III, 2, 587.
TRAGEDY. COMEDY. HISTORY. PASTORAL.
POLONIUS:
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral; tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited; Seneca cannot be too heavy, not Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.
II, 2, 415.
By the above speech Polonius must have been fairly well acquainted with the actors, and the repertoire of the tragedians of the city. The list describing the different styles of composition are somewhat exaggerated, but not to such an extent as appears at first sight. Evidence of the lengthy repertory of the Globe can be gleaned from an extract concerning a licence granted in 1603 to the Globe company. Permission is given “freely to use the, and exercise the, Arte and facultie of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Moralls, Pastoralls and stage plaies, and such other like.” The phrase “scene individable” refers to the dramas, scrupulously adhering to the Unity of Place, a rule so carefully observed by classical writers. “Poem unlimited” may have expressed the antithesis to scene individable. The mention of Seneca and Plautus takes us back to the dramatic writers of antiquity. Seneca’s tragedies were translated into English and published in 1581. There are many allusions in English literature to these blood-curdling dramas. Nash, the Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer, thus describes the works of the Latin author: “Yet English Seneca read by candle-light yields many good sentences as ‘Blood is a beggar,’ and so forth, and if you entreat him fair on a frosty morning he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches. But o grief Tempus edax rerum, what’s that will last always? The sea exhaled by drops will in continuance be dry, and Seneca let blood line by line and page by page at length must needs die to our stage.”
I possess an original edition of Seneca’s work in Latin, printed at Venice in the year 1498. The volume contains the ten tragedies, which were rendered into English by Thomas Newton and other writers. The “Hamlet” here referred to is an older play than Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” and presumably written by Thomas Kyd, to which Shakespeare was immeasurably indebted. Traces of this play may survive in the 1603 quarto of “Hamlet.” The relation of the 1603 quarto of “Hamlet” to the received text is one of the most puzzling subjects in all Shakesperean literature. The exact relationship still awaits solution. Plautus was a Latin dramatist, one of whose plays had been translated into English. The “Menaechmi” was rendered into the vernacular by William Warner and published in 1595. The translation acquaints us with the fact that before publication the play had been circulated in MS. Shakespeare’s play of the “Comedy of Errors” is founded on Plautus’s comedy. Whether Shakespeare went direct to the original or copied from Warner or any other translation cannot be decided. Somewhat puzzling is the question in discovering the grammatical subject of “these are the only men.” Does Polonius refer to the law of writ and the liberty or the “best actors of the world.” “Writ and liberty” bear the same meaning as “scene individable or poem unlimited.” The phrases may be intended as a compliment to the poets who were distinguished in both classes of composition, or perhaps the actors were the only men, who by their expert knowledge were capable of acting in all kinds of plays, whether a written composition or extempore plays.
CELLARAGE.
Come on; you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Consent to sweat.