Unassigned Prologue - "Gentlemen, y'are welcome, but not from me"

Anon. (before 1603-1625)

Historical Records

This prologue is found in Margaret Bellasys's verse miscellany, BL Add. MS 10309, f. 140v. According to a search of the Union First Line Index of English Verse and Literature Online (subscription only), this prologue is possibly unique.

The full text runs as follows:

Verses before a Masque

Gentlemen y’are welcome, but not from me, For god’s my iudge, doe but let you see Men; whom of late, from out the Northern sands The sea belcht up, upon our fruitfull lands, They are all males, put yo"u" but females to’um They will not sticke in baudy termes to woo ‘um I brought them hither for to make yo"u" sport And when that’s done we’le whip them to "the" court. They’re skill’d in horne-pipes, Jigs, & country-rounds God save King James, the divell take his hounds.

Expansions in this transcription are marked with italics.

A facsimile of this manuscript is available through "British Literary Manuscripts Online" (subscription access).

Theatrical Provenance

The final line of this prologue suggests this masque was likely performed at court before King James.

Probable Genre(s)

Masque (Comedy). This masque possibly involves a shipwreck as the prologue mentions men "the sea belcht up".

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

The prologue that welcomes the audience is a common trope in plays of this period, such as John Fletcher's "A Wife for a Month" (1624) and Ben Jonson's "The New Inn" (1629).

Many prologues and epilogues circulated separately from their plays--on this, see Tiffany Stern's "Documents of Performance in Early Modern England", particularly chapter 4.

References to the Play

None known.

Critical Commentary

There has not yet been any critical commentary on this masque. For background on this manuscript see the works cited below.

Works Cited

For more on BL Add. MS 10309, see:

Ennis, Lambert. “Margaret Bellasys’ ‘Characterismes of Vices,’” PMLA 56.1 (1941): 141-50. Moulton, Ian. Before Pornography: Erotic Writing in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Roberts, Sasha. Reading Shakespeare's Poems in Early Modern England. NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. Esp. 179-183. Taylor, Gary. “Some Manuscripts of Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 68 (1985-86): 210-46.

For more on the circulation of prologues and epilogues, see: Stern, Tiffany. Dcouments of Performance in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Site created and maintained by Laura Estill; updated 31 Jan 2012.