The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 3

by E. K. Chambers

Two Noble Kinsmen. 1613

S. R. 1634, April 8 (Herbert). ‘A Tragicomedy called the two noble kinsmen by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare.’ John Waterson (Arber, iv. 316).

1634. The Two Noble Kinsmen: Presented at the Black-friers by the Kings Maiesties servants, with great applause: Written by the memorable Worthies of their time; Mr. John Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakspeare. Gent. Tho. Cotes for Iohn Waterson. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1679. [Part of F₂ of Beaumont and Fletcher.]

Editions by W. W. Skeat (1875), H. Littledale (1876–85, N. S. S.), C. H. Herford (1897, T. D.), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.), and with Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Sh. Apocrypha, and sometimes Works of Shakespeare.—Dissertations: W. Spalding, A Letter on Sh.’s Authorship of T. N. K. (1833; 1876, N. S. S.); S. Hickson, The Shares of Sh. and F. in T. N. K. (1847, Westminster Review, xlvii. 59; 1874, N. S. S. Trans. 25*, with additions by F. G. Fleay and F. J. Furnivall); N. Delius, Die angebliche Autorschaft des T. N. K. (1878, Jahrbuch, xiii. 16); R. Boyle, Sh. und die beiden edlen Vettern (1881, E. S. iv. 34), On Massinger and T. N. K. (1882, N. S. S. Trans. 371); T. Bierfreund, Palamon og Arcite (1891); E. H. C. Oliphant (1892, E. S. xv. 323); B. Leuschner, Über das Verhältniss von T. N. K. zu Chaucer’s Knightes Tale (1903, Halle diss.); O. Petersen, The T. N. K. (1914, Anglia, xxxviii. 213); H. D. Sykes, The T. N. K. (1916, M. L. R. xi. 136); A. H. Cruickshank, Massinger and T. N. K. (1922).

The date of T. N. K. is fairly well fixed to 1613 by its adaptation of Beaumont’s wedding mask of Shrovetide in that year; there would be a confirmation in Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (1614), iv. 3,

Quarlous. Well my word is out of the Arcadia, then: Argalus.

Win-wife. And mine out of the play, Palemon;

did not the juxtaposition of the Arcadia suggest that the allusion may be, not to the Palamon of T. N. K. but to the Palaemon of Daniel’s The Queen’s Arcadia (1606). In spite of the evidence of the t.p. attempts have been made to substitute Beaumont, or, more persistently, Massinger, for Shakespeare as Fletcher’s collaborator. This question can only be discussed effectively in connexion with Shakespeare.

The Honest Man’s Fortune. 1613