The play is an adaptation of Il Fedele (1575) by Luigi Pasqualigo, which is also the foundation of the anonymous Two Italian Gentlemen (q.v.). As Sidney was knighted on 13 Jan. 1583, the play was probably written, perhaps for performance at St. John’s, Cambridge, before that date and after Fraunce took his B.A. in 1580.
Translation
Phillis and Amyntas. 1591
S. R. 1591, Feb. 9 (Bp. of London). ‘A book intituled The Countesse of Pembrookes Ivye churche, and Emanuel.’ William Ponsonby (Arber, ii. 575).
1591. The Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch. Containing the affectionate life, and vnfortunate death of Phillis and Amyntas: That in a Pastorall; This in a Funerall; both in English Hexameters. By Abraham Fraunce. Thomas Orwin for William Ponsonby.
Dissertation: E. Köppel, Die englischen Tasso-Übersetzungen des 16. Jahrhunderts (1889, Anglia, xi).
This consists of a slightly altered translation of the Aminta (1573) of Torquato Tasso, followed by a reprint of Fraunce’s English version (1587) of Thomas Watson’s Amyntas (1585), which is not a play, but a collection of Latin eclogues. There is nothing to show that Fraunce’s version of Aminta was ever acted.
WILLIAM FULBECK (1560–1603?).
He entered Gray’s Inn in 1584, contributed two speeches to the Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588, and wrote various legal and historical books.
ULPIAN FULWELL (c. 1568).