A Thousand Stars: Christopher Marlowe Survives

[Lady Kate]

“O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.”
- Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (1564-1593) was a brilliant Elizabethan playwright who rivaled Shakespeare during his short life. In fact, Marlowe was England's preeminent playwright while still in his 20s (he and Shakespeare were born two months apart) and he greatly influenced Shakespeare with his use of blank verse. Common themes in his works include overreaching protagonists (my favorite!), realistic emotions, anti-authoritarianism, and violence (this last to cater to the tastes of his audiences). In life, Marlowe was reckless, a brawler, and possibly a spy for the crown. He was stabbed to death in a bar fight when he was only 29 years old.

What could Marlowe have accomplished had he lived? Would he have become the greatest writer in the English language instead of Shakespeare? What would his mature works have looked like? What themes would he have chosen? What would have been his masterpiece?

I'm embarking on a project of inventing future works for Marlowe in the event that he had lived. I'm not interested in making an alternate timeline of events in his life or the world stage. Instead, I'm creating a timeline of possible literary works - inventing titles, plots, and quotes; ranking the quality of these plays against Marlowe's others; developing a picture of Marlowe as a mature writer; imagining how he could have influenced future writers and scholars. Each post will contain a summary of one of these invented works. I see this project as creating an alternate timeline of literary history.

Just for context, here is a list of Marlowe's plays written during his brief adult life from 1587-1593:

Dido, Queen of Carthage (c. 1587) - After fleeing the fallen city of Troy and sheltering in Carthage, the soldier Aeneas declares his love for Queen Dido, but his fellow soldiers remind him that his duty is to lead them to safety in Italy. Aeneas leaves and Dido, brokenhearted, throws herself into the flames of a funeral pyre.

Tamburlaine, Part I (c. 1587); Part II (c. 1587-88) - The conqueror Tamburlaine rises from a lowly shepherd to emperor of Persia. He raises his sons to be heartless conquerors like him, killing one of them in the process. After a final bloody conquest, Tamburlaine burns the Quran in contempt and later falls ill and dies.

The Jew of Malta (c. 1589-90) - After the governor of Malta seizes the wealth of Jewish citizens, Barabas goes on a murderous tirade in revenge. He betrays Malta to the Turks, but when the Christians and Turks work out their differences, Barabas is burned alive in a trap he had set for others.

Doctor Faustus (c. 1588-92) - The scholar Faustus, frustrated with his studies, sells his soul in exchange for becoming a great magician. Alongside the devil Mephistopheles, Faustus embarks on a sequence of lusty experiences, but in the end he doesn't get much out of the deal and ends up being dragged down to hell.

Edward the Second (c. 1592) - King Edward II is deposed by his nobles and the Queen. Marlowe paints an unflattering picture of the King's private life and the power politics of the time. Based on historical events.

The Massacre at Paris (c. 1589-1593) - A wedding places a Protestant in line for the throne of France. What follows is a bloody depiction of Protestants being slaughtered by Catholics under the leadership of the Duke of Guise. The Duke becomes jealous and unhinged, culminating in his assassination and the ascendance of the first Protestant king of France.


Next up: Marlowe lives! A glimpse of his next play.

(Thanks to the Christopher Marlowe Wikipedia page for supplying some of these facts.)

 

[CaptainShadow]

Interesting. Watching this one.

 

[DanMcCollum]

Yes. I want to read this!!!!!

 

[Lady Kate]

Alibech
(c. 1593)​

Marlowe had previously snuck small doses of comedy into his violent tragedies (especially The Jew of Malta), but Alibech was his first foray into pure comedy. As was overwhelmingly common amongst Elizabethan playwrights, Marlowe relied on source material to sketch out the plot. This story was inspired by the Third Day, Tenth Story in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (1353). Shakespeare would later use the Decameron as inspiration for All's Well That Ends Well. Yet again, Marlowe was a pioneer and influence for the Bard. Marlowe likely did not read the text in its original Italian, instead relying on William Painter's 1575 translation.

Many who have seen Alibech performed or have read the play in the ensuing centuries have found it astonishingly vulgar, even for Marlowe. While he added much to Boccaccio's basic plot and brought emphasis to Alibech as an overreaching character, as was his wont, he kept the raunchiness of the original Decameron story. With its coarse depictions of sex amongst religious people who ultimately go unpunished for their acts, the play was built to appeal to the bawdy tastes of Elizabethan audiences. But there is more to the play than meets the eye: each character is complex, with triumphs and struggles and conflicting motivations; the hero is a woman who makes her own decisions and is not ashamed of her desires; the characters Anthony and Helena have tragic story arcs. While Marlowe has not seamlessly stitched together comedy with more serious themes, we see in Alibech his wish to depict the whole variety of human experience.

The character of Alibech was performed by male actors until the late 1600s, when the great theatre actress Elizabeth Barry (c. 1658–1713) took on the role. Alibech was one of Marlowe's most popular plays during his lifetime, but as audience tastes changed, it faded into the distance behind Marlowe's other plays. It underwent a resurgence in the 1900s, when it was performed on stages around the world and adapted into several movies. It was banned by most American high schools due to its raunchy nature, although those bans have begun to be overturned in the 21st century.

Dramatis Personae:

ALIBECH: Young woman of Tunisia.

RUSTICO: The holiest man of all.

NEERBALE: Alibech's suitor.

ATHANASIAS: Holy man.

ORIGEN: Even more holy man.

HELENA: Rustico's love-struck female servant.

ANTHONY: Acolyte.

SHENOUDA: Alibech's father.

HILARION: Alibech's brother.

ALIBECH'S BETHROTHED

PILGRIM

WOMEN OF THE CITY

SERVANTS

Alibech, a young Tunisian woman, lives in a great house full of servants, yet she is discontented. Her bumbling father and brother assemble a list of possible husbands for her, including Neerbale, who is shy yet devoted. Neerbale loses out and a richer, astonishingly arrogant man is chosen for Alibech. On the day before her wedding, Alibech wanders unhappily through the market and is struck by a Christian pilgrim whose smile radiates pure happiness. She approaches him and asks how to best serve God. He tells her she should deny the things of the world. Alibech takes the words to heart and sneaks out of her house in the middle of the night to set out for the Egyptian desert. She imagines herself becoming a great holy woman who will be an example to others and a beacon of God in the world.

Alibech arrives at the hut of a famous holy man (Athanasias) and asks for instruction. Athanasias feels sorry for the bedraggled young woman, but as he is fearful of being tempted by her beauty, he sends her on to another, much holier man. This one, Origen, is also filled with a mix of pity and temptation, so he sends Alibech to the holiest man of all, Rustico. Alibech arrives at Rustico's compound and begins her lessons. At first, Rustico resists temptation, reliving his pious boyhood days and recommitting to his vows, but then he too is overcome in the struggle and begins to plot ways to sleep with Alibech. He tells her that the best way to serve God is to put the devil back in hell, and when she asks how to do this, he tells her to follow his lead. They end up kneeling across from each other dressed only in their bedclothes. When Rustico becomes erect, he tells her it is the devil and she has a place inside her known as hell where he has to put it.

One night, the acolyte Anthony spies Rustico and Alibech. He is shocked and heartbroken, as he has developed feelings for Alibech. He reports what he saw to Rustico's female servant, Helena, who is in love with Rustico. The lovesick pair plot revenge while Rustico and Alibech continue to meet. Soon, Alibech becomes so enamored with putting the devil into hell that Rustico can't keep up with her. Exhausted, he tries to get rid of her, which proves useless until Rustico's compound catches on fire one night: Anthony and Helena's revenge. As Alibech flees the fire, she comes across her former suitor Neerbale, who has followed her all the way to Egypt and now professes his love. Alibech realizes she has loved Neerbale all along, but tearfully tells him they can't marry because they'd have no money and would have to live on the street. Neerbale tells her that, by coincidence, her childhood home has also burned down (due to her late father and brother's foolishness) and she is now the sole heir.

Alibech finds Rustico amidst the smoldering ruins and tells him she is leaving with Neerbale. Rustico is overjoyed to be rid of her. Back home in Tunisia, some woman of the city ask Alibech how she served God while she was in the desert. She tells them how she put the devil in hell. The women laugh uproariously and tell Alibech she will have plenty of opportunity to serve God as Neerbale's wife.

 

[TxAggie]

Subbed.

 

[Lady Kate]

Interesting. Watching this one.

Yes. I want to read this!!!!!

Subbed.

Thank you guys for reading!

 

[The Professor]

What if Kit and Will team up? Could be the amazing double act and people would be trying to work out who did what for years.

 

[Lady Kate]

What if Kit and Will team up? Could be the amazing double act and people would be trying to work out who did what for years.

Ooh, I like it! Shakespeare did team up with other writers sometimes (and Marlowe possibly did), so it’s totally plausible. They could bring together their particular strengths and favorite themes - would be awesome!

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

Well well well...this looks very interesting.

@Lady Kate - wasn't another theme that Marlowe had (though made sure to keep concealed) an irreligious streak? IIRC, The Jew of Malta had some pretty sharp things to say about all religions.

 

[Michael B]

If Ruled Britannia by Turtledove is a guide Marlowe will a) still be a Jack the Lad, b) get himself killed and b) leach off the great William Shakespeare.

 

[Lady Kate]

Well well well...this looks very interesting.

@Lady Kate - wasn't another theme that Marlowe had (though made sure to keep concealed) an irreligious streak? IIRC, The Jew of Malta had some pretty sharp things to say about all religions.

Yes, you’re right, I forgot to put that in. There were rumors that Marlowe belonged to a “School of Atheism” (called in modern times “The School of Night”).

 

[Lady Kate]

The Plague of Athens
(c. 1593-94)​

The Plague of Athens is the first of Marlowe’s two “plague plays,” written when theatres were closed due to plague in 1593-94. Athens is a scathing indictment of a government’s failure to contain illness and of the impotence of religion to heal society. Readers through the centuries have interpreted this as a thinly veiled criticism of the Elizabethan church and state.

Athens is rife with historical inaccuracies. Marlowe takes great liberties with his source material, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. (And incidentally, Athens’ “plague” was likely typhus). Marlowe is more interested in portraying the friendship between Pericles and Phidias and the eventual fracture and doom of both men. By departing from historical fact, Marlowe gives himself the freedom to play with characters and relationships as he sees fit. Despite the conflicts and suffering, Marlowe has created a play that is sympathetic to characters’ emotions and has a deep heart.

The Plague of Athens has consistently remained one of Marlowe’s most-performed plays, viewed as on a par with Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (another play set in classical times that isn’t must concerned with historical inaccuracies). Both on stage and screen, actors have made their careers playing Pericles, Phidias, and Aspasia. Athens regularly shows up in high school and college English lessons, with instructors teaching both the emotional depth of the play and interpretations of the original source material.

Dramatis Personae

PERICLES: Ruler of Athens.

PHIDIAS: Famous sculptor.

ASPASIA: Companion of Pericles.

ANAXAGORAS: Friend of Pericles .

BAKCHOS: Spartan ambassador.

IASONAS: Ahenian citizen.

ARCHIDAMUS II: King of Sparta.

PARALUS: Son of Pericles

XANTHIPPUS: Son of Pericles

ATHENIAN CITIZENS

INTELLECTUALS

SPARTAN DEPUTIES

When Pericles and his companion Aspasia dine at the home of his good friend Phidias, Pericles learns that the Spartan army has gathered at Corinth. Phidias tells him to renew the precarious peace treaty with Sparta because he must help stop the plague that has arrived in Athens. Aspasia counters that argument, saying that now is the time for Pericles to consolidate his power. Phidias tells Pericles that if he is to become an absolute ruler, he will lose faith in government. As Pericles and Aspasia travel home, passing a pile of bodies, Aspasia declares that Phidias is a traitor to Athens and deserves execution. Appalled, Pericles tells her that Phidias is his friend and would never betray him.

Pericles goes to the Athenian assembly intending to address the plague, but when the citizens shout their love for the "hero of the Spartan war," the praise goes to his head and he instead proposes a resolution according to which no Spartan deputation will be welcome in Athens. When Bakchos, an ambassador from Sparta, comes to Athens, Pericles meets him outside the city gates and tells him he is not welcome inside the city. Furious, _ and his deputies set fire to farmland outside Athens. Aspasia tells Pericles that she is proud of him for sticking to the law. Pericles asks her that since he is fallible, and he himself made the law, how can he be sure that the law is just? Aspasia argues that without Pericles, Athens would already have fallen. Pericles' guilt is assuaged.

Meanwhile, Iasonas, a sickly Athenian citizen, shows up at the house of Phidias and tells him that the Spartans burned his land and now his family, nine of whom have the plague, have no food. Iasonas begs Phidias to speak with his friend Pericles on his behalf. Phidias dutifully goes to Pericles' house, where Aspasia is hosting a gathering of intellectuals, including Pericles' friend Anaxagoras, an astronomer who has taken Phidias’ place at Pericles’ side. Phidias pleads Iasonas’ case, but Pericles cannot bear to appear weak in the eyes of Anaxagoras and tells Phidias to leave. When Phidias returns home, he discovers that Iasonas has died of the plague. In the middle of the night, citizens come to arrest him, accusing him of stealing gold from the statue of Athena Parthenos that he had built - a rumor started by Aspasia. Phidias is able to prove his innocence, but feels that Pericles has betrayed him.

Pericles visits Phidias' home, where he finds Phidias carving a statue of Asclepius, the god of healing. He apologizes to his old friend. Phidias says sharply that if he is sincere, he will do something about the plague in Athens. Pericles promises that he will, but when Aspasia and Anaxagoras remind him of the Spartan threat, he forces citizens from the surrounding countryside to abandon their land and ancestral shrines in order to retreat behind the walls of Athens. When the Spartan king Archidamus comes to attack Attica, he finds it empty. But Pericles’ strategy has crammed people together in dirty neighborhoods, leaving them vulnerable to the plague.

Phidias founds a society of rebels who seek to undermine Pericles’ government. Phidias, bitter at the end of his friendship with Pericles, instructs the group to commit acts of vandalism, arson, and bodily assault against elite members of Athenian society. He carves an image of himself into the shield of Athena Parthenos, a symbol of how he intends to fight the government and the gods themselves. He is discovered and convicted of impiety, and Pericles sentences him to exile.

Pericles prepares a fleet to sail against Sparta; when a solar eclipse frightens the sailors, Anaxagoras uses his astronomical knowledge to calm them. When the sailors return, they discover that a massive outbreak of plague has struck Athens’ port of Piraeus. With plague all over the city, Athenians begin to turn against Pericles. Hurt by what he sees as their ingratitude, Pericles delivers a fiery oration that reveals his skills as a leader but also his bitterness. A group of political enemies led by Anaxagoras, who intends to seize power for himself, deprives Pericles of his generalship.

When contemplation reveals his own selfishness, Pericles goes outside the city to the hut where Phidias is exiled, intending to beg forgiveness. He arrives to find Phidias desperately ill. Just as Pericles takes his hand, Phidias dies.

Pericles returns to the city in mourning and discovers that his two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus, have also died in the epidemic. Not even Aspasia can comfort him. Pericles retreats to his bed, where he spends his final days before he, too, succumbs to the plague.

 

[Lady Kate]

The Noble House of Gillingham
(c. 1593-4)​

The Noble House of Gillingham is the second of Marlowe's two "plague plays," written c. 1593-4 when Londoners quarantined against the disease. In contrast to the tragic Plague of Athens, Gillingham is filled with darkly comedic delights. It is a short, silly play on a serious subject. England is in chaos with government nowhere to be seen - Marlowe's thinly veiled critique of the handling of the plague in his own time. Despite Gillingham's emphasis on humor as its driving motivation, Marlowe delineates a wide range of human emotions, making his characters more nuanced than in typical Elizabethan comedies.

It's unclear whether the Gillingham in the play is the town in Kent, the town in Dorset, or a made-up town of the same name. Possible source material includes the Chronicle of the Black Death, written at Rochester Cathedral priory from 1314-1350, as well as oral tradition. Many lower-class people did indeed enjoy a rise in status on the heels of the 14th-century Black Death simply because not enough survivors were available to fill social and economic roles. The rat sigil is entirely by coincidence, as people in Marlowe's time didn't know that the plague was spread by fleas that had lived on rats.

Immensely popular in its time, Gillingham later fell out of favor. It is now enjoying a resurgence as people without much experience of Elizabethan theatre are able to appreciate and revel in its absurdity. It is very lean for a Marlowe play, with only eight individual characters.

Dramatis Personae

JACOB: Field hand.

THOMAS: Jacob's brother, also a field hand.

MARY: Thomas's wife.

JANE: Thomas's daughter.

WILLIAM OF GHENT: Jane's suitor.

DOCTOR

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

HERALD

FIELD HANDS

The Black Death hits the village of Gillingham and its manor house. While out planting, brothers Jacob and Thomas witness the black faces of their fellow field hands, who soon begin to drop dead around them. The brothers run for Thomas's cottage, where they hunker down with Thomas's wife, Mary, and teenage daughter, Jane.

In the morning, Jacob gives a haughty speech congratulating Thomas and himself for their prescience. Now, Jacob declares, the townsfolk may perish around them, but they will fare as well in their cottage as the family in the manor house, shut up against the disease. Just then, a bird flies in from an open window and circles around Jacob's head. He curses and asks who opened the window; Mary says innocently that she opened it to let the cottage air out. Might as well get some fresh air, she says - just as the smell of death and rot wafts in, making them all cough.

The brothers become paranoid that they have the plague and repeatedly send for the doctor. The first time, the doctor prescribes fumigation by sitting very close to a very hot fire. The smoke blinds everyone as they bump into each other around the cottage. A strong shove from his wife sends Thomas tumbling into the fire so that the others must beat him with brooms to put him out. Mary opens the window to let out the smoke.

Next the doctor prescribes sitting by an open sewer so that the "bad air" of the brothers' sickness will gravitate to the "bad air" of the sewer. Jacob and Thomas sit eagerly by the sewer while they retch, devising different patterns of breathing to get the full effect until Jane comes to fetch them for supper. They vomit into their plates and save the vomit in case the doctor thinks it might be a cure. Mary opens a window to let out the smell.

Upon his next visit, the doctor says that vomit isn't a cure, but a paste made of human waste is. Dutifully, the brothers spread the paste over their entire bodies and lie straight as boards on the floor until Jane says she can't bear the stench and Mary opens the window to air things out.

At last, the doctor says the only cure left is to eat a paste made of ground emeralds. The cost is prohibitively expensive and the brothers despair until a herald comes with the news that the noble family who inhabited the manor house and rectory are all dead. Jacob concocts a plan by which the brothers and Mary and Jane will pretend to be nobles and take the manor house for themselves. With so much of the population gone, no one opposes them. They access the manor's coffers and buy so much emerald paste that they eat it with every meal and cough as they pour it down their throats. Mary opens the manor's many windows.

Jacob becomes quite full of himself and behaves as a truculent lord. Meanwhile, Thomas, Mary, and daughter Jane decamp to the rectory, where Thomas pretends to be a priest. He suggests a lion for the family's fake coat of arms, but Jacob scoffs, saying lion sigils are far too common. The brothers devise a charging hedgehog instead.

Jacob schemes to marry Jane to a real nobleman, thus solidifying the brothers' own position. Accordingly, he sends for a young man who calls himself William of Ghent. In preparation for William's visit, Jacob tells Thomas that they must adopt a "more dignified" coat of arms - a rabbit rampant. William comes, marries Jane, and the two of them move in with Jane's uncle, Jacob, so that they may live in the manor house.

Jacob and Thomas panic when, having heard of Thomas' wide influence as a clergyman, the Archbishop of Canterbury sends word that he will pay Gillingham a visit. The letter is delayed and by the time it reaches the brothers, they have only an hour to prepare. Jacob flies through the manor house, tearing down all the rabbit sigils, which he now feels are insufficient. Thomas stuffs Mary into a trunk so that he will appear as a clergyman with no wife. When the Archbishop arrives, he finds the rectory in chaos, with linens and clothing emptied from the trunk and spread throughout the room. Thomas tries to talk doctrine with the Archbishop, revealing his massive ignorance - as well as the Archbishop's. The Archbishop gives a sermon to what's left of the townsfolk, then goes up to the manor house for supper. Jacob rushes out with a hastily made flag bearing his final choice for a family sigil: a rat.

After a series of mishaps, Jacob and Thomas are exposed as the field hands they are. Expecting the Archbishop's wrath, they prepare to run from the manor house, only for the Archbishop to reveal that he, too, is a field hand, having stolen his position when the real Archbishop died of plague. Hearing this, young William declares that he, too, is a fraud, having married Jane in order to be part of a noble family. All parties agree never to speak of this again and sit down to a supper of stewed rats and emerald paste. Afterward, Thomas returns home to the rectory, where Mary has escaped the trunk and opened all the windows.

 

[Lady Kate]

Poetry & Translations I​

Marlowe was not only a playwright, but a genius poet and translator. In his early days, he wrote the lyric poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (c.1587-8), which gained immense popularity in its time, and the short epic poem Hero and Leander (c. 1593). From the Latin he translated Ovid's love poems, the Amores (c. 1580s), which were publicly burned as offensive in 1599, and Lucan's epic war poem, Pharsalia. And Marlowe was just getting started.

Poem: Elegy on the World's End
(1595)​

This is an extraordinary take on the elegy, which traditionally is a lament for the dead. Marlowe follows this theme - except his dead are the sun, moon, stars, and Earth itself. Two lovers, Amacind and Aredo, wander through the darkness of abandoned halls and wild woods devoid of animals, witnessing the unfathomably large battlefield spread across the sky. The stars bombard each other with torrents of fire; the sun burns up the moon, but not before the moon shatters itself and throws the pieces across space to kill the sun. As Amacind and Aredo stand clutching each other while the star-flames grow closer and closer, the poem laments the death of flowers, of fields, of birds, of art, of love. It beautifully balances savagery and tenderness. The poem was banned in 1600 for its stark lack of God, though the Book of Revelation may have served as source material for Marlowe's apocalypse. Elegy on the World's End greatly influenced Lord Byron's 1816 apocalyptic poem Darkness, in which "the bright sun was extinguish'd" and "no love was left."

Poems: Pastoral Dances
(1596)​

The Pastoral Dances are a series of twenty sonnets whose rhythms mimic the rhythms of dancing feet. Throughout, a solitary speaker addresses his love (who could be either male or female; it's never specified) and laments that they cannot dance openly together at the Midsummer festival. The dances in the sonnets are from the speaker's dreams as he imagines what a life spent with his love in the fields and forests would be like. The sonnets are taut with disappointment and barely disguised fury, while at the same time laced with beauty and joy. Later musical compositions bearing the name Pastoral Dances were written by the likes of Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, and Mussorgsky.

Translation from Latin: Virgil's Eclogues
(1595)​

Marlowe's love for the ideal of the countryside continues in this splendid translation, in which herdsmen converse about love as well as revolutionary political changes (a juxtaposition which may have sparked Marlowe's interest in Virgil's poems). Marlowe transforms the poems into an English that contains both fire and tenderness.

Translation from Spanish: Fernando de Rojas' La Celestina
(1595)​

Here Marlowe displays his prowess in languages by translating from Spanish instead of his usual Latin. This was quite unusual for his time, especially given Elizabethan England's perpetual tensions with Spain. La Celestina, which is considered one of the greatest works in Spanish literature, is a poem/novel/play (scholars can't decide which) written in entirely in dialogue. It follows a bachelor, Calisto, as he engages the service of the old procuress and bawd Celestina in order to start an affair with the innocent Melibea. The poem's rhetoric of courtly love was just enough to keep Marlowe's translation from being banned in English, though Calisto and Melibea's goal is sex, not love.

 

[Lady Kate]

Lancelot and Guinevere
(1596)​

Marlowe dedicated Lancelot and Guinevere to his new wife, Jane Merry, whom he married after he was imprisoned under the Buggery Act from October 1595-January 1596 on charges of homosexuality (which were true). It's thought that he married Jane as a shield to help him appear heterosexual. Still, he seems to have had a real affection for Jane, feeling a brotherly love toward her as Lancelot does for Guinevere in the play. Textual analysis suggests that Marlowe co-wrote Lancelot and Guinevere with Thomas Nashe, with whom he also may have co-written his first play, Dido, Queen of Carthage. Co-writing plays was common at the time, and many of Marlowe's plays were written with the help of his greatest collaborator, William Shakespeare (and vice versa).

Marlowe's version of the King Arthur story is decidedly different from others, as Lancelot is a spy for Morgan le Fay just as Marlowe was a spy for Elizabeth II in his twenties. Lancelot and Guinevere is a sharp reminder to the government of Marlowe's service to the crown in case someone were inclined to imprison him again, or behead him, as befell other men convinced of buggery. At the same time, Marlowe smoothes over his message by depicting Morgan as a flawless virgin queen. It is Arthur who is corrupt, not this pseudo-Elizabeth. Marlowe's strategy seems to have worked - he was never again charged with buggery, and when he was later arrested for distributing atheist pamphlets, he was detained for only a short time.

Dramatis Personae

LANCELOT: Knight of the Lake.

GUINEVERE: Queen of Camelot.

ARTHUR: King of Camelot.

MORGAN LE FAY: Lady of the Lake.

ELAINE: Princess of Corbenic.

GALAHAD: Son of Lancelot and Elaine.

MORDRED: Arthur's incestuous son.

MORGAUSE: Arthur's half-sister, mother of Mordred.

TRISTAN: Knight of the Round Table.

GAWAIN: Knight of the Round Table.

GARETH: Knight of the Round Table.

KAY: Knight of the Round Table.

PERCIVAL: Knight of the Round Table.

LYNETTE: Noble lady.

MALEAGANT: Renegade knight

CLAUDAS: King of the Land Laid Waste.

SIR PERIS: Knight of the Savage Forest.

GOOD FAIRIES OF THE LAKE

EVIL FAIRIES OF CAMELOT

Fearing a plot against her by her half-brother, Arthur, the virginal Lady of the Lake, Morgan le Fay, sends her adoptive son Lancelot to spy upon the court of Camelot. While wandering the dark halls at night, Lancelot meets Guinevere, wife of the old, demanding King Arthur. He wants more than anything to lift the gray pallor from her beautiful face. Slowly, Lancelot gets Guinevere to trust him enough that she plays the harp for him and sings of her private sorrows as Arthur's wife.

Lancelot discovers extraordinary corruption in the court of Camelot, including the theft of tithes from the lower classes in order to richen the Knights of the Round Table. In order to be close to the Knights so that he can gain information to report back to Morgan le Fay, he joins jousting tournaments in which Guinevere presents him, her champion, with red roses. He joins the Knights on quests to defeat Claudas, King of the Land Laid Waste, and Sir Peris, Knight of the Savage Forest. His ego suffers a blow when he discovers that Sir Tristan is just as good a fighter as he.

Lancelot is now considered one of the Knights, but he's angry about his inferiority to Tristan. He takes comfort in the bed of Guinevere, where the couple stay chaste and talk all night. Guinevere warns Lancelot to go back to Morgan le Fay because Mordred, the incestuous son Arthur begot with his half-sister Morgause, is due to arrive. Lancelot has observed courage in Camelot as well as corruption; now he will contend with the shadows of real evil.

Mordred comes to court and argues to Arthur and the Knights that the time is right to attack Morgan le Fay. When Lancelot resists, Mordred becomes suspicious of this outsider. To prove that he's one of them, Mordred proclaims that Lancelot must marry a lady of Camelot and beget a child on her. Lancelot desperately wants to stay here as a spy to protect the Lady of the Lake, as well as his pure-hearted Guinevere. Thus, he marries Elaine, Princess of Corbenic, and begets a son, Galahad. The heartsick Guinevere doesn't reply to Lancelot's letters of explanation and shuts herself in her bedchamber.

Now begins Lancelot's "mad times." He stumbles and raves through the palace, noticing the romantic couples around him, especially Sir Gareth's lust for Dame Lynette. Their affair disgusts him. Gareth doesn't treat Lynette with the generous courtesy she deserves, as Lancelot dreams that he will treat Guinevere once she comes back to the land of the living.

One evening at the gloaming, Lancelot is startled when a lady all in white enters his room. For a heart-stopping moment, he thinks it's Guinevere, but then he recognizes Morgan le Fay. She thanks him for the letters he's sent back to her, but expresses her fear that Lancelot is becoming one with Camelot. Lancelot protests, but then, feeling he must confide in someone, tells her about Guinevere. She sympathizes, telling him of her long-ago affair with the wizard Merlin and how it broke her heart to leave him and take up her duty as the Lady of the Lake.

The next day Guinevere emerges from her room at last. She and Lancelot enjoy a long walk through the garden. She has grown so weak that he must hold her up. At that moment, Lancelot knows he can't leave her, and he vows to her that he never will.

Then Arthur and Mordred let slip their plan to conquer Morgan's Avalon at last. The Knights of the Round Table will lay waste to the Lakelands while Mordred captures the Lady of the Lake. They are to leave in the morning, meaning that if Lancelot wants to warn Morgan le Fay, he must leave immediately. He can't bear to leave Guinevere and his little son Galahad, but if he doesn't, many lives will be lost. He tries to find Guinevere to say goodbye, but her room is under guard after Arthur observed her intimacy with Lancelot in the garden. Lancelot flees from Camelot under pursuit from the Knights of the Round Table, his erstwhile friends. He reaches Avalon in time and Morgan le Fay throws an enchantment over the land that hides it from the Knights. Lancelot, missing Guinevere, doesn't have the heart to celebrate. Before he can travel back to Camelot to rescue her, he learns that she has withered away and died of a broken heart.

 

[perdu42]

This is a very clever and entertaining read.
If I wore a hat, I would doff it in acknowledgement of your brilliance @Lady Kate . In place of that, 👏👏👏 Bravo!

Marlowe was a spy for Elizabeth II in his twenties

as befell other men convinced of buggery

 

[Lady Kate]

This is a very clever and entertaining read.
If I wore a hat, I would doff it in acknowledgement of your brilliance @Lady Kate . In place of that, 👏👏👏 Bravo!

Thank you so much!

 

[Lady Kate]

The Life of Nero, Part I
(1596)​

The Life of Nero, Part I is deemed one of Marlowe's finest plays. Working from Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, Marlowe transforms his source material's picture of Nero as pure evil and depicts him as straddling the line between dark and light, making him one of the most compelling characters in English literature. Nero displays an inner complexity that carries through to the end of the play and his tragic fall. Marlowe's great accomplishment is to transform someone with the worst historical reputation into a sympathetic character.

The role of Agrippina has attracted some of the best actresses from stage and film. She is the woman pushing the main character toward evil that has become standard in Marlowe. Seneca is set up here to blossom into the towering character he becomes in Part II. Most of the other characters in Part I do not appear in Part II, having met violent ends.

After the play's premier, contemporary playwrights, including William Shakespeare, proclaimed Marlowe the premier writer in England. The Life of Nero, Part I has been staged continuously from the year it was written to the present. It is Marlowe's most performed play and the most taught in high school and college classes.

Dramatis Personae

NERO: Emperor of Rome.

AGRIPPINA: Nero's mother.

CLAUDIUS: Emperor of Rome.

DOMITIA LEPIDA: Nero's aunt.

SENECA: Philosopher and Nero's tutor.

BRITANNICUS: Nero's step-brother.

LOCUSTA: Poisoner.

TIRIDATES: Armenian king.

TERPNUS: Lyre player.

RUBRIA: Vestal Virgin.

CHRISTIANS

CITIZENS

Young Nero wakes from a horrifying dream in which his dead father and grandfather appear as bloody shades, gnashing their teeth and proclaiming that Nero will follow them in their murderous, extravagant ways. Nero's impoverished aunt, Domitia Lepida, who has raised him, comforts Nero by saying that his character is not foreordained by blood. Nero, still feeling the tug toward evil in his heart, vows that he will never give way to his nature.

Nero's mother, Agrippina, who has long been banished from Rome, returns to reclaim her son and restore her former political influence. She encourages Nero to enter the Troy Game, an athletic competition, and he wins to wild cheers and gains the attention of his relative, Emperor Claudius. Later, two assassins sent by the Emperor's wife, Messalina, come for him because he's now a threat to his half-brother Britannicus' claims to the throne. At the last moment, a snake crawls out from under Nero's pillow and scares the assassins away. The terrified Nero worries that the snake is another sign of his true inclinations.

As Nero continues to succeed in athletics and his first political speeches, his new tutor, Seneca, tries to help him remain humble, but Nero's ego yearns to burst forth. Claudius dies and Nero is named emperor with every intention of being a good one. He lowers taxes, remembers everyone he meets regardless of their station, and stages an immense variety of entertainments for the people. He welcomes the Armenian king Tiridates to Rome with great generosity. Seneca warns him that his delight in excess brings him perilously close to craving personal grandeur, just as his father and grandfather did. Agrippina counters that Nero was born cursed and might as well enjoy it.

Nero begins to lose his battle with himself. When members of a new religion, Christianity, begin to stand out in Rome, he has them tortured and killed. His burning ambition leads him to take lessons from Terpnus, the greatest lyre player in the world, and he becomes obsessed with making music, performing endless recitals in which no one is allowed to leave - women in the audience give birth and men feign death so that they may be carried away for burial. Nero learns to drive a chariot and forces everyone to declare him the victor in every race.

Drowning in his own growing darkness, Nero wanders the city at night, breaking into shops and attacking men on their way home from dinner, stabbing them to death if they resist. Back in bed each night, Nero shivers with horror and regret at what he has done, but he can't bring himself to stop, even when he's almost beaten to death and nearly blinded. Fascinated by the Vestal Virgins, he seduces and rapes the Vestal Rubria. He clothes himself in excess and builds an extravagant new palace, the "Golden House."

Fearful of Nero's increasing instability, some citizens begin to plot to bring Britannicus to the throne. Nero visits the poisoner Locusta and poisons his half-brother to death. Then he faces his mother Agrippina, who has been gaining more influence with some sections of the Senate. Nero can't bear not to have all the power so, after three attempts, he kills Agrippina with Locusta's poison. Back in his empty bed chamber, Nero weeps, brought to his knees by his evil acts. A small spark of light yet burns within him, and in desperation he goes to his aunt Domitia Lepida. She showers him with love and he begins to believe he can redeem himself. But when she gives him advice he doesn't like, he loses control and poisons her, too. He sits with satisfaction by her body, his transition to evil complete.

 

[Lady Kate]

The Life of Nero, Part II
(1597)​

The Life of Nero, Part II follows Part I with only a little less linguistic majesty, sharing Part I's status as one of the greatest works in English literature. Nero here no longer feels the tug between good and evil, but is completely overtaken by darkness, becoming one of the most powerful villains in the canon. He fights against the obstacles that prevent him from laying out his horrible plans in their full fiery glory. Much of the play is about the clash of titans, Nero and his tutor Seneca, who represents the good and just in the world.

Part II is of particular interest in its treatment of women, with four of the main characters being female. The "affair of the wives," as scholars have labeled it, dominates the beginning of the play and serves as the first barrier of decency that Nero must tear down. Soon all Roman citizens become the targets of Nero's rage. He is a dark, terrifying villain drawn out expertly by Marlowe.

Dramatis Personae

NERO: Emperor of Rome.

SENECA: Philosopher, Nero's tutor.

OCTAVIA: Nero's first wife.

POPPAEA SABINA: Nero's second wife.

STATILIA MESSALINA: Nero's third wife.

ATTICUS VESTINUS: Statilia Messalina's first husband.

ANTONIA: Daughter of Claudius.

GALBA: Consul.

HOUSEHOLD SLAVES

CITIZENS

BOY

BOY'S SLAVES

Nero sits with his wife Octavia, staring into the fire of the altar of his household gods while Octavia talks about the beautiful new fabrics available for sale in the Forum. Nero paces back and forth, temper rising, until he snaps and shouts at Octavia, demanding that she never bore him again. She cowers in fear, which further enrages him, and his tutor Seneca enters the room to find Nero strangling Octavia as the household slaves watch in horror. Seneca strides in and carries Octavia, who is on the verge of death, to safety. He challenges Nero and orders him to treat Octavia better. Nero retorts that "Just being an emperor's wife ought surely to be enough to make her happy." Nero divorces Octavia, an act which draws citizens out into the streets in protest, and an enraged Nero has Octavia executed.

Seneca searches for a strong, decent woman who could rein in Nero and help return him to his senses. He settles on Poppaea Sabina, who with much convincing agrees to marry Nero, though she must divorce her husband first (a fact which causes Seneca pain). For a week Nero dotes on Poppaea, who has a strong backbone and rises to meet him when he rages. But when he learns why Seneca picked her, he kicks her to death after she complains about him coming home late from the races. To spite Seneca, Nero seeks out a woman of bad morals, Statilia Messalina, and murders her husband so that she may marry him. Statilia takes a perverse satisfaction in watching Nero murder members of the nobility and set up their children to starve to death. But Nero tires of her, too, and has her killed because the beautiful Antonia, daughter of Claudius, has caught his eye. Antonia, a woman of high principles, goes to Seneca for advice and then stands up to Nero, refusing to take Statilia's place. He has her flayed alive.

Meanwhile Seneca gives a series of lectures in the Forum about the precious idea of Rome, which can never be sullied. He criticizes Nero directly and begs him to change course, for love of his old tutor. The people wildly applaud and the citizens become bolder in their opposition to Nero. Nero's treatment of the women spreads a flame of resistance across all of Italy. In response, Nero lights a real fire that ravages the impoverished districts of Rome and destroys the granaries that keep the people from starving.

Seneca leads a brigade that tries in vain to put out the fires, and Nero, though he has won, becomes angry that members of the nobility are helping Seneca organize the populace. In response, he sets fire to the houses of famous generals still decorated with their triumphal trophies, as well as temples dedicated by the old kings. Now there is no one to rival him, not even the gods. When Seneca confronts Nero (the only one brave enough to do so), Nero declares, "While I yet live, may fire consume the earth."

After many more calamities befall Rome, Nero comes across a boy by a river who is waving a stick. When Nero questions him, the boy says he is playing at being an emperor and a general. Out of nostalgia for his own childhood, when he played at the same thing, Nero has a nice talk with the boy - then has the boy's own slaves drown him because Nero can't tolerate another's ambition. This act is the last straw for Seneca, who gathers the Senate to declare Galba emperor. Nero surrounds Seneca with his guards and says he has a choice between committing suicide or being burned alive. Seneca takes the old, honorable Roman way out and falls on a sword.

As the army rises against him, Nero becomes increasingly obsessed with death, the only thing that can take his power away. He tears at his hair as he pictures Seneca falling and alternates between crazed howls and sobs. He declares that he will wipe out all Rome if he has to, leaving himself the only one standing, but he constantly worries that he will kill himself in one passionate moment. He learns that the army is coming for him and that he will be executed in the 'ancient style,' stripped naked, his head thrust into a wooden fork, then flogged to death with rods. He orders his slaves to dig a grave of the proper size, muttering through his tears, "Dead! And so great an artist!" Then he stabs himself in the neck, eyes bulging as the blood gushes out.

 

[Leonidas]

That ending though...I'd absolutely watch this in theaters!