Time's Triumph and Fortune's

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Historical Records

Performance Records

Playlists in Philip Henslowe's diary


Fol. 26v (Greg I, p. 52)

Aprell 1597
|13| . . . . . . tt at times triumpe & fortus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 01|05|01 — 00 — 03



Theatrical Provenance

The single appearance of "Time's Triumph" in Henslowe's records for the Admiral's men at the Rose in April 1957 is the only recorded evidence of the play's existence and theatrical provenance.


Probable Genre(s)

Moral? (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues


Information welcome.


References to the Play


Information welcome.


Critical Commentary


Malone had no comment to make about this title, but he did read the spelling as "times triumph and foztus" (p. 299).


Collier remarked that Henslowe's phrasing of the play title makes it sound "as if two different pieces had been performed on the same day" (p. 86), but otherwise he had no comment on the content of the item.


Fleay,BCED, as was often his inclination, identified the play with a later one: by Thomas Heywood,in this case one he calls Timon" or Misanthrope, apparently lost (2. #148, p. 301). Fleay also considered that "Times Triumph" might have been one of the pieces in either "Five Plays in One" or "Four Plays in One" (1.#8, p. 287). However, in A Chronicle History (p. 114), he had identified "Times Triumph" with Heywood's Jupiter and Io (1637) and attributed to it the property in Henslowe's inventory of Argus's head ("Argosse heade" (Papers, APX. I, art. 1, p. 117, l.66)


Greg II read Henslowe's "& fortus" to be "and fortune," and a more compelling suggestion has yet to be offered (#104).

Over time, the play title acquired an apostrophe "s": Harbage, p. 52; Gurr, p. 228. Wiggins, Catalogue considers the possibility that "Fortune's" was meant to modify some word (now missing) other than "Triumph" ( #1022).



For What It's Worth



Works Cited

Gurr, Andrew. Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.





Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 19 November 2019.