Stately Tragedy of the Great Cham (Folger MS. X.d.259): Difference between revisions

mNo edit summary
mNo edit summary
Line 1: Line 1:
[[Anon.]] [[1590 + addenda|(c.1590)]]<br>
[[Anon.]] [[1590 + addenda|(c.1590)]]<br>


NB. This play is not to be confused with the two part [[Tamar Cham, Parts 1 and 2 | ''Tamar Cham'']] plays in the repertory of the Strange's men (1592-3) and Admiral's men (1596).
NB. This play is not to be confused with the two part [[Tamar Cham, Parts 1 and 2 | ''Tamar Cham'']] plays in the repertory of the [[:category:Strange's|Strange's men]] [[1592|(1592-3)]] and [[:category:Admiral's|Admiral's men]] [[1596|(1596)]].





Revision as of 23:44, 1 February 2011

Anon. (c.1590)

NB. This play is not to be confused with the two part Tamar Cham plays in the repertory of the Strange's men (1592-3) and Admiral's men (1596).


Historical Records

Folger Shakespeare Library MS fragment

This play exists only as a MS fragment of 4 pages in length (MS. X.d.259, formerly Folger MS 450528):

P1.JPG P2.JPG P3.JPG P4.JPG
Folger X.d.259, p.1 of 4. Folger X.d.259, p.2 of 4. Folger X.d.259, p.3 of 4. Folger X.d.259, p.4 of 4.
Reproduced courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library.


The document was printed by The Malone Society in G. R. Proudfoot, “Five Dramatic Fragments,” Collections, Volume IX (Oxford: OUP, 1971 [1977]), pp.52-75. Pp.64-67 reproduces a transcript of the text.

Alternative titles:

“She who doth rule her table books with blood” (from the Prologue)
“Life and death of the great Cham”
“The Great Cham”
“A stately tragedy containing the ambitious life and death of the great Cham”


Theatrical Provenance

Unknown. Former owners of the MS include:

Sir Israel Gollancz, 1864-1930
James Wright, 1643-1713 (possibly)


Probable Genre(s)

“Unusual burlesque masque” (Sotheby brochure, 12 April 1927); Tragedy (Harbage); eastern; conqueror play.


Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources and Analogues

Subject matter

McInnis (excerpt):

In addition to the Great Cham’s history, the fragment’s title reveals that the lost play concerned itself with the “inchantments of Bagous the Brachman[,] wth the straunge fortunes of Roxen[;] the Captiuity[,] release and death of his brother Manzor the Turchestan King[;] and [the] happy Fortunes of the Sophy of Persia[,] with the loue of Bargandell his sonne.” Here are the makings of a typical eastern play: a captivity narrative, a Persian Sophy and Turkestan King, and an all-powerful Cham, Velruus, whose wife Drepona declares “other courtes are cottages to this / Mayntained by my Lord the mighty Cham” (45-46). In her speculation that her husband’s displeasure stems from “our vassayles the Tartarians” having “Bessegd or sackt some of our fronter townes” (57-58), Drepona effectively hints at the possibility that the Cham of the lost play had some analogy with the all-conquering Tamburlaine of Marlowe’s creation; Drepona’s hyperbolical solution to the dilemma is for “our army far more great” to “Waste all Tartaria to the Northren Seas” (59, 61).


But whereas the title of this lost play would suggest an imitation of Tamburlaine on par with the “weak sons”, an engagement with Faustian magic is evident even from the fragment’s two extant pages. When Bagous the Brachman enters the stage alone, he is joined by Aldeboran, a spirit or “deuill” whom the stage direction explains “must rise from vnder the stage in a flash of fier” (17 SD). Aldeboran immediately establishes a Faustian pact with Bagous, offering him diabolical temptations:


Fiendes of Auernus shall attend on thee
And tremble at thine incantations
Thou shalt haue power to countermand the fates
And to presage of future accidents
To rise Latonas daughter from her spheare
And blindfold Phœbus with æternall might
To walke about the worlde with a wish
And dart destruction and deserued death
On those who manage enmities with thee
If you plot your ententions with mee. (17-26)


Dramatis Personae

Bagous the Brachman (brother of the Sophy?)
Roxen
Manzor, his brother and the Turchestan King
The Sophy of Persia
Bargandell, his son
Aldeboran, a spirit
Velruus (or Velraus), the Great Cham
Drepona, his wife
a guard


References to the Play

None known.


Critical Commentary

Sotheby's thumb nail.JPG
Sotheby's auction catalogue, 12 April 1927
Courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library

Genre

According to the Folger’s catalogue, it was “[d]escribed in the Sotheby April 12 1927 brochure as ‘the fragment of an unusual burlesque masque, entitled ‘The life & death of the Great Cham,’ containing an interesting reference to the growth of Tobacco-Smoking’ (85).” Bentley disagreed with this classification: “The Great Cham is certainly not a masque. As for burlesque, the style is inflated and the tone of the prologue ambiguous, but there is not enough in these sixty-one lines to demonstrate that the attitude of the author was mocking rather than naively solemn” (V.1345).



Date The c.1590 date comes from the Folger’s own catalogue. The Sotheby catalogue lists it as a Jacobean drama. Bentley notes that “the tobacco reference is the only reason for calling The Great Cham Jacobean, for it could be earlier or later than the time of James I” (V.1345). Wagonheim’s revision of Harbage merely lists the fragment as “17th Cent.” (Supp. List I.). Proudfoot, in his Malone Society edition of the fragment, allows that “[a]n earlier limit is suggested by the style and allusions, which imply knowledge of the tragic writing of the later 1580s and early 1590s” (64-65) but concludes that “a date within the first two decades of the [17th] century may seem likely enough” (65).


For What It's Worth

Bagous the Brachman, an eastern priest figure, is also possibly a eunuch: “Bagôus, in the Persian tunge signifieth a geldynge, or a man geldyd” (Elyot sig. f.i). Proudfoot, however, thinks “the name ‘Bagous’ recalls the ‘Bagoa’ of Lyly’s Endimion” (64-65).


The name Aldeboran, here a spirit or “deuill”, is also associated with a star.
cf. Tamburlaine: “Raise me to match the faire Aldebaran, / Above the threefold astracism of heaven” (2 Tam, 4.3.61-62)
cf. Agrippa: “The third is the star Aldeboran” (p64).


The name Velruus (or Velraus), for the Great Cham, may simply be related to / derived from the ostensibly authentic Tartarian word for “mighty king” (“Vlu-Chan”). In his discussion of “The ruine of the Turks first Empire in Persia: with the successe of their second kingdome in the lesser Asia vnder the Aladin Kings,” Knolles writes:

the Tartars or rather Tattars . . . stirred vp by their owne wants, and the persuasion of one Zingis (or as some call him, Cangis) holden amongst them for a great prophet, and now by them made their leader, and honoured with the name of Vlu-Chan, that is to say, the Mightie king (commonly called the great Cham)…. (75)


Works Cited

Agrippa, Henry Cornelius. Three Books of Occult Philosophy. London, 1650. Print. (EEBO)
A stately tragedy containing the ambitious life and death of the great Cham... ca. 1590. MS. X.d.259. Folger Shakespeare Library.
Elyot, Thomas. Bibliotheca Eliotae. 1542. Print.
Harbage, Alfred, Sylvia S. Wagonheim and Samuel Schoenbaum. Annals of English Drama, 975-1700. London: Routledge, 1989. Print.
Knolles, Richard. The generall historie of the Turkes. 1603. Print. (EEBO)
Marlowe, Christopher. Tamburlaine: Parts One and Two. Ed. Anthony B. Dawson. 2nd ed. London: A & C Black, 1997. Print. New Mermaids.
McInnis, David. “The Wings of Active Thought: A Study of Mind-Travelling and Voyage Drama in Early Modern England.” Dissertation. University of Melbourne, 2010. 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, 02 Feb 2011.