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    The Noble Spanish Soldier: "Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs?"
    The Noble Spanish Soldier: "Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs?"
    The Noble Spanish Soldier: "Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs?"
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    The Noble Spanish Soldier: "Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs?"

    By Thomas Dekker

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    About this ebook

    Thomas Dekker was a playwright, pamphleteer and poet who, perhaps, deserves greater recognition than he has so far gained. Despite the fact only perhaps twenty of his plays were published, and fewer still survive, he was far more prolific than that. Born around 1572 his peak years were the mid 1590’s to the 1620’s – seven of which he spent in a debtor’s prison. His works span the late Elizabethan and Caroline eras and his numerous collaborations with Ford, Middleton, Webster and Jonson say much about his work. His pamphlets detail much of the life in these times, times of great change, of plague and of course that great capital city London a swirling mass of people, power, intrigue.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateMay 1, 2016
    ISBN9781785437434
    The Noble Spanish Soldier: "Com'st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs?"
    Author

    Thomas Dekker

    Thomas Dekker is a Dutch former professional cyclist whose talent on the bike quickly took him to the top of the sport. He raced for The Netherlands in the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, won two Dutch National Time Trial Championships, and captured victories in the 2006 Tirreno-Adriatico and the 2007 Tour of Romandie. He rode for the Dutch Rabobank superteam and then Silence-Lotto before a retroactively tested sample returned positive for EPO. In 2009, Dekker was suspended for two years for the drug violation, and it was later confirmed during Operaction Puerto that Dekker was among the clients of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. After his suspension, Dekker joined the American Garmin Development Team and rode for Garmin-Barracuda from 2012-2014. Dekker claims to have ridden clean for Jonathan Vaughters and he became a popular rider in the American peloton. He retired after an attempt on the World Hour Record in 2015.

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      Book preview

      The Noble Spanish Soldier - Thomas Dekker

      The Noble Spanish Soldier by Thomas Dekker

      Thomas Dekker was a playwright, pamphleteer and poet who, perhaps, deserves greater recognition than he has so far gained.

      Despite the fact only perhaps twenty of his plays were published, and fewer still survive, he was far more prolific than that.  Born around 1572 his peak years were the mid 1590’s to the 1620’s – seven of which he spent in a debtor’s prison. His works span the late Elizabethan and Caroline eras and his numerous collaborations with Ford, Middleton, Webster and Jonson say much about his work.

      His pamphlets detail much of the life in these times, times of great change, of plague and of course that great capital city London a swirling mass of people, power, intrigue.

      Index of Contents

      THOMAS DEKKER – AN INTRODUCTION

      HISTORY OF THE NOBLE SPANISH SOLDIER ('NSS')

      Text

      Sources, Authorship and Date

      Performance

      ACTION OF THE PLAY

      EDITORIAL PRACTICE

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      THE PRINTER TO THE READER

      ACT THE FIRST

      SCENE I

      SCENE II

      ACT THE SECOND

      SCENE I

      ACT THE THIRD

      SCENE I

      SCENE II

      SCENE III

      ACT THE FOURTH

      SCENE I

      SCENE II

      ACT THE FIFTH

      SCENE I

      THOMAS DEKKER – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

      THOMAS DEKKER – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

      THOMAS DEKKER – AN INTRODUCTION

      Thomas Dekker is believed to have been born in London around 1572, but nothing is known for certain about his youth. He embarked on a career as a theatre writer early in his adult life, the first extant text of his work being 'Old Fortunatus' written around 1596, although there are plays connected with his name which were performed as early as 1594. The period from 1596 to 1602 was the most prolific of his

      career, with 20 plays being attributed to him and an involvement in up to 28 other plays being suggested. It was during this period that he produced his most famous work, 'The Shoemaker's Holiday, or the Gentle Craft', categorised by modern critics as citizen comedy, it reflects his concerns with the daily lives of ordinary Londoners. This play exemplifies his vivid use of language and the intermingling of everyday subjects with the fantastical, embodied in this case by the rise of a craftsman to Mayor and the involvement of an unnamed but idealised king in the concluding banquet.

      He exhibited a similar vigour in such prose pamphlets as the ironically entitled 'The Wonderfull Yeare' (1603), about the plague, 'The Belman of London' (1608), about roguery and crime, and 'The Guls Horne-Booke' (1609), a valuable account of behaviour in the London theatres.

      Dekker was partly responsible for devising the street entertainment to celebrate the entry of James I into London in 1603 and he managed the Lord Mayor's pageant in 1612. His fortunes took a turn for the worse shortly after, when between 1613 and 1619 he was imprisoned, probably for debt; this experience may be behind his six prison scenes first included in the sixth edition (1616) of Sir Thomas

      Overbury's 'Characters'. He died in 1632 and was buried at St James', Clerkenwell.

      HISTORY OF THE NOBLE SPANISH SOLDIER ('NSS')

      Text

      The first clear reference to the play is dated as 16 May 1631 when an entry was made in the Stationer's Register, effectively licensing texts for publication. The entry, made for John Jackman, referred to manuscripts of two plays by 'Tho: Dekker', these being 'The Wonder of a Kingdom' and 'a Tragedy called The Noble Spanish Soldier'. A similar entry was made on 9 December 1633, this time for Nicholas Vavasour. The play was printed in a quarto version in 1634, probably by John Beale, on behalf of Vavasour, who initialled the foreword entitled 'The Printer to The Reader'.

      Sources, Authorship and Date

      These aspects of the play have attracted more critical attention than all others combined, reference frequently being made to the following known facts:

      (1)  Although the entries in the Stationer's Register refer unambiguously to Dekker as the author, the title page of the Quarto states that the play is written by 'S.R.', the only Jacobean playwright with those initials being Samuel Rowley.

      (2) It has been observed, initially by nineteenth century scholar A. H. Bullen, that three sections of a play by John Day called 'The Parliament of Bees' are nearly identical to sections of NSS. Furthermore a further five sections correspond closely to parts of 'The Wonder of a Kingdom' which as is noted above, was registered alongside NSS in 1931.

      (3) In 1601, theatre manager Philip Henslow made part payment for an anonymous play called 'The Spanish Fig', no text of which survives under that name.

      (4) In April 1624 a poster appeared in Norwich  advertising a touring play, being 'An excellent Comedy called The Spanish Contract' to be performed by Lady Elizabeth's men, a company with which Dekker is believed to have had connections.

      (5)  There is some evidence of confusion in how the play has been compiled for printing, in particular, a cast list which omits several significant characters, the late appearance of two pointless characters (Signor No and Juanna) and the delayed identification of Alanzo as Captain of the Guard. These have been argued to be evidence of revision of an earlier work.

      (6)  Dekker's 'The Welsh Embassador' reworked much of the material in NSS, albeit in a comedic form. This is generally dated as c1623.

      As may be imagined, these facts offer a considerable range of possibilities as to authorship and provenance of the play. Various critics, such as Fleay and Bullen, have tried to make sense of all of them by postulating, largely without evidence, a variety of permutations of collaboration and revision so as to give all of the authorship candidates a role in the production of the text we now have. The most persuasive contribution however, comes from Julia Gasper who, building on work by R. Koeppel, convincingly identifies the source of NSS as being Volume V of Jacques-Augueste de Thou's Latin 'Historiarum Sui Temporis', published in 1620.

      The de Thou volume tells of how Henri IV of France reneged on a written promise of marriage to Hentiette d'Entragues, by marrying Marie be Medicis in 1600; both women bore sons by the King, who is later assassinated. This closely anticipates

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