Troilus and Cressida was written before February 7, 1603, when it is listed in the Stationers’ Register “as yt is acted by my lo: Chamblens men.” The implication is of a recent appearance, but Hotson has made an attempt to set the date back before 1598. The nub of his argument is that the enigmatic title “Love’s Labour’s Won,” which appears under Shakespeare’s name in Meres’ list, really means “Love’s Pains Are Gained,” thus fitting the subject of Troilus and Cressida.[8] This line of reasoning has yet to win support.
The upper limits of Othello, Measure for Measure, and King Lear are set by their performances at Court on November 1, 1604, December 26, 1604, and December 26, 1606, respectively. The lower limits are unknown, but no responsible authority has suggested dating any of these plays before 1602.[9]
The limits for Antony and Cleopatra are set at the upper end by the listing in the Stationers’ Register of May 20, 1608, and at the lower by Daniel’s corrections to his Cleopatra in the new edition of Certain Small Workes (1607). On the same day on which the entry for Antony and Cleopatra was inserted, Pericles was registered. This play, however, had been witnessed by the Venetian ambassador sometime between January 5, 1606, and November 23, 1608.[10]
Stylistic evidence or contemporary allusion serves to date four plays in this period. All’s Well That Ends Well is dated in 1602–1603 by Chambers, in 1602 by Kittredge and Harbage; all do so on stylistic evidence. Allusions to the doctrine of equivocation (II, iii, 9-13) place Macbeth in 1606, and this date is widely accepted.[11] Stylistic evidence leads most scholars to place Timon of Athens in 1607–1608, and this type of evidence, combined with allusions of a tenuous nature, leads them to assign Coriolanus to 1608.
Several plays are on the borderline at either end of the period. As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, and Henry V were “staid” from printing according to the Stationers’ Register entry of August 4, 1600. Since none of them appears in Meres’ listing in 1598, they all fall within the two-year intervening period. In dating As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing there is very little evidence for narrowing the period. The appearance of Kemp’s name in speech prefixes in Much Ado (IV, ii) places it before the opening of the Globe. O. J. Campbell points out that As You Like It must have been written after the edict against satire on July 1, 1599. These facts, together with the general consensus, lead me to include As You Like It in the 1599–1608 repertory and to exclude Much Ado.
Henry V is more narrowly limited by the allusions to Essex’s campaign in Ireland (Chorus, V, 30-34). The commencement of the campaign was on March 27, 1599, the sad conclusion on September 28, 1599. Since the Globe did not open until the end of August or early September, the weight of the evidence excludes Henry V. It also excludes Cymbeline at the end of the decade. Mentioned first by Simon Forman, who saw a performance between April 20th and 30th, 1611, the play is variously dated in 1609 or 1610. The earliest date suggested by Chambers is the spring of 1609.
One play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, remains in dispute. Despite the conflict with testimony from Meres, Hotson places the first performance of Merry Wives on April 23, 1597, when it was supposedly performed for the Knights of the Garter at Windsor. Alexander accepts this date.[12] Chambers, Kittredge, and Harbage date the play in 1600–1601, and Chambers points out the appearance of a line from Hamlet, “What is the reason that you use me thus?” (V, i, 312) in scene xiii of the bad quarto of Merry Wives (1602). On this basis and in the absence of any appropriate time when the play could have been performed before the Queen at a Garter installation, Chambers dates the play in 1600–1601. McManaway admits that many questions about the play are unanswerable at present, although he grants that there may have been revisions over a period of years beginning as early as 1597. Nevertheless, as he notes, its absence from Meres’ list still remains a bar to an early dating. Consequently, we may treat it as part of the list of new plays written for the Globe playhouse.[13]
For supplementary evidence about the staging of Shakespeare’s plays at the Globe, we turn to the pieces of his less gifted colleagues who supplied the Globe company with scripts. Twelve plays are extant which we know or have reason to believe were performed only by the Chamberlain’s or King’s men between 1599 and 1609. Of these, three were written by Jonson: Every Man Out of His Humour, Sejanus, and Volpone. The first was written “in the yeere 1599” according to the 1616 Folio, and the revised epilogue refers to presentation at the Globe. Sejanus, according to Jonson, was “acted, in the yeere 1603. By the K. Maiesties Servants.” Volpone, again according to Jonson, was acted “in the yeere 1605. By the K. Maiesties Servants.”
Barnes, Wilkins, and possibly Tourneur each contributed one play to the King’s men’s repertory now extant. Barnes provided The Devil’s Charter, played before the King “by his Maiesties Servants” on February 2, 1607.[14] Wilkins supplied Miseries of Enforced Marriage. Q. 1607 contains the advertisement “As it is now played by his Maiesties Servants.” The Revenger’s Tragedy, uncertainly linked with Tourneur’s name, appeared in quarto with the inscription: “As it hath beene sundry times Acted, by the Kings Maiesties Servants.” Chambers dates the play 1606–1607.
The remaining six plays are all anonymous and all ascribe production to the Chamberlain’s or King’s men on the title pages of their quartos. A Larum for London was registered on May 27, 1600, and printed in 1602. Thomas Lord Cromwell was registered August 11, 1602, “as it was lately acted.”[15] Fair Maid of Bristow, entered in the Stationers’ Register February 8, 1605, is dated 1604 by Chambers. The London Prodigal appeared in quarto in 1605 and was probably produced in 1603–1605. The Merry Devil of Edmonton, although registered on October 22, 1607, is mentioned in T. M.’s Black Book in 1604. Chambers dates the play about 1603. Lastly, A Yorkshire Tragedy, entered May 2, 1608, may have been written a year or two earlier.[16]