Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

"Lamentable tragedy mixed ful of pleasant mirth": The Enigma of Cambises

1992; Western Michigan University; Volume: 26; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/cdr.1992.0049

1936-1637

Howard B. Norland,

Philippine History and Culture

"Lamentable tragedy mixed ful of pleasant mirth": The Enigma of Cambises Howard B. Norland When Falstaff prepares to play the role of King Henry IV to a penitent Hal, he asks for a cup of sack to make his eyes look red from weeping, for, he says, "I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein" (/ Henry IV II.iv.38687 ) . Falstaffs subsequent parody of Cambises' stilted, oldfashioned style coupled with the rude mechanicals' burlesque rendition of "The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby," which recalls the mixture of tragedy and mirth promised in the title of Cambises, suggests Shakespeare's scorn for the popular tragedy printed a generation earlier; and for modern critics Cambises is the epitome of bad taste and "dramatic ineptitude."! Yet the Thomas Preston identified as the author of the play both on the title page and at the end of the epilogue of the two undated quarto editions of the play is generally believed to be the well-known Cambridge academic who, after receiving his B.A. in 1557 and his M.A. in 1561 from King's College, became a Fellow at King's, then in 1584 Master of Trinity College, and finally in 1589-90 ViceChancellor of the University. Critics have wondered how such a distinguished scholar could have written such a crude play, particularly a Fellow who was recognized by Queen Elizabeth on her visit to Cambridge in 1564 for his skill in disputation and for his excellent performance in Halliwell's Dido.2 In the earlier twentieth century E. K. Chambers, J. M. Manley, and J. Q. Adams thought the Cambridge scholar's association with the play so incredible that they hypothesized that another Thomas Preston perhaps with connections to popular performance may have been responsible for the extant text of the play.3 HOWARD B. NORLAND, Professor of English at the University of NebraskaLincoln , has published widely on Neo-Latin and Renaissance drama and critical theory. 330 Howard B. Norland331 Thomas Preston may not be a unique name at the time, but unless another with that name who can be linked to Cambises or the drama of the period is discovered, we must look for other explanations for the incongruity of a distinguished academic being associated with a play scorned by Shakespeare and denigrated by modern critics. It is possible, of course, for a distinguished academic to write a lousy play, but the version that the Cambridge scholar composed may not have been as crude or as dramatically inept as printed editions suggest. According to the Stationers Register John Allde was granted a license to print the play in 1569,4 and he published an undated quarto edition. A second undated quarto edition was published under the imprint of Edward Allde who succeeded his father in the business in 1584, and a third quarto, of which only two leaves survive, apparently followed.5 The Allde firm during this period printed a number of dramatic texts with academic roots, including William Wager's Enough is as Good as a Feast (c.1560), possibly Merbury's The Marriage Between Wit and Wisdom (c. 1579),6 and a corrupt third quarto edition of Sackville and Norton's Gorboduc in 1590. Wit and Wisdom appears to have been extensively adapted for performance by a professional troupe, as earlier versions by Redford and possibly by Wescott attest.7 William Pikeryng's Horestes (1567-68), published by William Griffith, who issued an unauthorized edition of Gorboduc in 1565, may have suffered a similar fate, for internal and external evidence links the play to a court performance.8 However, no earlier version of Horestes survives, nor do we have an extant academic version of Cambises, but, like Horestes, Cambises reveals in both subject matter and form elements that hark back to a more sophisticated and perhaps a more developed version of the tragedy. The crudeness and "dramatic ineptitude" perceived in the play may result not from Preston's lack of skill or taste but from adapters' attempts to tailor the play to the tastes of the popular audience and the performance conditions of a touring company. There...