Pilades and Horestes (Folger MS X.d.391): Difference between revisions

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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==
Pilades and Horestes (or Pylades and Orestes) are typically evoked as an example of true friendship; for example, in Thomas Elyot's ''The boke named the Gouernour'', the following anecdote is briefly related:
<blockquote>Horestes and  Pilades, beinge wonderful lyke in al features, were taken to geder, and presented vnto a tirant, who deedly hated Horestes. But whan he behelde them bothe, and wolde haue slayne Horestes only, he coulde not decerne the one from the other: And also  Pilades, to delyuer his frende, affirmed, that he was Orestes: on the other parte Orestes, to saue  Pilades, denyed, and sayd, that he was Orestes (as the trouthe was) Thus a longe tyme they togyther contendynge, the one to dye for the other, at the laste so relented the fierse and cruell harte of the tyraunte, that wondringe at theyr meruaylous frendshyp, he suffred them frely to departe, without doinge to them any damage. (f.135<sup>r-v</sup>)</blockquote>
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==References to the Play==
==References to the Play==


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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Anon. ''Fragment from a play [manuscript], ca. 1620.'' MS. X.d.391. [http://shakespeare.folger.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=193386| Folger Shakespeare Library].</div>
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Anon. ''Fragment from a play [manuscript], ca. 1620.'' MS. X.d.391. [http://shakespeare.folger.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=193386| Folger Shakespeare Library].</div>
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Elyot, Thomas. ''The boke named the Gouernour, deuysed by syr Thomas Elyot knight''. 1537. Print.</div>


<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Proudfoot, G. R. “Five Dramatic Fragments,” ''Collections, Volume IX''. The Malone Society. Oxford: OUP, 1971 (1977). pp.52-75. Print.</div>
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Proudfoot, G. R. “Five Dramatic Fragments,” ''Collections, Volume IX''. The Malone Society. Oxford: OUP, 1971 (1977). pp.52-75. Print.</div>

Revision as of 09:21, 10 February 2011

Anon. (unknown date)


Historical Records

Folger Shakespeare Library MS fragment

A single quarto leaf of the manuscript of this lost play exists (Folger MS X.d.391):

Pilades and Horestes (Folger MS X.d.391) thumbnail 2.jpg
Folger X.d.391, reproduced by permission of the
Folger Shakespeare Library.

τ τελοσ y<ea> ust m<e.> S . . .τελοσ . . .he<

σσσσ . . . . . . . . . . . . . Q . . . <H> . . .B
σ

__________________________________________
. . . . . . .Pilades. / horestes. / Campo. <T T>

py. . . . .Ho ho sir? I pray yow from what qu<a
. . . . . . the world haue yow travelled toe<
. . . . . . good my frend horestes? / ho. / no no not <
. . . . . . I pray yow old acquaintance from wh<
. . . . . . haue yow landed tell me frend myn<e> p<
py. . . . surly your question smelethe frend an<
ho./ . . .yow haue sayde, your questione indede may b<
. . . . . . in the foles caldron and by the in y<
. . . . . . therofe increase more foles. pi’/ what what ? m<
. . . . . . yow as hot as a tost al[e]redye. I pce<a
. . . . . . pathe wch I walke in liethe hid from <
. . . . . . and yet yt shoewethe the readye<.t>way that I <
. . . . . . to goe. / ho./ harke o pilades <
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . smith<
. . .<E>nd . . .I . . . . . . . . . .Ihon . . . . . .[When as v we
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R M for]*
. . . . . .Wh
. . . . . . . . . . /12695

(* This text is written upside down in the manuscript)

The transcription is based on G. R. Proudfoot's Malone Society edition of "Five Dramatic Fragments" (58).


Theatrical Provenance

Unknown (incomplete/unacted?). Proudfoot notes that "The scribbles of τελοσ suggest that the lines were written on the end flyleaf of a printed or manuscript book by a student or schoolboy---a view which the untidy informal English hand and the tone of the dialogue tend equally to support" (57).


Probable Genre(s)

Classical. Harbage merely lists this as "Dramatic fragment in verse, c. 1620." (Supplementary List I). Proudfoot notes that this description "seems to be mistaken in supposing that the lines are metrical" (58).


Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Pilades and Horestes (or Pylades and Orestes) are typically evoked as an example of true friendship; for example, in Thomas Elyot's The boke named the Gouernour, the following anecdote is briefly related:

Horestes and Pilades, beinge wonderful lyke in al features, were taken to geder, and presented vnto a tirant, who deedly hated Horestes. But whan he behelde them bothe, and wolde haue slayne Horestes only, he coulde not decerne the one from the other: And also Pilades, to delyuer his frende, affirmed, that he was Orestes: on the other parte Orestes, to saue Pilades, denyed, and sayd, that he was Orestes (as the trouthe was) Thus a longe tyme they togyther contendynge, the one to dye for the other, at the laste so relented the fierse and cruell harte of the tyraunte, that wondringe at theyr meruaylous frendshyp, he suffred them frely to departe, without doinge to them any damage. (f.135r-v)




References to the Play

(Information welcome)


Critical Commentary

On the dating of the manuscript, Harbage speculates "c.1620," but Proudfoot thinks Harbage "may offer rather too late a date" (58). He argues instead for a turn-of-the-century date based on the handwriting: "The words 'y<ea t>rust m<e.' in line 1 are in a hand other than that of the author but which, like his, probably dates from the last years of the sixteenth century or the very beginning of the seventeenth" (57).


For What It's Worth

It has been speculated that the MS may be a Collier forgery: "Doubts of its genuineness might be raised by the fact that it was among several loose papers discovered in a copy of John Payne Collier's The History of English dramatic poetry, 3 vols. (1879), annotated by the author [now in the Folger Library: shelfmark W.a. 189]. ... This leaf was found at vol.ii, p.413 (a location of no apparent significance): it was removed for separate cataloguing at the Folger Library on 27 August 1945" (Proudfoot 57).


Works Cited

Anon. Fragment from a play [manuscript], ca. 1620. MS. X.d.391. Folger Shakespeare Library.
Elyot, Thomas. The boke named the Gouernour, deuysed by syr Thomas Elyot knight. 1537. Print.
Proudfoot, G. R. “Five Dramatic Fragments,” Collections, Volume IX. The Malone Society. Oxford: OUP, 1971 (1977). pp.52-75. Print.




Site created and maintained by David McInnis, University of Melbourne; updated 10 Feb 2011.