ment. Gifford is the first to divide the acts into scenes according to place instead of according to speaker, and gives the setting of each scene. All entrances and exits of characters are noted by him in stage-directions or sidenotes. These changes make a play such as Catiline much more intelligible to the general reader. Gifford's text is available in his two editions, those of 1816 and 1846, and in the reprint with 'perfunctory improvements' (the phrase is Dr. Herford's) by Lieut.-Col. Cunningham in 1875, which is still the standard for Jonson's complete works. His alterations of the text are mainly modernizations ay for the interjection I; them or 'em for 'hem; have for ha'; the for th', etc. All important variants will be found in the footnotes to the text.1 So far as I have been able to learn, there are no translations of Catiline. B. DATE AND STAGE-HISTORY The date of the first acting of Catiline, according to the title-pages of F1, F2, and Q1, was 1611. As all dates were then reckoned in old style, however, this may well have been 1612; and the absence of a record in the Stationers' Registers leaves us without any definite data. The title-page of Q2 informs us that the play was at that time (1635) 'acted by his MAIESTIES Servants with great Applause,' but I am unable to discover any contemporary notes of its appearance. It was early revived at the Restoration, and was, on the whole, well received. Under date of December 11, 1667, Pepys says, 'I met... Harris, the player, and there 1 For collations of 1716, W, G, and C-G, see The Alchemist, ed. Hathaway (Yale Studies 17). we talked... particularly of Catiline, which is to be suddenly acted at the King's house; and there all agree that it cannot be well done at that house, there not being good actors enow and Burt acts Cicero, which they all conclude he will not be able to do well. The King gives them £ 500 for robes, there being, as they say, to be sixteen scarlett robes.' On December 18, 1668, the play was produced, evidently somewhat later than had been at first planned, with Hart as Catiline, Mohun as Cethegus, Burt as Cicero, and Mrs. Corey as Sempronia. On the next afternoon Pepys saw it, but was not greatly impressed, as his words testify: '... Saw Catiline's Conspiracy, yesterday being the first day: a play of much good sense and words to read, but that do appear the worst upon the stage, I mean, the least diverting, that ever I saw any, though the most fine in clothes; and a fine scene of the Senate, and of a fight, that ever I saw in my life. But the play is only to be read.' The play was still being revived in 1674, as the titlepage of Q3 shows: 'As it is now Acted by his MAJESTIE'S Servants.' John Downes in his Roscius Anglicanus mentions Catiline as one of the stock plays commonly produced in his day, all of which, he states, 'proved very satisfactory to the town.' Gerard Langbaine the younger in his Account of the English Dramatic Poets (Oxford, 1601),1 says that Catiline continued 'still in vogue on the stage (in his time), and was always presented with success.' However, there is no reason to believe that the play survived on the stage longer than the opening years of the eighteenth century. In the main, Pepys' contention that Catiline is 'only to be read' is right; although one could hardly imagine it a total failure on the stage, it is to-day primarily a 'closet-drama.' 1 Quoted by Gifford. I have not a copy at hand. C. LITERARY RELATIONSHIPS Catiline is a play of frank borrowings. In Jonson's day, when classical knowledge was held in rather more popular esteem than at present, it is highly probable that a considerable number of his readers and auditors recognized at once a large share of his quotations and allusions. The only method of producing a true historical play was, in Jonson's mind, his own-that of painstaking reference to the classics. Jonson was one of the few Elizabethans who had any regard for 'atmosphere,' and to whom such anachronisms as the striking of a clock in Brutus' orchard1 were abominations. A Roman play must be Roman, and its characters must speak as Romans spoke. On such a hypothesis, there could be but one conclusion: one must go to Roman speeches as they have been handed down to us, go to contemporary documents and transcribe them. Such a thesis is in the main right, but in it lies the grave danger of making too much of the letter at the expense of the spirit. This is precisely Jonson's case. Great as was his ingenuity, great as were his assimilative powers, there yet remains in Catiline much suspended erudition: masses of pedantry, so to speak, not in perfect solution. The traces of mosaic work (to change the figure), work very clever in itself withal, are not totally obliterated. However, in justice to Jonson, one must add that to the general reading-public of to-day, not so versed in classic lore as the poet's auditory, these things are not greatly in evidence. As I have said, Catiline is a play of frank borrowings. At times it is a literal transcript of authorities, at other times it is strongly reminiscent of them. In his efforts to catch the true Latin 'atmosphere,' the author even goes so far as to twist the English idiom, as in 4. 823, 1 Julius Cæsar 2. I. 191. where I heare ill is the poet's attempt to render the Latin male audio, 'I am ill spoken of.' Then, too, there are his translations of virtus by vertue, pietas by pietie, and the like. The odor of the scholar's taper is strong upon such. The sources of Catiline fall readily into three main classes: first, those of the plot, wherein I include the characters; second, those of the dialogue; and third, those of the choruses. To the plot, Sallust's Catilina of course makes the greatest contribution, and the characters are mainly developed in the way it suggests; but the contemporary works of Cicero, the Lives of Plutarch, and the accounts of Suetonius, Dio Cassius, and others are used freely. Into the dialogue many elements enter-speeches from Sallust; one whole oration from Cicero, and excerpts from others; figures from the Pharsalia of Lucan; and single quotations from scattered sources-Florus, Claudian, and others. To the choruses Petronius Arbiter contributes most, as the first chorus is in large measure a translation of the rhapsody of Eumolpus (Satiricon 119, 120); but another chorus, the fourth, owes greatly to Sallust, although not a mere translation. 1. Sources of the Plot Sallust. No other one authority supplied so much to the plot of Catiline as the Catilina of Sallust. Sallust's real narrative commences with section 14. Beginning here, the next three sections paint Catiline's character, suggest that it was the memory of Sulla's former easy and profitable triumphs that animated him to rebellion (this is even more strongly hinted in section 5), trace his crimes, and discover in them the unceasing scourges that drove him on to crimes still greater: The ills, that I haue done, cannot be safe b Now, closely parallel to this in Jonson is the introduction of Sulla's ghost, the catalogue of Catiline's misdeeds, and Catiline's monologue containing the lines just quoted above. Following this, Jonson introduces Aurelia Orestilla, who has been mentioned by Sallust in section 15; and then comes the first meeting of the conspirators, both in Jonson and Sallust. To show at a glance how far Jonson has used the Catilina, I here give a table of parallel references.1 Sallust, however, not only supplies the main framework for the plot, but it is from him that many of 1 This table is adapted from a similar one in Miss Wright's unpublished thesis. |