[JAMES THE FOURTH]
Three of Greene's plays, A Looking-Glass, Orlando Furioso and Friar Bacon, are known to have been printed in 1594. Two plays, James IV. and Friar Bacon, were entered on the Stationers' Registers on the same day, 14th May 1594. It is altogether probable that the first printing of James IV. occurred in the same year, though no trace of such an edition has been found. The earliest extant Quarto is dated 1598, and was printed by Thomas Creede. Of this two copies are known, one in the British Museum and one in the South Kensington Museum. Lowndes records a reprint of 1599, but none such has been discovered. The play is not mentioned by Henslowe, and there is no record of its performance. The text of the Quarto of 1598 is in very poor state, and shows indications that the play was either published from a stage copy or that type was set by dictation. In V. 3, the King of England is called Arius, though elsewhere he is given his own title. In II. 2 and III. 2, Ateukin is called Gnatho; in V. 2, Ateukin and Gnatho appear together. This last duplication of Ateukin and his Terentian prototype is held by Fleay to indicate another hand in the composition of the play. Gnatho here, however, stands instead of Jaques. It should be noticed that in the original story by Cinthio, the Capitano is equivalent to both Ateukin and Jaques. The confusion probably arose then from an uncertainty in Greene's mind as to names rather than from double authorship. In the hasty first composition Greene probably used the well-known dramatic type-name for "sycophant," and was later careless in substituting the name of his choice. The plot of the play is taken, as indicated by Mr P. A. Daniel in 1881, from the first novel of the third decade of Cinthio's Hecatommithi. The play makes no pretence to historical accuracy, and the title itself, in so far as it refers to Flodden Field, is misleading. Nevertheless the play is by some held to be "the finest Elizabethan historical play outside of Shakespeare." By its acted prologue and interplay it served as a model for Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew and Midsummer Night's Dream.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
King of England.
Lord Percy.