Old Fortunatus
Encyclopedia
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1599 in literature
-Events:* Undated - Opening of the Globe Theatre.*June 4 - Middleton's Microcynicon and Marston's Scourge of Villainy are publicly burned, as ecclesiastical authorities crack down on the craze for satire of the past year. The Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury tighten their...
) is a play in a mixture of prose and verse by Thomas Dekker, based on the German legend of Fortunatus
Fortunatus
Fortunatus is a German proto-novel or chapbook about a legendary hero popular in 15th and 16th century Europe.-The tale:The tale follows the life of a young man named Fortunatus from relative obscurity through his adventures towards fame and fortune; it subsequently follows the careers of his two...
and his magic inexhaustible purse. Though the play is not easy to categorise, it has been called "the only example of an interlude
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...
inspired by the fully developed genius of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
".
Synopsis
Fortunatus, a beggar, meets the goddess FortuneFortuna
Fortuna can mean:*Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck -Geographical:*19 Fortuna, asteroid*Fortuna, California, town located on the north coast of California*Fortuna, United States Virgin Islands...
, and she offers him a choice between wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches. He chooses riches and is given a purse from which he can take ten pieces of gold at any time. He then takes himself off to Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
to visit his two sons, the reckless spendthrift Andelocia and the more prudent and unimaginative Ampedo. To Cyprus also go Fortune and her attendants Vice and Virtue
Virtue
Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....
, who plant two trees, Vice's tree being covered with fair fruit while Virtue's tree hardly bears any fruit at all. Fortunatus visits the court of the Soldan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
of Turkey
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, where he tricks the Soldan out of his miraculous hat, which has the power of taking the wearer wherever he wishes to go. Fortunatus returns to Cyprus, but his life of luxury is cut short by Fortune, and his two sons inherit the purse and hat; they agree that Andelocia will take the purse and Ampedo the hat. Andelocia goes to England and woos Agripyne, the daughter of king Athelstane
Athelstan of England
Athelstan , called the Glorious, was the King of England from 924 or 925 to 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder, grandson of Alfred the Great and nephew of Æthelflæd of Mercia...
, but she tricks him out of his purse. He returns to Cyprus and robs Ampedo of his hat, then travels to England in disguise hoping to regain his purse. Though he succeeds in abducting Agripyne, she takes the hat and uses it to return home. Not only has Andelocia now lost both purse and hat, he has also been turned into a horned beast by injudiciously eating apples from the tree planted by Vice. Virtue offers to turn him back to his old shape if he will only eat her fruit, bitter though it tastes. He does so, and is transformed both physically and morally. On Fortune's advice he travels to England, in disguise again, in the hope of regaining the purse and hat. There he finds not only Agripyne but also Ampedo. He takes both talismans from the princess and gives the hat to Ampedo, who, recognizing the ill-luck it has brought them, burns it. The brothers are now taken prisoner by English courtiers and, unable to use the hat to escape, are put in the stocks
Stocks
Stocks are devices used in the medieval and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by...
and die there. Fortune takes back the marvellous purse, and appeal is made from the stage to Queen Elizabeth
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...
to decide whether Virtue or Vice has been the victor.
Writing and publication
Old Fortunatus is based on the old German tale of FortunatusFortunatus
Fortunatus is a German proto-novel or chapbook about a legendary hero popular in 15th and 16th century Europe.-The tale:The tale follows the life of a young man named Fortunatus from relative obscurity through his adventures towards fame and fortune; it subsequently follows the careers of his two...
, first published as a chapbook at Augsburg in 1509, and again in a slightly different form at Frankfurt am Main in 1550. The story was dramatized by Hans Sachs
Hans Sachs
Hans Sachs was a German meistersinger , poet, playwright and shoemaker.-Biography:Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg . His father was a tailor. He attended Latin school in Nuremberg...
in 1553. An English play referred to as The First Part of Fortunatus is known to have been written in 1596, but the text of it has not survived, and its relationship to Dekker's play has been the subject of much conjecture. Dekker's Old Fortunatus was written in November 1599 for the theatrical impresario Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London...
and his company, the Admiral's Men
Admiral's Men
The Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...
. The text as we now have it is a revision made shortly afterwards for a performance before Queen Elizabeth
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...
on 27 December 1599. It was published in quarto
Quarto
Quarto could refer to:* Quarto, a size or format of a book in which four leaves of a book are created from a standard size sheet of paper* For specific information about quarto texts of William Shakespeare's works, see:...
early in 1600, implying that it was no longer being produced on the public stage.
Revival and critical reception
When Charles Lamb drew the public's attention to the best Elizabethan and Jacobean plays in his Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Who Lived about the Time of Shakespeare (1808) he included substantial extracts from Old Fortunatus, and declared that the man who wrote it "had poetry enough for any thing." The first edition of the play for more than 200 years appeared in 1814, as part of C. W. DilkeCharles Wentworth Dilke
Charles Wentworth Dilke was an English liberal critic and writer on literature.-Professional life :He served for many years in the Navy Pay-Office, on retiring from which he devoted himself to literary pursuits.- Literary life:...
's Old English Plays. Old Fortunatus was acted at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
on eleven nights in 1819, with incidental music by Henry Bishop. The same year William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...
delivered his Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, in which he spoke of Old Fortunatus as having "the idle garrulity of age, with the freshness and gaiety of youth still upon its cheek and in its heart." Later in the century James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets...
called the play "a favourite of mine", while George Saintsbury
George Saintsbury
George Edward Bateman Saintsbury , was an English writer, literary historian, scholar and critic.-Biography:...
wrote that it was "to the last degree crude and undigested, but the ill-matured power of the writer is almost the more apparent." The literary historian Adolphus William Ward
Adolphus William Ward
Sir Adolphus William Ward was an English historian and man of letters.He was born at Hampstead, London, and was educated in Germany and at Peterhouse, Cambridge....
balanced the work's vices and virtues:
The construction of this drama is necessarily lax; the wild defiance of the unities of time and place accords well with the nature of the subject; but as the author seems so strongly impressed by the moral of his story, he ought not to have allowed the virtuous and the vicious son of Fortunatus to come alike to grief…Altogether this romantic comedy attracts by a singular vigour and freshness; but its principal charm lies in the appropriately naif treatment of its simple, not to say childlike, theme.
Modern editions
- Ernest RhysErnest RhysErnest Percival Rhys was an English writer, best known for his role as founding editor of the Everyman's Library series of affordable classics. He wrote essays, stories, poetry, novels and plays...
(ed.) Thomas Dekker London: Vizetelly & Co., 1887. Repr. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1888, and again 1904. Repr. London: Ernest Benn, 1949. - Hans Scherer (ed.) The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus Erlangen: A. Deichert, 1901.
- Oliphant SmeatonWilliam Henry Oliphant SmeatonWilliam Henry Oliphant Smeaton , sometimes using the pen name Oliphant Smeaton, was a Scottish writer, journalist, editor, historian and educator. He was popularly known for his writing on Australian life and literature for various British publications as well as for his adventure and children's...
(ed.) Old Fortunatus: A Play London: J. M. Dent, 1904. - Fredson Bowers (ed.) The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.
- Old Fortunatus: 1600 Menston: Scolar Press, 1971. Facsimile reprint of the 1600 edition.