Horestes
Encyclopedia
Horestes is a late Tudor
morality play
by the English dramatist John Pickering. It was first published in 1567
and was most likely performed by Lord Rich's men as part of the Christmas revels at court that year. The play's full title is A new interlude of Vice containing the history of Horestes with the cruel revengement of his father's death upon his one natural mother.
myth
of Orestes
. Rather than Aeschylus
' trilogy of Athenian
tragedies
Oresteia (458 BCE), however, Pickering's source
for his version of the story is William Caxton's
translation of the French romance
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
(translated in 1475). Consequently the play's theme
and dramatic structure
are more medieval
than classical
.
Only one copy of the play is extant
, which the British Museum
holds. It was published by William Griffith of Fleet Street
, London
for sale at his shop in St. Dunstan's churchyard.
Cambises (c.1561), the play has been identified as a "hybrid morality", due to its articulation of classical themes, stories and characters with the medieval allegorical
tradition. Within this genre
, the central allegorical figure of the Vice vies with a non-allegorical, classical protagonist
(Horestes); though their roles are about the same size, Horestes controls the important action.
The play has an episodic
structure, which alternates comic, slapstick
scenes with serious, tragic
ones, all unified by the theme of revenge. It is one of the earliest examples of an English revenge play
, a genre that includes Kyd's
The Spanish Tragedy
(1587), Marston's
The Malcontent
(1603) and Shakespeare's
Hamlet
(1601). Unlike traditional moralities, Horestes presents an ambiguous
ending. In line with both the Orestia and the Historyes of Troy, Horestes is forgiven for the murder of his mother
and her lover; despite its interrogation during the course of the play, however, the justification for the murders remains an unresolved issue at its conclusion. In a further departure from the conventions
of the morality, the forgiveness of Horestes is not prompted by his repentance
.
reign, Horestes is longer than most of the older examples of the genre, running to 1,205 lines. The play was designed to be played by a company of six players
, with each actor performing between three and seven roles each. The respective size of the roles of Horestes (521 lines) and the Vice (557 lines), as well as the play's frequent alternation of tragic
and burlesque
scenes, suggest that the play demanded a playing company
that included two leading actors who were adept at both serious and comic acting. The actor playing Horestes also played the Woman (who appears in a brief scene between lines 626-647), while a boy actor
played Clytemnestra
and Hermione
, as well as Hempstring and Provision. Unusually for Elizabethan drama
, the play shares a role (Idumeus
) between two different actors.
Tudor period
The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII...
morality play
Morality play
The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes", a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of...
by the English dramatist John Pickering. It was first published in 1567
1567 in literature
-Events:*October 14 - António Ferreira becomes Desembargador da Casa do Civel and leaves Coimbra for Lisbon.-New books:*Joan Perez de Lazarraga - Silbero, Silbia, Doristeo, and Sirena *Magdeburg Centuries, vols X-XI...
and was most likely performed by Lord Rich's men as part of the Christmas revels at court that year. The play's full title is A new interlude of Vice containing the history of Horestes with the cruel revengement of his father's death upon his one natural mother.
Source and text
The play dramatises the story of the ancient GreekAncient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
myth
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
of Orestes
Orestes (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and purification, which retain obscure threads of much older ones....
. Rather than Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
' trilogy of Athenian
Classical Athens
The city of Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece was a notable polis of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias...
tragedies
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
Oresteia (458 BCE), however, Pickering's source
Source text
A source text is a text from which information or ideas are derived. In translation, a source text is the original text that is to be translated into another language.-Description:...
for his version of the story is William Caxton's
William Caxton
William Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England...
translation of the French romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye or Recueil des Histoires de Troye, is a French courtly romance written by Raoul Lefevre, chaplain to Philip III, Duke of Burgundy. Translated by William Caxton, and printed by him probably with Colard Mansion in 1473 or 1474 at Bruges. The work is now known...
(translated in 1475). Consequently the play's theme
Theme (literature)
A theme is a broad, message, or moral of a story. The message may be about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and are almost always implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character,...
and dramatic structure
Dramatic structure
Dramatic structure is the structure of a dramatic work such as a play or film. Many scholars have analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with Aristotle in his Poetics...
are more medieval
Medieval theatre
Medieval theatre refers to the theatre of Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century A.D. and the beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century A.D...
than classical
Theatre of Ancient Greece
The theatre of Ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece between c. 550 and c. 220 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political and military power during this period, was its centre, where it was...
.
Only one copy of the play is extant
Extant literature
Extant literature refers to texts that have survived from the past to the present time. Extant literature can be divided into extant original manuscripts, copies of original manuscripts, quotations and paraphrases of passages of non-extant texts contained in other works, translations of non-extant...
, which the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
holds. It was published by William Griffith of Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
for sale at his shop in St. Dunstan's churchyard.
Structure and genre
Along with Thomas Preston'sThomas Preston (writer)
Thomas Preston was an English master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and possibly a dramatist.-Life:Preston was born at Simpson, Buckinghamshire, in 1537, and was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, where he was elected scholar, 16 Aug. 1553, and fellow, 18 Sept. 1556. He graduated B.A....
Cambises (c.1561), the play has been identified as a "hybrid morality", due to its articulation of classical themes, stories and characters with the medieval allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
tradition. Within this genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
, the central allegorical figure of the Vice vies with a non-allegorical, classical protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
(Horestes); though their roles are about the same size, Horestes controls the important action.
The play has an episodic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
structure, which alternates comic, slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
scenes with serious, tragic
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
ones, all unified by the theme of revenge. It is one of the earliest examples of an English revenge play
Revenge play
The revenge play or revenge tragedy is a form of tragedy which was extremely popular in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. The best-known of these are Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and William Shakespeare's Hamlet...
, a genre that includes Kyd's
Thomas Kyd
Thomas Kyd was an English dramatist, the author of The Spanish Tragedy, and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama....
The Spanish Tragedy
The Spanish Tragedy
The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent...
(1587), Marston's
John Marston
John Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods...
The Malcontent
The Malcontent
The Malcontent is an early Jacobean stage play written by the dramatist and satirist John Marston ca. 1603. The play was one of Marston's most successful works....
(1603) and Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
(1601). Unlike traditional moralities, Horestes presents an ambiguous
Ambiguity
Ambiguity of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity...
ending. In line with both the Orestia and the Historyes of Troy, Horestes is forgiven for the murder of his mother
Matricide
Matricide is the act of killing one's mother. As for any type of killing, motives can vary significantly.- Known or suspected matricides :* Amastris, queen of Heraclea, was drowned by her two sons in 284 BC....
and her lover; despite its interrogation during the course of the play, however, the justification for the murders remains an unresolved issue at its conclusion. In a further departure from the conventions
Dramatic convention
Dramatic Conventions are the specific actions or techniques the actor, writer or director has employed to create a desired dramatic effect/style....
of the morality, the forgiveness of Horestes is not prompted by his repentance
Repentance
Repentance is a change of thought to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged. In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law...
.
Staging demands
As with other experimental moralities from Elizabeth'sElizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
reign, Horestes is longer than most of the older examples of the genre, running to 1,205 lines. The play was designed to be played by a company of six players
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, with each actor performing between three and seven roles each. The respective size of the roles of Horestes (521 lines) and the Vice (557 lines), as well as the play's frequent alternation of tragic
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
and burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
scenes, suggest that the play demanded a playing company
Playing company
In Renaissance London, playing company was the usual term for a company of actors. These companies were organized around a group of ten or so shareholders , who performed in the plays but were also responsible for management. The sharers employed "hired men" — that is, the minor actors and...
that included two leading actors who were adept at both serious and comic acting. The actor playing Horestes also played the Woman (who appears in a brief scene between lines 626-647), while a boy actor
Boy player
Boy player is a common term for the adolescent males employed by Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the mainstream companies and performed the female roles, as women did not perform on the English stage in this period...
played Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
and Hermione
Hermione (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Hermione was the only daughter of Menelaus and Helen; however, some sources state that her mother also had a daughter, Iphigenia, by Theseus, as well as three younger sons, one by Menelaus, the others by Paris, prince of Troy.Hermione was nine when her mother left with Paris...
, as well as Hempstring and Provision. Unusually for Elizabethan drama
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
, the play shares a role (Idumeus
Idomeneus
In Greek mythology, Idomeneus , "strength of Ida") was a Cretan warrior, father of Orsilochus and Chalkiope, son of Deucalion, grandson of Minos and king of Crete. He led the Cretan armies to the Trojan War and was also one of Helen's suitors. Meriones was his charioteer and brother-in-arms...
) between two different actors.
Characters
- HorestesOrestes (mythology)In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and purification, which retain obscure threads of much older ones....
- Vice
- ClytemnestraClytemnestraClytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
- EgistusAegisthusIn Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and of Thyestes' daughter, Pelopia....
- IdumeusIdomeneusIn Greek mythology, Idomeneus , "strength of Ida") was a Cretan warrior, father of Orsilochus and Chalkiope, son of Deucalion, grandson of Minos and king of Crete. He led the Cretan armies to the Trojan War and was also one of Helen's suitors. Meriones was his charioteer and brother-in-arms...
- NestorNestor (mythology)In Greek mythology, Nestor of Gerenia was the son of Neleus and Chloris and the King of Pylos. He became king after Heracles killed Neleus and all of Nestor's siblings...
- MenelausMenelausMenelaus may refer to;*Menelaus, one of the two most known Atrides, a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope*Menelaus on the Moon, named after Menelaus of Alexandria.*Menelaus , brother of Ptolemy I Soter...
- HermioneHermione (mythology)In Greek mythology, Hermione was the only daughter of Menelaus and Helen; however, some sources state that her mother also had a daughter, Iphigenia, by Theseus, as well as three younger sons, one by Menelaus, the others by Paris, prince of Troy.Hermione was nine when her mother left with Paris...
- Rusticus
- Hodge
- Haltersack
- Hempstring
- A Woman
- First Soldier
- Second Soldier
- Herald
- Messenger
- Counsel
- Nobles
- Commons
- Nature
- Provision
- Truth
- Fame
- Duty