Tamar Cham, Parts 1 and 2

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Anon. (1592)


Historical Records

Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)

F.7 (Greg 1.13):
ne . . . R[d] at the second pte of tamber came the 28 of aprell . . . iijll iiijs


F.15v Greg 1.30:
ye 6 of maye 1596 ne . . R[d] at tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxxvijs
ye 12 of maye 159[5]6 R[d] at tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxxvs
ye 17 of maye 1596 R[d] at tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxxvjs
ye 25 of maye 1596 R[d] at tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxs


F.21v Greg 1.41:
ye 5 of June 1596 R[d] at tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxviijs
ye 10 of June 1596 R[d] at tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxviijs
ye 11 of June 1596 ne . . R[d] at the 2 pte of tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . iijll
ye 19 of June 1596 mr pd R[d] at 1 pte of tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxvjs
ye 20 of June 1596 R[d] at 2 pte of tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxvs
ye 26 of June 1596 R[d] at 1 pte of tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxs
ye 27 of June 1596 R[d] at 2 pte of tambercame . . . . . . . . . . . . xxs
ye 8 of July 1596 R[d] at 2 p of tamber came . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiijs
ye 8 of July 1596 R[d] at j p of tamber came . . . . . . . . . . . . xiiijs




Plot for "1 Tamar Cam" (Admiral's, 1602)


This plot, for a revival of Part 1 by the Admiral's Men in 1602, was transcribed by Steevens and printed by Isaac Reed in the "Variorum" Shakespeare of 1803; the original has since disappeared. Only the published transcription survives. Steevens' version of the plot does not appear to have been digitised currently, and most scholars rely on Greg's reprinting (from Henslowe Papers 145-48 (Internet Archive)), which does not preserve the layout. Here is Steevens' edition, courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library:

1 Tamar Cham plot thumb.jpg
“The Plotte of the First Parte of the Tamar Cam”, The plays of William Shakspeare : in twenty-one volumes : with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators, to which are added notes / by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. 1803. Foldout after leaf 2D8 verso (page 414). Folger PR2752 1803a v.3 copy 1 Sh.Col. Reproduced by permission.

Theatrical Provenance

Initially produced by Strange's, with Part 2 being performed on 28 April 1592 (marked "ne" by Henslowe). The plays were acquired by the Admiral's by 1596, when Part 1 was revived on 06 May and Part 2 on 11 June. The Admiral's bought the book of the plays from Alleyn in 1602. Greg (Dramatic Documents, 161) notes the absence of Jones and Shaa (indicating performance after January 1602) and the presence of Singer (indicating a date of before 1603, when he left the company).


Probable Genre(s)

Tragedy; Eastern conqueror.


Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

References to the Play

In Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday (1600), Simon Eyre refers to Tamar Cham's beard:

Eyre. My liege, a very boy, a stripling, a younker. You see not a white hair on my head, not a grey in this beard. Every hair, I assure thy Majesty, that sticks in this beard Sim Eyre values at the King of Babylon's ransom. Tamar Cham's beard was a rubbing-brush to't. Yet I'll shave it off and stuff tennis balls with it to please my bully King. (XXI.20-25)

In their gloss to this line, the Revels editors suggest that "[p]erhaps something special was made of the hero's beard" in the lost "Tamar Cham" plays, and further note the recurrence of beard imagery in Much Ado, when Benedick offers to fetch "a hair off the great Cham's beard" (II.i.237-8).

In Timber: or, Discoveries, Jonson complained of "the Tamerlanes, and Tamer-Chams of the late Age, which had nothing in them but the scenicall strutting, and furious vociferation, to warrant them to the ignorant gapers" (H&S 8.587).


Critical Commentary

Greg suggested that "[i]f the play was written as a rival to Tamburlaine, what more effective counterblast could there be than one celebrating the exploits of the far greater conqueror Jenghis Khan? The suggestion tallies well with the prominence given to the Persian Shah, who would in that case be Mahommed of Khwarizm, and the procession of subject races at the end of Part I would be entirely appropriate; while the Second Part might be supposed to have celebrated the Mongol successes in Russia and China. It is possible that the unknown author boldly altered the name of his hero to one more familiar to his audience, but it is also conceivable that he knew that Jenghis Khan is properly an honorific and that his real name was Temuchin, and made this an excuse for giving his play a title closely similar to that of the piece he sought to rival" (Documents, 161-2).

Manley and Maclean...

See also Wiggins serial number 906 and 925.


For What It's Worth

<Enter any miscellaneous points that may be relevant, but don't fit into the above categories. This is the best place for highly conjectural thoughts.>


Works Cited

Dekker, Thomas. The Shoemaker's Holiday. ed. R. L. Smallwood and Stanley Wells. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1979, rpt.1999. The Revels Plays.
Greg, W. W. Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931, rpt. 1969.




Site created and maintained by David McInnis, University of Melbourne; updated 11 March 2016.