and burlesqued, or perhaps reconstructed, the original 'spanes comedye', and subsequently allowed their version to reach the press" as The First Part of Jeronimo (124).
Erne
For What It's Worth
Works Cited
Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 13 July 2020.