That Kyd wrote "The Spanish Tragedy, containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio and Bellimperia with the pitifull Death of Old Hieronimo," first published in 1599, is certified by Heywood in his "Apology for Actors," and there is good authority for the opinion that it was acted as early as 1588. We quote the summary of the plot:
"It is not wanting in absurdities, for the play opens and is connected with 'Jeronimo' by a conversation between Andrea's ghost and 'Revenge'; both remain continually on the stage as silent, invisible spectators, in order, at the end of every act, to add a few words, in which Andrea laments over the delay in the revenge of his death upon the Infanta Belthazar, and 'Revenge' admonishes him to be patient; at the end of the fifth act both return satisfied to the lower regions. Then Bellimperia suddenly falls in love with Horatio, who now steps into Andrea's place, and is persecuted by Lorenzo, at first without any cause whatever, and is finally assassinated. By some means which remain perfectly unexplained and incomprehensible, Lorenzo keeps old Jeronimo from the Court, so that he cannot bring forward his accusation against the murderers of his son. Jeronimo is consequently seized with madness, which, however, suddenly turns into a well calculated and prudent action. The conclusion of the piece is a general massacre, in which Jeronimo, after having killed Lorenzo, bites off his own tongue, stabs the Duke of Castile, and then himself with a penknife."
It can hardly seem strange that the critic should add: "This at once explains why no piece was more generally ridiculed by contemporary and younger poets, than "The Spanish Tragedy.""
If Shakspere imitated Kyd in "Titus," from such stuff as this, he was surely wise in his "sluggish avoidance of needless invention."
We are tempted to suggest, however, that "The Spanish Tragedy" affords a rich and ample field to modern critics who are solicitous to save the life and work of "the gentle William" from the imputation of being "superhuman": Is it not clear that "Hamlet" was only an imitation of "The Spanish Tragedy"? Did not Hamlet have a friend whose name was Horatio? Was not Hamlet, like Jeronimo, "essentially mad," and did not his madness "turn into a well calculated and prudent action"?
Kyd was the undoubted author of another work, under the following title: "Pompey the Great, his fair Cornelia's Tragedie: effected by her Father's and Husband's downe-cast Death and fortune, written in French by that excellent Poet, R. Garnier, and translated into English by Thomas Kyd." This translation was printed in 1595. The play is thus summarized: It is "a piece which is constructed upon a misunderstood model of the ancients; it is altogether devoid of dramatic action, in reality merely lyrics and rhetoric in dialogue. The whole of the first act consists of one emphatic jeremiad by Cicero, about the desperate condition of Rome as it then was, its factiousness, its servility,—a jeremiad which is continued at the end of the act, by the chorus, in rhymed stanzas. In this tone it proceeds without a trace of action through the whole of the succeeding act, till maledictions and outbursts of grief on the part of Cornelia conclude the piece at the same point at which it had commenced."
It has never been claimed that "Cornelia" was the model for "Titus." "Cornelia" and "The Spanish Tragedy" are the only dramas that can be certainly called Kyd's. Comparison between these, or either of the others doubtfully attributed to him, and "Titus Andronicus," shows beyond question that the only similarity between the most similar is that both are "tragedies of blood." There is no likeness of plot, characterization, action or diction. There is in "Titus" none of Kyd's "huffing, bragging, puft" language. A ghost concludes "Jeronimo" whose "hopes have end in their effects" "when blood and sorrow finish my desires," "these were spectacles to please my soul." In "Titus," even the Satanic Aaron, "in the whirlwind of passion," "acquires and begets a temperance" that "gives it smoothness."
When Tamora proposes crimes to her sons, that fiends would refuse to execute, Lavinia does not shriek, nor rant, nor call upon the gods, but speaks what nobody but Shakspere could have uttered,—
"O Tamora! thou bear'st a woman's face."
It is not necessary to consider the claim sometimes made, that Kyd wrote an old "Taming of the Shrew" or an old "Hamlet." "It is a mere arbitrary conjecture" that he was the author of either.