Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Just after my paper on the Cretan Plays in the last number of this Journal had gone to press, a search for sources of the Erotokritos led me to the works of Luigi Groto, sometimes called Cieco di Hadria. The version of the Romeo and Juliet story which he embodied in his Hadriana (1578–1583) was not as close as I had hoped to the plot of Cornaro's Erotokritos, but there was sufficient evidence that the Hadriana was known to the Cretan poet. It was therefore with some excitement that I learned that Groto had also written a biblical play called Isach, published in 1586 just after his death. This play seems to be excessively rare, and neither of the specialists in Italian literature whom I have had the opportunity of consulting had ever seen it. It is therefore less surprising that it should never have been mentioned in connexion with the Cretan Thysia tou Avraam. It will no longer be necessary to drag in Feo Belcari or Theodore Beza. There is not the slightest doubt that the Thysia is directly modelled on the framework of Groto's Isach.
1 ‘Which of your poets,’ says Lady Politick Would-be in Ben Jonson's Volpone (III. 2), ‘Petrarch or Tasso or Dante? Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine? Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all.’
2 LO ISACH|Rappresentation noua|DI| LVIGI GROTTO|CIECO D'HADRIA| ALLA MOLTO MAG.|& Reuer. Sig. Suor Orsetta Pisani|Monacha in S. Lorenzo.| Nuouamente posto in luce.|[device]| IN VENETIA|Appresso Fabio, & Agostin Zoppini Fratelli. | MDLXXXVI. The British Museum press-mark is 11715. df. 16.
3 J.H.S. xlviii, p. 81.
4 This is the earliest edition in the British Museum.
5 A variation of Gen. xviii. 15: ‘Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not.’
6 This famous simile which passed from Vergil, to Ariosto, (Orl. Fur. xviii. 153)Google Scholar is also found in the Erotokritos (IV. 1887) as well as in Groto's Hadriana (I. 3. 172); and I have no doubt that search would produce further specimens.
7 J.H.S. xlviii, pp. 82–85.
8 Genesis xxii. 20–24.