Dramatis Personae
Thomas Nashe (1567-c.1601)
Although nearly four years younger, Thomas Nashe's time at Cambridge University was largely contemporaneous with Marlowe's, where it seems highly likely that the pair first met each other. After Marlowe's dramatic success on the London stage with Tamburlaine in 1587, Nashe followed him to the capital's literary scene a year later and scratched a living as a writer mainly of pamphlets and novels whilst constantly complaining of poverty, a situation that may have forced him to take work in the London print-houses to make ends meet. He is noted for an early journalistic form, but more so for the satirical, flamboyant and devastating wit with which he poured scorn on those who had irked him, most notably the Harvey brothers Gabriel and Richard. Nashe may have organised the posthumous publication of Dido, Queen of Carthage, sharing the writing credit and later fondly remembering "poore deceassed Kit Marlow"1 as one of "my frends that usde me like a frend".2
Biography
Youth & University
Nashe was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk in November 1567, his father William earning a living as curate at St Margaret's Church there with his second wife Margaret (née Witchingham). When Thomas was six, the family moved to West Harling in Norfolk where William had become rector at All Saints. There is no record of Thomas' school attendance, but he matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge on 13 October 1582 just before his fifteenth birthday as a sizar.3 It seems Nashe had already been in residence since earlier in the year, thus arriving at Cambridge just over a year after Marlowe. The older Robert Greene was also to be found in Cambridge at this time, signing his preface to Mamillia at Clare Hall, Cambridge in 1583 (aged about 25).
There are occasional traces of Nashe at Cambridge. He is enrolled as a Lady Margaret's foundation scholar in 1585,4 and graduated Batchelor of Arts in March 1586. A Latin verse of his survives as a hand-written text in a presentation collection of verses from Ecclesiasticus by Lady Margaret scholars in 1585.5 Nashe likely saw plays enacted at Cambridge in his under-graduate days, including Thomas Legge's Richardus Tertius (1579) 6 and Plautus' Persa 7, both produced at St. John's College in 1583. He was also familiar with Edward Forsett's Pedantius first performed at Trinity College in 1581, a satirical attack on Gabriel Harvey that doubtless inspired Nashe.8 He seems somewhat scathing of such University productions, calling an actor who messed up his only line in the first of these productions a "codshead", and was also critical of "a Comedie handled by scollers. Acolastus the prodigall childe was the name of it, which was so filthily acted, so leathernly sette foorth".9 Nashe likely thought he could do better, and some time in 1586-87 he is reported to have contributed to, and acted in, a "show" called Terminus & non Terminus, for which "his partener in it was expelled the Colledge".10 Perhaps it was also around this time that Marlowe and Nashe collaborated on the play of Dido, Queen of Carthage (later published in 1594 after Marlowe's death), although there is much debate around both the dating and contribution of Nashe.
Less than a year after he graduated BA, Nashe's father William died and was buried at West Harling on 24 January 1587, when Thomas was aged 19. He continued studying for 18 months or so, and is listed as an attendee for forthcoming philosophy lectures in 1588. However, he did not complete his Master of Arts degree, leaving Cambridge in the summer of that year and heading to London where both Marlowe and Greene were seemingly already setting the literary scene alight. The reason for his early departure is not clear – he may have lacked the necessary funds after his father's death, or perhaps there is also a suggestion of expulsion by the University.11
Menaphon & Martin
In London, the streets were not paved with gold, and Nashe took paid work where he could. He began by securing the publication in the following year (1589) of The Anatomie of Absurditie, very much a student essay in the euphuistic style, initially penned "two Summers since" whilst "idle in the Country". He critiques contemporary learning and print culture, expounding his dislike of Puritanism and much else besides, whilst peppering his text with material from a range of contemporary works. The dedication to "Charles Blo(u)nt Knight" would likely have earned Nashe an additional few pounds. The Cambridge old boy network also bore fruit when he was commissioned by the now hugely popular Robert Greene in the summer of 1589 to write a 12-page preface to the latter's new romance, in which Nashe praises this "Arcadian Menaphon" written by his "sweet friend" as "not so statelie, yet comelie".12
By the time Menaphon hit the London book stalls, Nashe was probably already employed on an altogether more serious literary project. In November 1588, the first puritan pamphlet written under the pseudonym of Martin Marprelate13 had rolled off the secret underground press and was being sold at Kingston in Surrey. This tract (generally referred to as the Epistle) and those that followed attacked the episcopacy and Archbishop Whitgift in particular. The authorities failed miserably to capture or stop the culprits responsible for this "lewd and seditious" publication, and further pamphlets followed in December and February. In a bid to regain some ground in the propaganda war, Richard Bancroft suggested to Whitgift "to have them answered after their own vein in writing".14 Thus were a group of the leading satirical wits employed by the government to lampoon Martin in print and on the stage. Whilst this anti-Martinist set also wrote under pseudonyms such as Mar-Martine, the Cavaliero Pasquill, Marforius and Cutbert Curryknave, it is known to have primarily comprised John Lyly, Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe, who refers to it in his later works.15
This literary war raged through 1589, with Nashe seemingly playing more of a journalistic research role, travelling around the country to gather news and source material for use in the pamphlets,16 but also seemingly responsible for writing one of the later Anti-Martinist tracts, An Almond for a Parratt, in November of that year. In this, Nashe appears to be well-informed, describing the arrest of three Marprelate printers and the seizure of their press at Manchester in August by the Earl of Derby's officers in some detail.17 Another secret press was hastily assembled, but Martin's Protestatyon and the direct response to that in An Almond at the end of the year was the last major battle in the Marprelate war. One further anti-Martinist pamphlet was published in July 1590, but by then most of the main Marprelate protagonists had either fled to Scotland or been arrested.
This portrait of Bancroft (1544-1610) was painted after he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1604. Bancroft as Canon of Westminster took the lead under Archbishop Whitgift in combatting Martin Marprelate, employing Nashe, Greene and Lyly in 1589 to publish a succession of satirical pamphlets in response to the Marprelate publications. A decade later Bancroft, then Bishop of London, and Whitgift commanded all Nashe's works be burned along with other authors' works as part of the "Bishops' Ban".
Pirating & Penniless
Nothing is heard from Nashe for a couple of years until he is once again employed to write another preface, this time to the first edition of Astrophel and Stella,18 a sonnet sequence by the late Sir Philip Sidney that had until this point only circulated in manuscript form. Unfortunately for Nashe it was also an unauthorised edition of poor quality by publisher Thomas Newman. The author's sister Lady Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke took exception to this infringement, and copies of the book were quickly impounded in September 1591.19 Newman was allowed to publish a much-corrected second edition early the following year under the supervision of Lady Pembroke, but Nashe's preface was cut, sparking an enduring grievance.
A feeling of injustice perhaps inspired Nashe to write his most popular satirical work, with the eponymous narrator Pierce Pennilesse being the character perhaps most enduringly synonymous with Nashe himself.20 It went through three editions in 1592, with another both the following year and in 1595. Pierce bemoans his ill-luck and poverty and goes in search of the Devil, who he has heard might pay a thousand pounds for a soul. He has written a supplication "to the high and mightie Prince of Darknesse" who he hopes will remove certain souls to free up a little wealth for Pierce in the form of gold. His suggestions satirise contemporary London life, and are framed under the categories of the seven deadly sins, adding further common subject matter with Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (probably written around the same time). When considering "sloath", Nashe provides an amusing defence of "Playes",21 which notably includes mention of "braue Talbot … triumph[ing] again on the stage",22 taken to be a reference to Henry VI Part I. The play, which first appeared under Shakespeare's name in the First Folio of 1623, has been considered by many to be a collaborative work.23 This reference in Pierce Pennilesse, as well as helping with the dating of the play,24 provides additional weight to the view that Nashe may well have contributed certain scenes to the play that he is here publicising.
Nashe's star was on the rise. Along with Pierce Pennilesse quickly becoming a best-seller and his likely contribution to the most popular play on the Rose stage that year, he also appears to have secured himself some noble patronage. At the end of Pierce Pennilesse, likely written in the early summer of 1592, he gushes with gratitude and elaborate praise for Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, speaking of "my priuate experience … the matchlesse image of Honor, and magnificent rewarder of vertue, … thrice no[b]le Amyntas" … "to whom I owe all the vtmoste powers of my loue and dutie". Nashe wants to "shew my selfe thankfull (in some part) for benefits receiued" and to "submit the simplicitie of my indeuours to your seruice, which is, all my performance may profer, or my abilitie performe".25 Nashe may have come into contact with Strange during the Marprelate conflict, or perhaps as a result of Lord Strange's Men staging Henry VI at the Rose. It is around this time that Nashe penned his erotic bawdy poem, The Choise of Valentines (commonly referred to as Nashe's Dildo), which was also addressed to "Lord S".26
Harveys & Herrings
The authorities closed the London theatres in June 1592 after a riot by apprentices in Southwark, and a major outbreak of plague which followed in August ensured they remained shut pretty much permanently until the spring of 1594. Nashe had left the capital for Croydon, "the feare of infection detained mee with my Lord in the Countrey"27 at the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift.28 However else Nashe earned his keep here, he also wrote a masquish play Summer's Last Will and Testament which was performed in the Great Hall at Croydon.29 Again this opportunity may have arisen from his Marprelate service under Richard Bancroft, now Whitgift's private chaplain.
Sadly Robert Greene, who had given Nashe his first London literary opportunity three years earlier, died on 03 September 1592 aged just 34. The pair had not seen much of each other for a couple of years according to Nashe, but he had been "in company with him a month before he died, at that fatall banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled he[r]ring".30 One of Greene's last publications had been A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, which included a satirical swipe at the Harvey brothers in response to Richard Harvey's disparaging comments about the University wits. Greene had reportedly been sick for a month, and, sensing perhaps that his end was nigh, had hastily scribbled some 'death-bed pamphlet' material comprising autobiographical reminisces, much repentance, and some sage advice for his fellow writers. The most notable result was Greene's Groats-worth of Witte, edited and published posthumously by Henry Chettle.
Greene's advice to Nashe, whom he referred to as "yong Iuuenall, that byting Satyrist, that lastly with mee together writ a Comedie", was to "get not many enemies by bitter wordes: inueigh against vaine men, for thou canst do it, no man better, no man so well: thou hast a libertie to reprooue all, and name none; for one being spoken to, all are offended; none being blamed no man is iniured".31 But when Gabriel Harvey quickly published a number of letters gleefully revelling in what he claimed was Greene's sordid demise,32 Nashe felt duty-bound to defend his dead friend. He wrote Strange Newes refuting Harvey's claims and attacking the brothers in return. The literary spat would continue for a number of years,33 culminating in Nashe's Have With You to Saffron-Walden (1596). Harvey, who would survive Nashe by thirty years, did not respond further, but Richard Lichfield, barber-surgeon at Trinity College Cambridge, had now also taken offence. Lichfield responded the following year with his own satirical attack, The Trimming of Thomas Nashe, which included the only extant likeness of Nashe in the form of a woodcut showing him in prisoner's chains.
Tears & Travel, Page by Page
There was further tragic news for Nashe the following year when another friend and University wit died. Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death in Deptford on 30 May 1593, and his friend was clearly in melancholy mood whilst writing Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem around this time.34 In his address to the reader in the second edition, Nashe laments "poore deceassed Kit Marlow", one amongst "a hundred other quiet senseless carkasses" who have been "vilely dealt with" by Gabriel Harvey.35 Christ's Tears is a religious lament, as well as an attack on corruption, with an admonition that the plague is God's punishment for London's sins. Nashe's accusations of corruption in high places may even have got him into trouble with the authorities.36
Fortunately Nashe was able to call on another noble benefactor to escape plague-ridden London, and his mood was much improved by spending some months from Christmas 1593 onwards at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, courtesy of George Carey, son of Baron Hunsdon, successive patrons of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Two further works were already at the printers,37 and 1594 would also see Dido, Queene of Carthage published under his and Marlowe's name. The Unfortunate Traveller introduces perhaps Nashe's most engaging character, the teenage page-boy Jack Wilton, whose action-packed adventures across both time and Europe see him encounter Henry Howard, Erasmus, Thomas More, Cornelius Agrippa and Martin Luther along with the beautiful Diamante in Venice. The Terrors of the Night 38 meanwhile was a discourse on apparitions, dreams and witchcraft, inspired when Nashe found himself "Februarie last [1593] to be in the Countrey some threescore myle off from London, where a Gentleman of good worship and credit falling sicke, … pretended to haue miraculous waking visions".39
Such is his renown at this time that William Shakespeare (perhaps his former collaborator on the Henry VI play) appears to have captured a brief dramatic sketch of Thomas Nashe for posterity in his play Love's Labour's Lost.40 The impish Moth, page to the "fantasticall Spaniard" Don Adriano de Armado, is clever, quick-witted, mischievous and has much in common with Nashe.41 Armado refers to him affectionately as "my tender Juvenal" and "my acute juvenal",42 the same name by which Greene addresses his death-bed Groats-worth of advice to Nashe. The school-master Holofernes gets confused by mention of "Master Person, quasi pierce-one? And if one should be pierced, which is the one?", whilst Costard calls Moth a "half pennie purse of wit", apparent allusions to Pierce Penniless.43 Nashe's recent novel told the story of Jack Wilton who was also a "little page", whilst Richard Lichfield writing in 1597 refers to Nashe as "the moth of fame".44 There is no way of telling how full is the caricature, but there seems at least a little of Nashe in Moth.
Danter & Dogs
His publications of 1594 were a literary peak, at least in terms of quantity. Nashe was not to be drawn to the limelight of a new publication for a couple of years, until he was eventually provoked in 1596 to have one last stab at Harvey in Haue With You to Saffron-Walden. Once again he bemoaned his financial state,45 and we learn that he has been lodging at the house of the printer John Danter in Holborn.46 It is possible that Nashe earned his keep by working for the printer, perhaps as a 'corrector' (editor and proof reader), a role similar to that which Harvey likely performed at John Wolfe's print-shop. Danter, who had already published two of Nashe's pamphlets (Strange Newes and Terrors of the Night) prior to Have With You, was no stranger to printing controversy. Whilst still an apprentice, he was banned from becoming a master printer by the Stationers' Company due to his involvement with unauthorised publications, although this was later revoked. His press was seized by the same authority in the summer of 1596 after he illegally published a Catholic book called Iesus Psalter. And the following year Danter published a corrupt and pirated first "bad" quarto of Romeo & Juliet.
Despite his close association with Danter at this time, it is not clear whether Nashe was directly involved in these illicit publications. But his own struggles with the authorities were about to begin. As Have With You was published in the autumn of 1596, he was still in London with hopes of "writing for the stage and the presse".47 The fulfilment of the first of these had him in dangerous waters the following summer, when a play entitled The Isle of Dogs,48 which Nashe co-authored with a young dramatist called Ben Jonson, premiered on Bankside at the end of July 1597.
The content offended those in high places, and the Privy Council acted quickly: "Uppon informacion given us of a lewd plaie that was plaied in one of the plaiehowses on the Bancke Side, contanyinge very seditious and sclanderous matter, wee caused some of the players to be apprehended and comytted to pryson, whereof one of them was not only an actor but a maker of parte of the said plaie."49 The London theatres were closed on 28 July 1597, and actors Gabriel Spencer and Robert Shaa along with Jonson were incarcerated in the Marshalsea prison until October. Nashe, it seems, had already fled before his London property was raided, but the fearsome Richard Topcliffe was instructed to interrogate the prisoners and "to peruse soch papers as were fownde in Nash his lodgings".50 Nashe would of course deny his responsibility, later claiming that he had "begun but the induction and first act of it, the other foure acts, without my consent or the least guesse of my drift or scope, by the players were supplied, which bred both their trouble and mine to[o]".51
Jonson was just 25 when The Isle of Dogs, co-written with Nashe, premiered on Bankside. The "lewd plaie" was quickly shut down by the authorities, with Jonson and two actors imprisoned whilst Nashe fled.
Burnings & Burial
The fugitive eventually made his way to his native Norfolk, arriving by the end of Autumn 1597 and staying in Great Yarmouth (rather than Lowestoft, his birth-place) until the early months of the following year. The heat was dying down in the capital (the theatres were re-opened in October, and those arrested were released), but Nashe did not yet feel confident enough to return to London. It was somewhere "in the countrey" that Nashe penned what would be his final pamphlet, Lenten Stuffe, mostly written during Lent in 1598. It was in part a debt of gratitude to the inhabitants of Great Yarmouth for the kindness they had shown sheltering him. He wrote a well-researched history of the town using local and other sources, and also served up a panegyric to the (red) herring, the local catch and "king of fishes" that had sustained him. Nashe also included his own telling of the story of "Leander and Hero, of whome diuine Musaeus sung, and a diuiner Muse than him, Kit Marlow".52
Nashe had returned to London by early 1599, where he penned an address to his readers ahead of the publication by Cuthbert Burby of Lenten Stuffe. But it was not long before he was once again under attack from the authorities. Whitgift and Bancroft, who a decade earlier had employed Nashe, Greene and Lyly to satirise Martin Marprelate, now suddenly commanded that a specific list of "unsemely Satyres & Epigrams" published without their approval "bee presentlye broughte to the Bishop of London to be burnte". Along with "marlowes Elegyes", it was ordered "that all NASSHes bookes and Doctor HARVYes bookes be taken wheresouer they maye be found and that none of theire bookes bee euer printed hereafter".53 These and a host of other books by authors including John Marston, Thomas Middleton and Edward Guilpin "presently thereupon were burnte" at the Stationers' Hall on 04 June 1599.
This was perhaps a final crushing blow for Nashe, even if his nemesis Harvey suffered the same treatment. Summer's Last Will and Testament, ironically originally written for Whitgift, was finally published the following year, but Nashe may already have been dead by then. There is no record of his death, the cause of it, nor the location of his burial, but he was certainly dead by 1601 when two epitaphs are recorded, one by the poet Charles Fitzgeoffrey,54 and the other appearing in The Returne From Parnassus.55 Other noted writers of the time would fondly remember Nashe's sharp, witty and satirical pen.56 But dead by the age of 33, he had managed just a few more years than Marlowe (29) and not quite as many as Greene (34). The University wits, it seems, were early exemplars of the philosophy "live fast, die young", although we do not know whether Nashe would have boasted a "good-looking corpse".57
[ FINIS ]
Nashe's Publications
| Ref | Title | Published | Stationers' Register | Text | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Nashe-Absurditie] | The Anatomie of Absurditie | Thomas Hacket, London 1589 | 19 Sep 1588 [SRO2774] | EEBO | 1589 title Page |
| [Nashe-Almond] | An Almond for a Parrat, Or Cutbert Curry-knaves Almes | London, 1589? | Not registered | EEBO | Marprelate Pamphlet Title Pages |
| [Nashe-Pierce] | Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Divell | Richard Jones, London 1592 | 08 Aug 1592 [SRO3409] | EEBO | Wikipedia | Folger Editions | 1593 edition title page |
| [Nashe-StrangeNewes] | Strange Newes, of the Intercepting Certaine Letters, and a Conuoy of Verses, as they were going priuilie to victuall the Low Countries | John Danter, London 1592 | 12 Jan 1593 [SRO3441] | EEBO | 1592 title Page |
| [Nashe-Valentines] | The Choise of Valentines, or The Merie Ballad of Nash his Dildo | MS only | Not registered | Project Gutenberg: John Farmer, Ed. (London, 1899) | Wikipedia |
| [Nashe-ChristsTears] | Christs Teares Ouer Jerusalem | Andrew Wise, London 1593 | 08 Sep 1593 for Alice Charlewood [SRO3509] | EEBO | 1593 title page | 1613 Edition at GoogleBooks |
| [Nashe-Traveller] | The Vnfortunate Traueller or The Life of Iacke Wilton | Cuthbert Burby, London 1594 | 17 Sep 1593 for John Wolfe [SRO3512] | EEBO | Wikipedia | 1594 title Page |
| [Nashe-Terrors] | The Terrors of the Night or A Discourse of Apparitions | William Jones, London 1594 | 30 Jun 1593 [SRO3496] and 25 Oct 1594 [SRO3685] both for John Danter | EEBO | Article: , The Terrors of Nashe's Terrors of the Night (2018) | 1594 title page |
| [Nashe-SaffronWalden] | Haue With You to Saffron-Walden, or Gabriell Harueys Hunt is Vp | John Danter, London 1596 | Not registered | EEBO | Wikipedia | Thomas Nashe Project: Guide to Folger edition | 1596 title page |
| [Nashe-LentenStuffe] | Lenten Stuffe | Cuthbert Burby & Nicholas Ling, London 1599 | 11 Jan 1599 [SRO4162] | EEBO | Article: , Nashe's (Self-)Portrait of a Town | 1599 title page |
| [Nashe-Summer] | A Pleasant Comedie called Summers Last Will and Testament | Walter Burre, London 1600 | 28 Oct 1600 [SRO4369] | EEBO | Wikipedia | 1600 title page |
Nashe Contributions
| Ref | Author | Title | Published | Stationers' Register | Text | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Greene-Menaphon] | Robert Greene | Menaphon | Sampson Clerke, London 1589 | 23 Aug 1589 [SRO2936] | EEBO | Nashe's Preface | 1589 title page |
| [Sidney-Astrophel] | Sir Philip Sidney | Syr P.S. His Astrophel and Stella | Thomas Newman, London 1591 | Not registered | EEBO | Nashe's Preface | Wikipedia | 1591 title page |
Further Reading
- Refer to our Nashe bibliography.
- The Thomas Nashe Project at Newcastle University, undertaking the scholarly editing of Nashe's works along with associated performances, conferences and blogs.
- Nashe at Luminarium, including texts of his works.
- Nashe at Wikipedia.
Footnotes:
- Note 1: , Christs Teares Over Jerusalem (2nd edition, London, 1594), criticising Gabriel Harvey in his preface To the Reader: "Maister Lillie, poore deceassed Kit Marlow, reuerent Doctor Perne, with a hundred other quiet senselesse carkasses before the Conquest departed, in the same worke he hath most notoriously & vilely dealt with". Back to Text
- Note 2: [Nashe-SaffronWalden] sig. V2v [EEBO text]: "Further than further bee it knowne (since I had one further before) I neuer abusd Marloe, Greene, Chettle in my life, nor anie of my frends that vsde me like a frend: which both Marloe and Greene (if they were aliue) vnder their hands would testifie". Back to Text
- Note 3: A typically poorer student who paid for his upkeep by performing menial tasks and serving on other students. Back to Text
- Note 4: St John's College Register of Fellows and Scholars, 1584. Back to Text
- Note 5: PRO, State Papers, Dom. Add. Eliz., Vol. XXIX, f.167. Back to Text
- Note 6: [Nashe-SaffronWalden] [EEBO text]. Nashe is critical of the student actors in a performance of Richardus Tertius: "...till vnder the Vniuersities vnited hand & seale they bee enacted as Obsolaete a case of Cockescombes, as euer he was in Trinitie Colledge, that would not carrie his Tutors bow into the field, because it would not edifie: or his fellow qui quae codshead, that in the Latine Tragedie of K. Richard, cride Ad vrbs, ad vrbs, ad vrbs, when his whole Part was no more, but Vrbs, vrbs, ad arma, ad arma." Back to Text
- Note 7: [Nicholl-Cup] p.36. Back to Text
- Note 8: In [Nashe-SaffronWalden] in the section entitled The Letter of Harueys Tutor to his Father, as touching his manners and behauior, Nashe asks regarding Harvey: "What will you giue mee when I bring him vppon the Stage in one of the principallest Colledges in Cambridge? Lay anie wager with me, and I will; or if you laye no wager at all, Ile fetch him aloft in Pedantius, that exquisite Comedie in Trinitie Colledge; where, vnder the cheife part, from which it tooke his name, as namely the concise and firking finicaldo fine School-master, hee was full drawen & delineated from the soale of the foote to the crowne of his head." An original manuscript version of the Latin play survives [Gonville and Caius College (Cambridge) ms. 125/62] providing a more accurate text of the play as performed at Cambridge in 1581 than the version published in 1631 [EEBO text]. has edited an online text version of the play in Latin with an English translation, and also provides an interesting introduction. See also the same author's article Cambridge Drama in the Late Tudor and Early Stuart Periods (Oxford Academic, 2016) which considers some of the key University dramatic productions of the period, including a number during Marlowe and Nashe's time there. Back to Text
- Note 9: [Nashe-Traveller] [EEBO]: "a Comedie handled by scollers. Acolastus the prodigall childe was the name of it, which was so filthily acted, so leathernly sette foorth, as woulde haue moued laughter in Heraclitus. One as if he had béene playning a clay floore stampingly troade the stage so harde with his feete, that I thought verily he had resolued to doe the Carpenter that sette it vp some vtter shame. Another floung his armes lyke cudgelles at a peare trée, in so much as it was mightily dreaded that hee woulde strike the candles that hung aboue theyr heades out of their sockets, and leaue them all darke. Another did nothing but winke and make faces. There was a parasite, & he with clapping his hands and thripping his fingers seemed to dance an antike to and fro." Back to Text
- Note 10: [Lichfield-Trimming]: section entitled A Grace in the Behalf of Thomas Nashe: "Then being Bachelor of Arte, which by great labour he got, to shew afterward that he was not vnworthie of it, had a hand in a Show called Terminus & non terminus, for which his partener in it was expelled the Colledge: but this foresaid Nashe played in it (as I suppose) the Varlet of Clubs; which he acted with such naturall affection, that all the spectators tooke him to be the verie same." Back to Text
- Note 11: Nashe himself in [Nashe-Absurditie] [EEBO] asks: "When as wits of more towardnes shal haue spent some time in the Uniuersitie, and haue as it were tasted the elements of Arte, and laide the foundation of knowledge, if by the death of some friend they shoulde be withdrawne froom theyr studies, as yet altogether raw, and so consequently vnfitte for any calling in the Common wealth, where should, they finde a friend, to be vnto them in steed of a father, or one to perfit that which their deceased parents begun?" Richard Lichfield, in [Lichfield-Trimming] suggests Nashe feared he would not attain his MA [EEBO]: "Then suspecting himselfe that he should be staied for egregie dunsus, and not attain to the next Degree, said he had commenst enough, and so forsooke Cambridge, being Batchelor of the third yere. Then he raisd himselfe vnto an higher Crime, no lesse than London could serue him". W.C. (William Covell or William Clerke) writing in Polimanteia (Cambridge, 1595) berates the University that "thou hast been vnkinde vnto [Nashe] to weane him before his time". Nashe himself dismisses any such accusations, claiming in [Nashe-SaffronWalden] [EEBO] that his father "brought me vp at S. Iohns, where (it is well knowen) I might haue been Fellow if I had would". Back to Text
- Note 12: [Greene-Menaphon]: Nashe's preface is addressed "To the Gentlemen Students of both Uniuersities", and he is quickly into his stride, lamenting "the seruile imitation of vainglorious tragoedians, who contend not so seriouslie to excell in action, as to embowell the clowdes in a speach of comparison; thinking themselues more than initiated in poets immortalitie, if they but once get Boreas by the beard, and the heauenlie bull by the deaw-lap. But herein I cannot so fully bequeath them to follie, as their idiote art-masters, that intrude theemselues to our eares as the alcumists of eloquence; who (mounted on the stage of arrogance) think to outbraue better pens with the swelling bumbast of a bragging blanke verse." Back to Text
- Note 13: The Puritan ring-leaders of the Martin Marprelate campaign were believed to be John Penry, Job Throckmorton, John Udall, printer Robert Waldegrave, and bookbinder Henry Sharpe, the first two of these variously credited as the primary author(s) of the pamphlets. Thomas Nashe is the first to explicitly accuse Penry as being Martin in his pamphlet [Nashe-Almond] [EEBO text]: "Authority best knows how to diet these bedlamites, although Segnior Penry in his last waste paper hath subscribed our magistrats infants". Penry escaped to Scotland shortly after the publication of the Protestatyon in October 1589, but returned to London in September 1592 and was arrested in March 1593. Capital charges were brought and he was hanged at St Thomas-a-Watering (on the modern Old Kent Road) at 4pm on 29 May 1593, the day before Marlowe died at Deptford. Back to Text
- Note 14: , The Life & Acts of the Most Reverend Father in God, John Whitgift D.D (London, 1718) – Book IV, Chapter XXIII, p.516 [Text]. Back to Text
- Note 15: [Nashe-StrangeNewes] [EEBO text]: "Somewhat I am priuie to the cause of Greenes inueighing against the three brothers. Thy hot-spirited brother Richard (a notable ruffian with his pen) hauing first tooke vpon him in his blundring Persiual to play the Iacke of both sides twixt Martin and vs, and snarld priuily at Pap-hatchet, Pasquill, & others". Back to Text
- Note 16: [Nashe-Almond]: "I am more then halfe weary of tracing too and fro in this cursed common wealth, where sinfull simplicitye pufte vppe with the pride of singularity, seekes to peruerte the name and methode of magistracy." Back to Text
- Note 17: Ibid: "You think we know not how pretily your Printers were shrouded vnder the name of salt-petermen, so that who but Hodgkins, Tomlins and Sims, at the vndermining of a house, and vndoing of poore men, by diggyng vp their floars, and breaking down their wals. No, no, we neuer heard how orderly they pretended the printing of Accidences, when my L. of Darbies men came to sée what they were a doing, what though they damned themselues about the deniall of the deede, is periury such a matter amongst puritans." Back to Text
- Note 18: [Sidney-Astrophel]. Publisher Thomas Newman states in his dedication: "I haue beene very carefull in the Printing of it, and where as being spred abroade in written Coppies, it had gathered much corruption by ill Writers: I haue vsed their helpe and aduice in correcting & restoring it to his first dignitie, that I knowe were of skill and experience in those matters." Charles Nicholl [Nicholl-Cup] p.84, wonders if Nashe was perhaps one of these editors of "skill and experience", given he produced the preface and that he later possibly also worked for printer John Danter as a corrector. This might lend weight to the idea of Nashe fulfilling an editorial role in the printing of Dido, Queen of Carthage, although the hundreds of corrections seen in the second edition of Astrophel and Stella might not infer a job well done. Back to Text
- Note 19: Stationers' Register, 18 September 1591: "Item, paid to John Wolf, when he ryd with an answere to my L. Treasurer, beinge with her majestie on progresse, for the takinge in of bookes intituled Sir P. S. Astrophel and Stella." Back to Text
- Note 20: [Nashe-Pierce] entered in the Stationers' Register on 08 August 1592 [SRO3409] for Richard Jones who had printed both parts of Tamburlaine two years earlier. Back to Text
- Note 21: Ibid [EEBO text]: "For whereas the after-noone beeing idlest time of the day; wherein men that are their owne masters, (as Gentlemen of the Court, the Innes of the Courte, and the number of Captaines and Souldiers about London) do wholy bestow themselues vpon pleasure, and that pleasure they deuide (howe vertuously it skils not) either into gameing, following of harlots, drinking, or seeing a Playe: is it not then better (since of foure extreames all the world cannot keepe them but they will choose one) that they should betake them to the least, which is Playes?" Back to Text
- Note 22: Ibid [EEBO text]: "How would it haue ioyed braue Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that after he had lyne two hundred yeares in his Tombe, hee should triumphe againe on the Stage, and haue his bones newe embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least, (at seuerall times) who in the Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding." Back to Text
- Note 23: Doubts were first expressed as long ago as 1790 by , who suggested the style of some parts of the play more characteristic of Nashe, Peele or Greene. The debate has raged since, with modern computer analysis of textual stylistics adding to the attribution mix. The controversial New Oxford Shakespeare (2016) credited I Henry VI to "Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and Anonymous, adapted by William Shakespeare". in Shakespeare's Tutor: the Influence of Thomas Kyd (Manchester UP, 2022) argues for Kyd as Nashe's co-author. Nashe is usually credited with Act I. Back to Text
- Note 24: [Henslowe-Diary] p.16 also records takings "Rd at harey the vj the 3 of marche 1591 [1592] iijli xvjs 8d" at a performance labelled "ne" which may indicate the first performance of a new play. This is generally considered to refer to the first part of the trilogy, although the ordering is much debated. Back to Text
- Note 25: [Nashe-Pierce] [EEBO text]. also personifies Ferdinando Stanley (who died in suspicious circumstances in April 1594, by then 5th Earl of Derby), as Amyntas and his mourning widow as Amaryllis in Colin Clout's Come Home Againe (London, 1595). Back to Text
- Note 26: [Nashe-Valentines]. Unsurprisingly, the poem was not published at the time, but survives in three separate manuscripts [Nicholl-Cup] pp.90-1. The poem was finally published in 1899, edited by [Gutenberg text]. Back to Text
- Note 27: , "A Priuate Epistle of the Author to the Printer" (Abel Jeffes), which appeared in the "second impression" of Pierce Pennilesse (London, 1592). Nashe mentions the death of Robert Greene, so was written after that happened on 03 September 1592. Back to Text
- Note 28: [Nicholl-Cup] p.135. Back to Text
- Note 29: [Nicholl-Cup] p.136. Nicholl deduces that the performance was likely in the first week of October 1592. The play was not published until 1600 as [Nashe-Summer]. Back to Text
- Note 30: [Nashe-StrangeNewes]: "I, who since I first knew him about town haue beene two yeares together and not seene him." [EEBO Text]. Back to Text
- Note 31: , Greenes Groats-worth of Witte, Bought with a Million of Repentance (London 1592) [EEBO text]. John Danter, whom Nashe would later work for, was one of the printers. The co-authored "comedie" referred to is a mystery. [Nicholl-Cup] pp.125-130 suggests it might have been The Defence of Conny-Catching (London, 1592). Back to Text
- Note 32: , Foure Letters, and Certaine Sonnets Especially Touching Robert Greene (London, 1592) [EEBO Text]. Back to Text
- Note 33: See a summary of Harvey's and Nashe's attacks on one another at Wikipedia. Back to Text
- Note 34: [Nashe-ChristsTears] finds Nashe in depressed mood, feeling "it is not amisse to write something of mourning" for "heere is no ioyfull subiecte towards: if you will weepe, so it is." Full of repentance, he even bids "a hundred unfortunate farewels to fantasticall Satirisme." Along with the ravages of the plague, the deaths of his friends are much on his mind: "wee see great men dye, strong men dye, wittie men dye, fooles dye...". Back to Text
- Note 35: Nashe had offered an apology to Harvey in the first edition, but retracts that in the second edition in response to A New Letter of Notable Contents With a Straunge Sonet, intituled Gorgon, or the Wonderfull Yeare (London, 1593) [EEBO text] in which Gabriel Harvey attacks Nashe, Greene and Marlowe. There is much debate about who Harvey is referring to, but he mentions the death of "the Highest minde, that euer haunted Powles" (the bookstalls around St. Paul's): "the graund Dissease disdain'd his to ade Conceit, and smiling at his tamberlaine contempt, Sternely struck-home the peremptory stroke. He that nor feared God, nor dreaded Diu'll, nor ought admired, but his wondrous selfe ... Alas: but Babell Pride must kisse the pitt." In the sonnet Gorgon, Harvey mentions various events in the "fatall yeare of yeares … Ninety Three", and concludes "Weepe Powles, thy Tamberlaine voutsafes to dye". Back to Text
- Note 36: A diatribe in the first edition of [Nashe-ChristsTears], published in Autumn 1593, attacking the use of funds belonging to the Court of Orphans administered by the Lord Mayor of London and the Aldermen, is replaced in the second edition with a much milder passage. Nashe is also forced to row back and clarify that "many good men, many good magistrats are there in this City" - [Nicholl-Cup] pp.171. It is still seemingly a sore point three years later, when in a letter to William Cotton [Cotton MS Jul C III, f.280, British Library, c.September 1596], Nashe complains that "when now the players as if they had writt another Christs tears, ar[e] piteously p[er]secuted by the L. Maior & the aldermen". As regards what form the original persecution might have taken, discovered a legal recognizance dated 20 November 1593 concerning "Thomas Nash generosus et Johannes Snowe generosus", requiring that "the aboue bownden Thomas Nash doe personally appeare at the nexte sessions of Gaiole delyverye of Newgate ... to make answere to all such matters as shalbe obiected against him" [Repertory for the Court of Aldermen 23, fo. 125r, cited in Dr. Hutson's article Thomas Nashe's 'persecution' by the Aldermen in 1593, Notes and Queries, Volume ns-34, Issue 2, June 1987, pp. 199–200]. Whilst the coincidence of timing would potentially fit with any prosecution relating to Christs Teares Ouer Jerusalem, there is no further confirmation that this record refers to the author Thomas Nashe. Back to Text
- Note 37: In his preface To The Reader in the first edition of [Nashe-ChristsTears], written in Autumn 1593, Nashe notes that "two or three triviall Volumes of mine, at this instant, are under the Printers hands, ready to be published" – presumably [Nashe-Traveller] and [Nashe-Terrors], both published finally in 1594. Back to Text
- Note 38: [Nashe-Terrors] was dedicated to George Carey's daughter Elizabeth. Back to Text
- Note 39: Possibly whilst Nashe was staying at Robert Cotton's house, Conington Hall in Huntingdonshire, close to where the Witches of Warboys were tried in April 1593 and subsequently executed – see [Nicholl-Cup] pp.146-7. Back to Text
- Note 40: , Love's Labour's Lost [LLL] (Arden Third Series, 1998) edited by H.R. Woudhuysen – pp.59-61. "Most scholars date LLL to 1594-5". It must have been written before 1598 - the year of publication for both the first quarto edition of the play, and Palladis Tamia by which mentions the play. Back to Text
- Note 41: [Nicholl-Cup] notes that Moth is an anagram of Thom (p.212), and that the character's longest speech (LLL III.I.10-23) is decidedly Nashean in style (p.213). Nicholl presents a number of other connections and possible references. Back to Text
- Note 42: LLL I.II.8-15 and III.I.63 (Arden Third Series, 1998). Back to Text
- Note 43: LLL IV.II.81-2 and V.I.67-8 (Arden Third Series, 1998). Some suggest the arrogant school-teacher Holofernes with his penchant for Latin phrases, complicated words and obscure references may be a parody of Gabriel Harvey. Holofernes next line is "Of piercing a hogshead" (LLL IV.II.85) which, although proverbial, also echoes Harvey in Pierces Supererogation (London, 1593) calling "Pierce, the hoggeshed of witt" [EEBO text]. Back to Text
- Note 44: [Lichfield-Trimming]: "And now you, hauing a care of your credite scorning to lie wrapt vp in obliuion the moth of fame, haue augmented the stretcht-out line of your deedes, by that most infamous, most dunsicall and thrice opprobrious worke The Ile of Dogs: for which you are greatly in request". Back to Text
- Note 45: [Nashe-SaffronWalden] [EEBO text: Dialogus]: "I prostitute my pen in hope of gaine, but otherwise there is no new fanglenes in mee but pouertie". Back to Text
- Note 46: [Nashe-SaffronWalden] [EEBO text: A Summarie or Breife Analysis of such matters as are handled in the Doctors Booke]: Responding to Harvey's jibe at "Danters scar-crow Presse", Nashe says "My Printers Wife too hee hath had a twitch at in two or three places about the midst of his booke, ... but let him looke to himselfe, for though in all the time I haue lyne in her House, and as long as I haue knowen her, I neuer saw anie such thing by her". Danter lived on Hosier Lane, to the west of Smithfield, towards Holborn Bridge - [Nicholl-Cup] pp.224-5. Back to Text
- Note 47: Autograph letter by Thomas Nashe to William Cotton, c. September 1596 - Cotton MS Jul C III, f.280, British Library [Text | Image]. Back to Text
- Note 48: No copy of the play text is of course extant. More information about the contemporary records and possible subject matter that caused offence can be found at the Lost Plays Database. Back to Text
- Note 49: Acts of the Privy Council of England Volume 27, 1597, (London, 1903) p.338. British History Online [accessed 24 May 2024 | Page Image]. Back to Text
- Note 50: Ibid. Back to Text
- Note 51: [Nashe-LentenStuffe]: Marginalia in the main body of the pamphlet entitled The Praise of the Red Herring. Back to Text
- Note 52: [Nashe-LentenStuffe] p.42 [EEBO text]. Back to Text
- Note 53: (Ed.), A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers, 1554–1640, 5 volumes (London, 1875–1894), III.677-78. These "commaundements" were issued by Whitgift from Croydon Palace on 01 June 1599. Back to Text
- Note 54: , Affaniae and Cenotaphia (Oxford, 1601). Nashe's epitaph is #29 in Cenotaphia. See a transcript of the original Latin epitaph and English translation by Dana Sutton: "When black Death, obeying Jove's imperial decree, extinguished Nashe's vital fires, first she stealthily stole the lad's armed tongue and his terrible pen, those twin thunderbolts. Death attacked him defenseless and burst in on him unarmed..." Back to Text
- Note 55: The Returne from Parnassus, performed at St. John’s College, Cambridge in 1601, and printed by George Eld for John Wright in 1606. In scene I.ii of Part II, Ingenioso and Judicio are commenting on authors found in the contemporary anthology of poetry, Bel-vedére or The Garden of the Muses (London, 1600). "Nash", Ingenios says, "carryed the deadly stockado in his pen, whose muse was armed with a gagtooth and his pen possest with Hercules furies". Judicio confirms his passing: "Let all his faultes sleepe with his mournfull chest, and then for euer with his ashes rest! His style was wittie, though he had some gal..." Back to Text
- Note 56: in one of Father Hubbards Tales (London, 1604), The Ant and the Nightingale [EEBO text], says of Nashe, "Thou wast indeed too slothfull to thy selfe, Hiding thy better tallent in thy Spleene", and lamenting that "Thou didst not liue thy ripened Autumne day, But wert cut off in thy best blooming May... Thy name they burie, hauing buried thee, Drones eate thy Honnie, thou wert the true Bee." in Newes from Hell Brought by the Diuells Carrier (London, 1606) under the heading The Deuill Let Loose with his Answere to Pierce Pennylesse, describes "ingenious, ingenuous, fluent, facetious, T. Nash: from whose aboundant pen, hony flow'd to thy friends, and mortall Aconite to thy enemies: thou that madest the Doctor a flat Dunce, and beat'st him at two sundry tall Weapons, Poetrie, and Oratorie: Sharpest Satyre, Luculent Poet, Elegant Orator". Back to Text
- Note 57: The famous quote "Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse!" by in his novel Knock on Any Door (D. Appleton-Century Company, 1947) would seem as apt for Marlowe, Greene and Nashe as for James Dean, to whom it is most readily applied nowadays. Back to Text