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Peele's Hunting of Cupid
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2019
Extract
There appears in the Stationers’ Register for 26 July 1591 the following entry:
Rich[ard] Iones Entred vnto him for his copye vnder thandes of the B [ishop] of London and Mr Watkins a booke intituled the Huntinge of Cupid written by George Peele Mr of Artes of Oxeford. / Provyded alwayes that yf yt be hurtfull to any other Copye before lycenced, then this to be voyde vjd
from which it has been generally assumed that a play by Peele called The Hunting of Cupid was licensed. Only E. K. Chambers seems to have expressed any doubt whatsoever about its being a play. Certainly W. W. Greg, who carefully collected the known fragments of The Hunting of Cupid, was definitely of the opinion that they represented parts of a ‘play of a pastoral or mythological nature’, and thought it natural for fragments, the only part of the work extant, to be printed by the Malone Society in close succession to the society's printing of Peele's Arraignment of Paris.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1958
References
1 Greg, W. W., A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama I (1939), 7 Google Scholar.
2 Cf. The Workes of George Peele, ed. Alexander Dyce (London, 1828), II, 171-177; The Works of George Peek, ed. A. H. Bullen (London, 1888), II, 366-369; A Collection of Old English Plays, ed. A. H. Bullen (London, 1882-1885), III, 96; Greg, W. W., ‘The Hunting of Cupid’, Malone Society Collections 1 (1907-1911), 307–314 Google Scholar.
3 ‘Probably the play—I suppose it was a play—was printed … ‘ (The Elizabethan Stage, Oxford, 1923, III, 462).
4 The fragments listed in Drummond's manuscripts comprise within themselves all the others found elsewhere, viz. ‘At Venus intreatie for Cupid her sonne', under the heading of ‘Loue’ on sig. N of Englands Parnassus (1600) ascribed to ‘G. Peele'; ‘Melampus, when will Loue be void of feares?', under the heading ‘Coridon and Melampus Song’ on sig. E3 of Englands Helicon (1600) ascribed to ‘Geo. Peele'; ‘What thinge is loue?', on f. 13 of Bodleian MS. Rawlinson Poet. 85 (circa 1600) ascribed to ‘Mr G: Peelle', and the same song sung by Cornelia on sig. A4v of the play of The Wisdom ofDoctor Dodypoll (1600).
5 Cf. The Life and Minor Works of George Peele, ed. D. H. Home (New Haven, 1952).
6 The popularity is deduced from the number of extracts in printed and manuscript sources.
7 Cf. Fogle, F. R., A Critical Study of William Drummond of Hawthomden (New York, 1952), p. 181 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Ibid., pp. 179-184, covering the years 1606-1614.
9
10 Entertainments and masques are not so styled in Drummond's lists; they are merely quoted by title: 1606 Dekkar's part of the Kings Entrance in London; 1609 Thetis Festiual, by Daniel.
11 Had Drummond not included The Hunting of Cupid in his list of books read in 1609 we might even have had to question whether the work was printed at all. Drummond could easily have taken the ascribed extracts from Engtands Helicon and Englands Parnassus. Both collections, as well as Doctor Dodypoll, are mentioned in Drummond's lists.
12 All references to the text of The Hunting of Cupid axe made to Greg's edition for the Malone Society.
13 It is relevant to point out the tendency for commonplace books to have interspersed comments and random jottings between recognizable quotations.
14 ‘Melampus, when will Loue be void of feares?’ is designated ‘Coridon and Melampus Song’ in Englands Helicon (1600), and ‘What thing is loue?' is sung by Cornelia in The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll, sig. A4v:
Enter Cornelia sola, looking vpon the picture of Alberdure in a little Iewell, and singing.
Enter the Doctor and the Merchant following, and hearkning to her.
The Song.
15 Oxford, 1920, p. 607. Fellowes refers only to Bullen's edition, apparently unaware of the more desirable, accurate Malone Society edition.
16 Only two copies of the book are listed by the S.T.C., one in the British Museum and the other in the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. Through the kind offices of the Huntington Library, I have been provided with a complete microfilm and granted permission to reproduce any item.
17
18 Bartlet, John, A Booke of Ayres 1606, ed. Fellowes, E. H. (The English School of Lutenist Song Writers, 2 ser., London, 1925), pp. 24–25 Google Scholar.
19 I have scrupulously followed the original text of the song, adhering faithfully to the excellent precedent set by Fellowes. In a few respects, however, I have differed, not allowing myself the liberty of suggesting tempos or expressions, and I give the lute tablature valuation exactly as it is, not filling it out to even the bar measure.
20
From whence he shootes his dayntye dartes
In to the lusty gallunts hartes.
And euer since was callde a god
That Mars withe Venus playde euen and odd,
Finis
Mr G: Peelle.
21 The second verse fits the musical setting admirably provided no word phrase is repeated as are ‘What thing is loue’ and ‘it is a prickle’ in the first. The concluding couplet makes a splendid finish to the whole song.
22 The version in MS. Rawlinson Poet. 85 is without repeats and just so does it omit lines.
23 This represents an effective use of the musician's license.
24 Fleay, F. G., A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama (London, 1891), II, 155 Google Scholar.
25 Dyce's and Bullen's editions of The Hunting of Cupid were available.
26 Op. cit., IV, 54.
27 Koeppel, E., ‘Shakespeare's Julius Caesar und die Entstehungszeit des anonymen Dramas The Wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll', Shakespeare Jahrbuch XLII (1907), 210 Google Scholar.
28 ‘Ben Jonson and Julius Caesar', Shakespeare Survey II (1949), 36-43.
29 Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford & P. Simpson (Oxford, 1925-1952), IX, 450.
30 Cf. Reed, E. B., Songs from the British Drama (New Haven, 1925)Google Scholar; Moore, J. R., ‘The Songs of the Public Theaters in the Time of Shakespeare’, J.E.G.P. XXVIII (1929), 166–202 Google Scholar; McCullen, J. T., ‘The Functions of Songs Aroused by Madness in Elizabethan Drama’, A Tribute to George Coffin Taylor (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1952), pp. 184–196 Google Scholar.
31 Bowden, W. R., The English Dramatic Lyric 1603-1642 (New Haven, 1951)Google Scholar. The shortcomings of Bowden's work are pointed out by the present writer in ‘Some Jacobean and Caroline Dramatic Lyrics’, Notes & Queries n.s. II (1955), 106-109.
32 The music of the songs is also being assembled from music manuscripts scattered far afield, consulted personally where possible or by microfilm. In this latter respect I have been heavily indebted to the kindness of Professor Allardyce Nicoll, head of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon.
33 The case always cited is Blount's printing of twenty-one songs in his edition of Lyly's plays in 1632, songs which had been missing from the quarto editions of these plays. Scholars have argued about the authenticity of these lyrics (cf. Bowden, , op. cit., p. 105 Google Scholar). Until it can be definitely proved that the lyrics are authentic or not, we can at least be grateful that Blount made an attempt to trace the originals and that the ones he printed do seem to fit the context. Webster disclaimed ‘Armes, and Honors, decke thy story’ (The Duchesse of Malfy III.iv) as being his, which was quite unnecessary unless the dramatist usually included only his own songs. The tendency to use another's lyric is late Caroline. Two of Suckling's lyrics from The Goblins (1637-1640) were utilized by Samuel Sheppard in The Committee-man Curried (1644), viz. ‘A health to the nut-brown lass’ (sig. B2) and ‘Some drink!…’ (sig. Bv).
34 Sig. E (ed. J. S. Farmer, Tudor Facsimile Texts, 1912).
35 Tilley, M. P., A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Ann Arbor, 1950)Google Scholar.