Alexander and Bagoas
Historical Records
Laurence Humphrey’s Ash Wednesday Sermon (De Fermento Vitando), 1582, reproduced in Elliott and Nelson, REED Oxford I.178.
John Finnis and Patrick H. Martin provide an English translation to accompany the Latin:
Quod etiam in illis vestries fabulis vidisse & animadvertisse vos arbitror: in quibus Amoris flamma sic apparuit & erupit, ut non amor sed amaror, non fervor sed furor esse videretur. An non meministis Euclionem sic ollam suam [marginal note: Fabulae in col: D. Ioannis, Christi, M. Magd.], Antonium sic Cleopatram, Alexandrum sic Bagoam suum Eunuchum, Philarchum sic Phaedram suam, Meleagrum suam Atalantam, & Menechmum Plautinum meretricem Erotium, Oedipum etiam matrem Iocastam, Iulium Caesarem sic imperium deamasse, ut regni causa iusiurandum imo omne ius violandum censeat?
[And I think you will have seen and noted this in the plays of yours I mentioned: there Love’s fire was so manifest, so uncontrolled, as to seem not love but bitterness, not fervor but madness. Don’t you remember Euclio like this about his pot [of gold], [marginal note: Plays in St John’s, Christ Churce, Magdalen colleges] Antony like this about his Cleopatra, Alexander about his eunuch Bagoas, Philarchus about his Phaedra, Meleager about his Atalanta, Plautus’s Menechmus about the harlot Erotes, and Oedipus even about his mother, Jocasta; and Julius Caesar so in love with power that for the sake of it he thought he could violate oaths and any other kind of right?]
(Finnis and Martin 392)
Theatrical Provenance
Played at Oxford as part of a series of entertainments performed at St John's (a comedy and two tragedies on Sunday 18, Monday 19, and Tuesday 20 February 1582), Christ Church (a comedy and three tragedies) and Magdalen (musical activity) (Christ Church and Magdalen performances occurred in the following week of February 1582) (see Finnis and Martin 393; see also Boas 161).
Probable Genre(s)
Latin.
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
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References to the Play
Only Humphrey's sermon, REED Oxford I.178.
Critical Commentary
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For What It's Worth
Interestingly, from the point of view of the relationship between University plays and the London commercial theatre, Finnis and Martin note that "Of these nine plays staged at Oxford in the first two months of 1582, Shakespeare would subsequently make substantial use of central themes of at least four of them (Menechmi in The Comedy of Errors, Supposes in The Taming of the Shrew, Caesar Interfectus in Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra)..." (393).
Works Cited
Boas, Frederick S. University Drama in the Tudor Age. Oxford: OUP, 1914; rpt. Arno Press, Inc., 1978.
Finnis, John and Patrick H. Martin, “An Oxford Play Festival in February 1582,” Notes & Queries 50:4 (December 2003), 391-94.
Humphrey, Laurence. "Ash Wednesday Sermon" (1582), qtd. in Elliott and Nelson, REED Oxford I.177ff.
Site created and maintained by Dana F. Sutton, University of California, Irvine; updated David McInnis, 26 Oct 2010.