The Complete Plays

THE COMPLETE PLAYS

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (b. 1564) was the eldest son of Canterbury shoemaker John Marlowe, and his wife, Katherine. He was elected to the King’s School Canterbury at the age of fourteen, and within two years had secured a scholarship which took him to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was supposedly destined for a career in the Anglican Church. He successfully completed his BA examinations in 1584, and continued his studies as a candidate for the MA. During this period his absences from Cambridge stirred rumours that he was about to flee to the Catholic seminary at Rheims in France. In 1587 the Privy Council took the unusual step of persuading the University authorities to grant Marlowe his MA since he had been employed ‘in matters touching the benefit of his country’; this has fuelled speculation that he was working as a government agent.

Marlowe probably began his writing career at Cambridge, composing translations of Ovid’s Amores, and Lucan’s Pharsalia, as well as producing Dido, Queen of Carthage for the Children of the Chapel in 1586 (possibly co-written with Thomas Nashe). In 1587–8 he acquired his reputation as one of the leading new talents on the London stage with Tamburlaine the Great. His finest play, Doctor Faustus, was written in 1588–9, and was followed by The Jew of Malta (c. 1590), Edward the Second and The Massacre at Paris (both c. 1592). The erotic epyllion Hero and Leander was probably written in 1592–3 when the plague forced the theatres to close.

Throughout this period, Marlowe was frequently in trouble with the authorities, though for his actions and not his play-writing. He and the poet Thomas Watson were briefly imprisoned in September 1589 for their involvement in the death of William Bradley; in 1592 Marlowe was deported from Flushing, Holland, having been implicated in a counterfeiting scheme. He acquired a dangerous reputation as an atheist, and the following year he was summoned to appear before the Privy Council on charges of blasphemy, arising from evidence provided by Thomas Kyd, the author of the hugely popular play The Spanish Tragedy. Several days later, on 30 May 1593, Christopher Marlowe was fatally stabbed in Deptford.

FRANK ROMANY was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he also taught for some years. He was until September 2003 Lecturer and Tutor in English at St John’s College, Oxford. He has published on Shakespeare and is at work on a book on John Milton.

ROBERT LINDSEY is the Associate Editor of the journal Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England. He has edited Marlowe’s Edward the Second and has completed a new edition of the plays of John Webster. He is a lecturer in Classical Acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama, London.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

The Complete Plays

Edited by FRANK ROMANY
and ROBERT LINDSEY

BookishMall.com

BookishMall.com

Published by the Penguin Group
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First published 2003
9

Editorial material copyright © Frank Romany and Robert Lindsey, 2003
All rights reserved

The moral rights of the editors have been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
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EISBN: 9781101488508

Contents

Preface

Chronology

Introduction

‘The Baines Note’

Further Reading

A Note on the Texts

DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE

TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT, PART ONE

TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT, PART TWO

THE JEW OF MALTA

DOCTOR FAUSTUS

EDWARD THE SECOND

THE MASSACRE AT PARIS

Appendix: The Massacre at Paris, Scene 19

Notes

Glossary

List of Mythological, Historical and Geographical Names

Preface

This is an edition of the seven plays which modern scholarship has convincingly attributed to Marlowe. The texts have been edited from the earliest printed editions and are fully modernized. Although it has become fashionable to print two versions of Doctor Faustus (the A- and B-texts), we have included only the A-text, in the belief that the B-text is for the most part a later, post-Marlovian adaptation of the play, the inclusion of which would have made this already large volume unwieldy for its readers. The text of Doctor Faustus is discussed in more detail in the Notes, while general editorial procedures are explained in the Note on the Texts.

Individual English words which are unfamiliar, obsolete or obscure are, as far as possible, explained in the Glossary (G); allusions to named people and places in the List of Mythological, Historical and Geographical Names (N). These provide core information only (such as the essential meanings of words and the outlines of myths). For further help with the understanding of the texts, the reader is referred to the Notes. Each play has a headnote dealing with matters such as the date, sources and interpretation of the play, followed by more detailed notes on the text. These deal with individual words in cases where fuller discussion is required than is possible in (G), or where the reader might not realize that an unfamiliar Elizabethan meaning is intended (‘false friends’), or where Marlowe’s usage is idiosyncratic; with the meaning of larger sense-units; with matters of theatrical and literary interpretation; and with the specific local pertinence of mythological and historical allusions. The Notes also record substantive emendations to the text, and include translations, as literal as possible, of passages in languages other than English.

This edition is a close collaboration between the editors, but readers may wish to know that the texts have been prepared by Robert Lindsey, while Frank Romany is principally responsible for the Introduction and Notes. Both editors wish to express their gratitude to Monica Schmoller for her patient work as copy-editor, and to the British Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library for their permission to reproduce manuscript materials in their collections.

Chronology

1564 26 February: Christopher, son of John Marlowe, a shoemaker, and his wife Katherine, baptized at St George the Martyr, Canterbury.

1579 Awarded scholarship at the King’s School Canterbury (where he had perhaps received his earlier education).

1580 December: Earliest recorded residence at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

1581–7 Parker Scholar at Corpus Christi.

1584 Petitions for BA degree.

1585–6 Some absences from Cambridge.

1586? Dido, Queen of Carthage, perhaps co-written with Thomas Nashe.

1587 July: MA, after certification from the Privy Council that rumours that Marlowe intended to leave England for Rheims, home of an English Catholic seminary, were untrue, and that he had done the queen ‘good service’.

1587–8 Tamburlaine the Great Parts One and Two performed in London.

1588? At work on translations of Ovid’s Amores, published as All Ovid’s Elegies, and of Book One of Lucan’s epic Pharsalia (De Bello Civile), published as Lucan’s First Book.

1588–9 Earlier possible date of composition of Doctor Faustus.

1589 18 September: Imprisoned in Newgate on suspicion of murder after William Bradley, a little-known figure with a history of violence, is killed in a fight with Marlowe and his friend the poet Thomas Watson.

3 December: Appears before justices and is discharged.

1590 Perhaps acting as a courier in France.

?Writes The Jew of Malta.

1591 Shares lodgings with the dramatist Thomas Kyd.

1592 26 January: Deported from Flushing, Holland, after Richard Baines, convert from Catholicism and intelligence agent, implicates him in a counterfeiting scheme.

9 May: Bound over to keep the peace after a brawl with constables in Shoreditch.

?Writes Edward the Second and The Massacre at Paris.

1592–3 Theatres closed because of plague. Possible composition of erotic narrative poem Hero and Leander. Later possible date of composition of Doctor Faustus.

1593 18 May: Privy Council issues warrant for his arrest, at the house of Thomas Walsingham, Marlowe’s patron, in Kent or elsewhere, after Kyd claims that supposedly heretical papers found in his rooms belong to Marlowe.

20 May: Answers warrant and appears before Privy Council.

30 May: Murdered apparently in self-defence by Ingram Frizer, servant of Walsingham, in Deptford.

1 June: Buried at St Nicholas church, Deptford.

?2 June: Baines accuses Marlowe of numerous blasphemies.

28 June: Frizer pardoned.

Introduction

It is not easy to account for the power of Marlowe’s plays.* They are unevenly written, not always well constructed, and some survive only in mangled and unreliable texts. Yet an obscure, even dark, imaginative energy is released in them – in the victories of Tamburlaine, in Faustus’ encounters with the demonic, in the irreverence of Barabas and in the humiliation of Edward.