1598

THE MALONE SOCIETY
REPRINTS
1921

This reprint of James IV has been prepared by A. E. H. Swaen with the assistance of the General Editor.

Nov. 1921.

W. W. Greg.

The following entries are found in the Register of the Stationers’ Company for 1594:

No edition, however, is known before 1598, and it would be natural to suspect that the original impression had perished were it not for the fact that 1598 is also the date of the earliest known edition of the Famous Victories. In the circumstances we may suppose that publication was for some reason delayed. The impression of 1598 is a quarto printed by Creede in roman type of a size approximating to modern pica (20 ll. = 84 mm.). Of this four copies are known to survive. That in the British Museum wants the leaf A 4, which has been supplied in very inaccurate modern reprint. Fortunately the leaf is present in the Dyce copy at South Kensington, though in this H 1 is defective (a corner being supplied in not quite accurate facsimile) and sheet K is wrongly perfected. Another copy, formerly at Bridgewater House, is now in the possession of Mr. Henry E. Huntington; while a fourth is in a collected volume once in the possession of Charles II, which formed lot 8258 in the Huth Sale (25 June 1920). All four want the first leaf, which was presumably blank, except perhaps for a signature. It has not been possible to use more than the first two copies mentioned in preparing the present reprint.

The title-page bears the name of Robert Greene as author, together with a motto used by him in other works, which suggests that the manuscript may have been in some manner prepared for press before his death in 1592. Three passages from the play are quoted, rather inaccurately, in England’s Parnassus, 1600, above Greene’s name. The title-page also states that the play had been ‘sundrie times publikely plaide’, without, however, mentioning any company.

The plot is entirely unhistorical, and P. A. Daniel and W. Creizenach independently traced its source to the first novel of the third day of the Ecatommiti of Giraldi Cintio, a story in which, however, the identity of the characters is quite different. Whether Greene was also acquainted with Cintio’s play Arrenopia, based on the same story, is not known.

List of Doubtful and Irregular Readings.

The play, evidently printed from a much altered and probably illegible manuscript, abounds in errors of every description. The following list is confined to such readings as are to some extent doubtful in the original and to a few literal misprints which might otherwise perhaps be thought due to the reprint. No irregularities recorded by previous editors are included. No variations of any importance have been found between the two copies collated.

In ll. 1062, 1090 the speaker’s name is given as ‘8. Atten.’ Whatever this may be meant for it is clear that the speeches belong to the Bishop of St. Andrews. In ll. 2015-6 a complicated error has occurred, the ‘e’ of ‘her’ in the lower line having worked its way up into an accidental space after the ‘d’ of ‘and’ in the upper.

List of Characters

in order of appearance.

In V. iii the speeches of the King of England have the prefix ‘Arius’ (ll. 2095, 2105, 2126, 2129), a name which in a stage-direction in II. ii (l. 1050) is apparently applied to the King of Scots. Ateukin (twice misprinted ‘Auteukin’, ll. 1451, 2562) is repeatedly called Gnato, which would seem to have been the original name of the character, subsequently altered, for in I. i ‘Ateukin’ several times scans as a dissyllable (ll. 355, 362, 365). Twice Ateukin and Gnato are mentioned together in a stage-direction (ll. 1550, 2053), apparently through misunderstanding of an alteration. Sir Eustace, who is also addressed as Lord Eustace, is several times called Dick (ll. 565, 568, 571, 601, 608, 629). One speech (l. 629) assigned to him, clearly belongs to a servant, who has therefore been added to the characters. In II. ii Nano is throughout called ‘Dwarfe’ except in the exit at l. 1049. Andrew’s surname appears from l. 551. The name of the King of Fairies is Oberon: ‘Oboram’ on the title and ‘Obiran’ in l. 1934. seem to be mere misprints, and ‘Obiron’ (ll. 1164, 1923, 1931) a sporadic variant. In l. 2 his name is given as ‘After Oberõ’, but this is most likely a misprint for ‘after Oberõ’. Dyce supposed that Oberon entered at l. 2398, and Grosart assumed that ‘Adam’ was the name of the actor who played the part, but it is more likely to be a compositor’s misreading of ‘A danc(e)’. At l. 1953 the direction ‘Ladie Anderson ouerheares’ is due to a misunderstanding; it should be ‘Sir Cutbert’. Lady Douglas and Sir Egmond are mentioned in l. 1606 as present, but nothing further is known of them: Lord Percy and Samles enter in V. iii (l. 2094), and the former again in V. vi (l. 2407), also the English herald in V. vi (l. 2338), but none of them speak. Nano does not speak in the Induction.

In l. 656 (cf. 666) the form ‘Staurobates’, in place of Stabrobates, proves that Greene drew from Poggio’s Latin translation of Diodorus Siculus and not from the original.

The text of the play contains nothing to identify either the English or the Scottish king, and the date 1520 given in the Induction is seven years after the death of James IV at Flodden.

The two collotype plates represent A2 recto (title page) and A3 recto in the Dyce copy of the original.

THE
SCOTTISH
Historie of Iames the
fourth, slaine at Flodden.

Entermixed with a pleasant Comedie, presented by
Oboram King of Fayeries:

As it hath bene sundrie times publikely
plaide.

Written by Robert Greene, Maister of Arts.

Omne tulit punctum.

LONDON
Printed by Thomas Creede. 1598.

THE SCOTTISH
Hystorie of Iames the
fourth, slaine at Flodden.