Sapho and Phao
Encyclopedia
Sapho and Phao is an Elizabethan
era stage play, a comedy
written by John Lyly
. One of Lyly's earliest drama
s, it was likely the first that the playwright devoted to the allegorical
idealization of Queen Elizabeth I
that became the predominating feature of Lyly's dramatic canon.
; it was also staged at the first Blackfriars Theatre
. In these respects it resembles Campaspe
, Lyly's other early play; and like Campaspe, sources conflict on the identity of the acting company
that performed the work. Court records credit "Oxford's boys," while the title page of the play's first edition specifies the Children of Paul's
, Lyly's regular company, and the Children of the Chapel
. The evidence, taken as a whole, may indicate that both plays, Campaspe and Sapho and Phao, were acted by a combination of personnel from three troupes of boy actors
— those of Paul's and the Chapel and the young company that the Earl of Oxford
maintained in the 1580s.
Sapho was entered into the Stationers' Register
on April 6, 1584, and was first published that year in a quarto
edition printed by Thomas Dawson for the bookseller Thomas Cadman — the same men who were responsible for Q1 of Campaspe, also in 1584. And again like Campaspe, the first edition of Sapho was released in more than one "state" or impression: the two impression of the 1584 Sapho are sometimes defined as two separate quartos.
Another distinct quarto edition was issued in 1591
, printed by Thomas Orwin for William Broome. The play was also included in Six Court Comedies, the initial collection of Lyly's plays published by Edward Blount
in 1632
.
tale of the romance of Sapho and Phao, or Phaon; he was influenced in particular by Ovid
's version of the story, supplemented by the work of Aelian
. (Abraham Fleming
's English translation of Aelian's Varia Historia had been published in 1576
.) The Greek tale exists in various forms, some of which conflate the famous Sappho
, the poet of Lesbos
of the 6th and 7th centuries BCE, with a second figure, a courtesan of the same or a similar name. In so far as the strains of the story can be untangled, it was the courtesan, not the poet, who loved a man named Phaon; some of Sappho's poems are addressed to a male, but he is never named.
Lyly does disengage the skeins of the story: his Sapho is based (loosely) on the courtesan and has nothing to do with the poet. Yet Lyly takes the bare bones on the old tale and adapts it into something quite different: his Sapho is a powerful queen of Sicily
— who is not implausible as a representation of another powerful queen of another island.
, on her way to Syracuse to humble the pride of Queen Sapho, endows a young ferryman named Phao with great beauty. (In some of the myths, Phaon is an old ferryman of Lesbos who is rewarded by Aphrodite
with renewed youth and beauty after he transports her from Mytilene
to Chios
.) The beautiful waiting women of Sapho's court learn of Phao, flirt with and court him; but he is disdainful of them. When Sapho catches sight of Phao she instantly falls in love with him; and Phao in turn is love-struck with her. Sapho hides her infatuation by pretending to be fever-stricken, and sends for Phao, since he reportedly possesses febrifugic herbs. They share a mutual passion, but the enormous gap between their social positions is an insuperable barrier.
Through an accident with Cupid
's arrows, Venus herself falls in love with Phao. She has her husband Vulcan
(his forge is under Mount Etna
) mold new arrows to break love spells; she turns for help to her son Cupid, who in Lyly's hands foreshadows the later Puck
in Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's Dream
. Cupid performs part of his mother's will, in that he cures Sapho of her love of Phao; but then Cupid succumbs to the queen's charms. The pranksterish god not only fails to make Phao love Venus, but actually inspires him with a revulsion for her.
The play concludes with Phao leaving Sicily; Cupid rebels against his mother's will and remains with Sapho, adopting her as his new mother.
Variety and comic relief
are provided by the talk of Sapho's ladies in waiting, by the "Sybilla
" whom Phao consults for advice and guidance, and of course by the witty pages who recur so regularly in Lyly's dramas.
; the Prologues published with the 1584 quarto refer to this "necessity of the history." Sapho is made a great queen so that she can represent Elizabeth; traditionally, Phao is thought to stand for François, Duke of Anjou
, the man the Elizabethans called the Duke of Alençon. The Duke courted Elizabeth up to 1582, but finally gave up the effort and left England romantically disappointed, as Phao leaves Sicily. Sapho ends the play with a kind of divine love, or idealized love — but no human lover; she is another type of virgin queen.
One writer went so far as to claim that this interpretation had not "been questioned by any sane critic." Perhaps inevitably, some later commentators have disputed this standard interpretation.
Elizabethan literature
The term Elizabethan literature refers to the English literature produced during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I .The Elizabethan era saw a great flourishing of literature, especially in the field of drama...
era stage play, a comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
written by John Lyly
John Lyly
John Lyly was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.-Biography:John Lyly was born in Kent, England, in 1553/1554...
. One of Lyly's earliest drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
s, it was likely the first that the playwright devoted to the 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...
idealization of Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth 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...
that became the predominating feature of Lyly's dramatic canon.
Performance and publication
Sapho and Phao is known to have been performed at Court before Queen Elizabeth, probably on March 3, 15841584 in literature
-Events:*Master Thomas Giles takes charge of the Children of Paul's; this is the start of a close association with the works of John Lyly.-New books:*A Booke of Cookry*Giordano Bruno - La Cena de le Ceneri ...
; it was also staged at the first Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name of a theatre in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. The theatre began as a venue for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatre hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and...
. In these respects it resembles Campaspe
Campaspe (play)
Campaspe is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy by John Lyly. Widely considered Lyly's earliest drama, Campaspe was an influence and a precedent for much that followed in English Renaissance drama.-Performance and publication:...
, Lyly's other early play; and like Campaspe, sources conflict on the identity of the acting 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 performed the work. Court records credit "Oxford's boys," while the title page of the play's first edition specifies the Children of Paul's
Children of Paul's
The Children of Paul's was the name of a troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Along with the Children of the Chapel, the Children of Paul's were the most important of the companies of boy players that constituted a distinctive feature of English Renaissance theatre.St...
, Lyly's regular company, and the Children of the Chapel
Children of the Chapel
The Children of the Chapel were the boys with unbroken voices, choristers, who formed part of the Chapel Royal, the body of singers and priests serving the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they were called upon to do so....
. The evidence, taken as a whole, may indicate that both plays, Campaspe and Sapho and Phao, were acted by a combination of personnel from three troupes of boy actors
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...
— those of Paul's and the Chapel and the young company that the Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, lyric poet, sportsman and patron of the arts, and is currently the most popular alternative candidate proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare's works....
maintained in the 1580s.
Sapho was entered into the Stationers' Register
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
on April 6, 1584, and was first published that year in a quarto
Book size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
edition printed by Thomas Dawson for the bookseller Thomas Cadman — the same men who were responsible for Q1 of Campaspe, also in 1584. And again like Campaspe, the first edition of Sapho was released in more than one "state" or impression: the two impression of the 1584 Sapho are sometimes defined as two separate quartos.
Another distinct quarto edition was issued in 1591
1591 in literature
-Events:*In the spring of the year, a dispute with James Burbage impels the Admiral's Men to leave The Theatre and move to Philip Henslowe's Rose Theatre.*Summer - Sir Walter Raleigh secretly marries Elizabeth Throckmorton....
, printed by Thomas Orwin for William Broome. The play was also included in Six Court Comedies, the initial collection of Lyly's plays published by Edward Blount
Edward Blount
Edward Blount was a London publisher of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline eras, noted for his publication, in conjunction with William and Isaac Jaggard, of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1623....
in 1632
1632 in literature
The year 1632 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*On February 14, Tempe Restored, a masque written by Aurelian Townshend and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace....
.
Sources
Lyly dramatized the ancient GreekAncient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
tale of the romance of Sapho and Phao, or Phaon; he was influenced in particular by Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's version of the story, supplemented by the work of Aelian
Claudius Aelianus
Claudius Aelianus , often seen as just Aelian, born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222...
. (Abraham Fleming
Abraham Fleming
Abraham Fleming was an English clergyman, and a prolific writer, translator, contributor to others' texts, editor and poet.-Life:...
's English translation of Aelian's Varia Historia had been published in 1576
1576 in literature
-Events:*James Burbage builds The Theatre, the first permanent public playhouse in London, ushering in the great age of Elizabethan drama.-New books:*Jean Boudin - Six livres de la République*George Pettie - A Petite Palace of Pettie His Pleasure...
.) The Greek tale exists in various forms, some of which conflate the famous Sappho
Sappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
, the poet of Lesbos
Lesbos Island
Lesbos is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with 320 kilometres of coastline, making it the third largest Greek island. It is separated from Turkey by the narrow Mytilini Strait....
of the 6th and 7th centuries BCE, with a second figure, a courtesan of the same or a similar name. In so far as the strains of the story can be untangled, it was the courtesan, not the poet, who loved a man named Phaon; some of Sappho's poems are addressed to a male, but he is never named.
Lyly does disengage the skeins of the story: his Sapho is based (loosely) on the courtesan and has nothing to do with the poet. Yet Lyly takes the bare bones on the old tale and adapts it into something quite different: his Sapho is a powerful queen of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
— who is not implausible as a representation of another powerful queen of another island.
Synopsis
The play is set in Syracuse and the surrounding countryside. VenusVenus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
, on her way to Syracuse to humble the pride of Queen Sapho, endows a young ferryman named Phao with great beauty. (In some of the myths, Phaon is an old ferryman of Lesbos who is rewarded by Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
with renewed youth and beauty after he transports her from Mytilene
Mytilene
Mytilene is a town and a former municipality on the island of Lesbos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Lesbos, of which it is a municipal unit. It is the capital of the island of Lesbos. Mytilene, whose name is pre-Greek, is built on the...
to Chios
Chios
Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...
.) The beautiful waiting women of Sapho's court learn of Phao, flirt with and court him; but he is disdainful of them. When Sapho catches sight of Phao she instantly falls in love with him; and Phao in turn is love-struck with her. Sapho hides her infatuation by pretending to be fever-stricken, and sends for Phao, since he reportedly possesses febrifugic herbs. They share a mutual passion, but the enormous gap between their social positions is an insuperable barrier.
Through an accident with Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
's arrows, Venus herself falls in love with Phao. She has her husband Vulcan
Vulcan (mythology)
Vulcan , aka Mulciber, is the god of beneficial and hindering fire, including the fire of volcanoes in ancient Roman religion and Roman Neopaganism. Vulcan is usually depicted with a thunderbolt. He is known as Sethlans in Etruscan mythology...
(his forge is under Mount Etna
Mount Etna
Mount Etna is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania. It is the tallest active volcano in Europe, currently standing high, though this varies with summit eruptions; the mountain is 21 m higher than it was in 1981.. It is the highest mountain in...
) mold new arrows to break love spells; she turns for help to her son Cupid, who in Lyly's hands foreshadows the later Puck
Puck (Shakespeare)
Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream that was based on the ancient figure in English mythology, also called Puck. Puck is a clever and mischievous elf and personifies the trickster or the wise knave...
in 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"...
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
. Cupid performs part of his mother's will, in that he cures Sapho of her love of Phao; but then Cupid succumbs to the queen's charms. The pranksterish god not only fails to make Phao love Venus, but actually inspires him with a revulsion for her.
The play concludes with Phao leaving Sicily; Cupid rebels against his mother's will and remains with Sapho, adopting her as his new mother.
Variety and comic relief
Comic relief
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.-Definition:...
are provided by the talk of Sapho's ladies in waiting, by the "Sybilla
Sibyl
The word Sibyl comes from the Greek word σίβυλλα sibylla, meaning prophetess. The earliest oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity, "who admittedly are known only through legend" prophesied at certain holy sites, under the divine influence of a deity, originally— at Delphi and...
" whom Phao consults for advice and guidance, and of course by the witty pages who recur so regularly in Lyly's dramas.
Allegory
Lyly shaped his version of the Sapho and Phao story to form an allegory of contemporaneous events and circumstances at the English royal courtNoble court
The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
; the Prologues published with the 1584 quarto refer to this "necessity of the history." Sapho is made a great queen so that she can represent Elizabeth; traditionally, Phao is thought to stand for François, Duke of Anjou
François, Duke of Anjou
Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alençon was the youngest son of Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici.-Early years:...
, the man the Elizabethans called the Duke of Alençon. The Duke courted Elizabeth up to 1582, but finally gave up the effort and left England romantically disappointed, as Phao leaves Sicily. Sapho ends the play with a kind of divine love, or idealized love — but no human lover; she is another type of virgin queen.
One writer went so far as to claim that this interpretation had not "been questioned by any sane critic." Perhaps inevitably, some later commentators have disputed this standard interpretation.