S. R. 1606, Jan. 8. ‘The picture of No bodye.’ John Trundell (Arber, iii. 308).
1606, March 12 (Wilson). ‘A Booke called no bodie and somme bodie &c.’ John Trundell (Arber, iii. 316).
N.D. No-Body, and Some-Body. With the true Chronicle Historie of Elydure, who was fortunately three seuerall times crowned King of England. The true Coppy thereof, as it hath beene acted by the Queens Maiesties Seruants. For John Trundle. [Prologue and Epilogue.]
Editions by A. Smith (1877), R. Simpson (1878, S. of S. i), J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.), of the early German translation by F. Bischoff, Niemand und Jemand in Graz im Jahre 1608 (1899, Mitteilungen des historischen Vereins für Steiermark, xlvii. 127), and of Tieck’s translation by J. Bolte (1894, Jahrbuch, xxix. 4).—Dissertation: J. Bolte, Eine Hamburger Aufführung von N. a. S. (1905, Jahrbuch, xli. 188).
The play is probably Jacobean. There is a reference to the unwilling recipients of knighthood (l. 325), and the use of Essex’s nickname for Cobham, Sycophant, as the name of a courtier, must be later than Cobham’s disgrace in 1603. Simpson thought that an allusion to the misuse of the collections for rebuilding Paul’s steeple (l. 754) pointed to an original date c. 1592, when the matter caused a scandal, but the steeple was still unbuilt in James’s reign. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 230, revising a conjecture of Fleay, i. 293, suggests that Albere Galles, written by Heywood and Smith for Worcester’s in Sept. 1602, may be this play, and Henslowe’s title a mistake for Archigallo, one of the characters. The play seems to have reached Germany by 1608. A performance at Graz in that year was probably the occasion of the dedication by ‘Joannes Grün Nob. Anglus’ to the archduke Maximilian of a manuscript German translation, now in the Rein library. To it is attached a coloured drawing of a bearded man in a doublet which hides his breeches, and with a book and chain in his hands. Above is written ‘Nemo’ and ‘Neminis Virtus ubique Laudabilis.’ A version is also in the Anglo-German collection of 1620 (Herz, 66, 112).
Parnassus. 1598–1602 (?)
[MSS.] Bodl. Rawlinson MS. D. 398. ‘The Pilgrimage to Parnassus’, ‘The Returne from Parnassus’. [1 Parnassus with Prologue; 2 Parnassus with Stagekeeper’s speech for Prologue. The cover bears the name of ‘Edmunde Rishton, Lancastrensis’, who took his M.A. from St. John’s, Cambridge, in 1602.]
Halliwell-Phillipps MS. ‘The Returne from Pernassus: or The Scourge of Simony.’ [3 Parnassus, with induction for Prologue, which says, ‘The Pilgrimage to Pernassus, and the returne from Pernassus have stood the honest Stagekeepers in many a Crownes expence for linckes and vizards: ... this last is the last part of the returne from Pernassus’.]
S. R. 1605, Oct. 16 (Gwyn). ‘An Enterlude called The retourne from Pernassus or the scourge of Simony publiquely Acted by the studentes in Sainct Johns College in Cambridg.’ John Wright (Arber, iii. 304).
1606. The Returne from Pernassus: Or The Scourge of Simony. Publiquely acted by the Students in Saint Iohns Colledge in Cambridge. G. Eld, for Iohn Wright. [Two issues. 3 Parnassus only.]