- 1567-89;
- 1589-92;
- More from 1589-92.
He entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1582, as a sizar (a poor student paying tuition through menial services to his house). He began work on a masters after some 3 years and continued as a Lady Margaret Scholar, beginning in 1584, for some 5 years more, until it was removed and he was forced to leave. The Alumni Cantabrigiensis has it that he was “Probably expelled for his share in Terminus et non Terminus wherein he played the Valet of Clubs.” It is likelier, however, that he was occupying rooms without actively proceeding toward a masters for which reason he lost his scholarship.
Terminus et non Terminusis apparently not the only play he co-wrote while at Cambridge. The play The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage was published in 1594 with Christopher Marlowe and Nashe listed as authors. Both were Cambridge students circa 1584 when the play was written. The opening interlude and passages relating to the gods of the pantheon are the type of thing Marlowe never indulged in. Nashe is said to have been smitten
with euphuism early on and these passages, in particular, are in that style.
Jupiter. COme gentle Ganimed and play with me,
I love thee well, say Juno what she will
Ganimede. I am much better for your worthies loue.
That will not shield me from her shrewish blowes:
To day when as I hid into your cups,
And held the cloath of pleasance whiles you dranke.
She reacht me such a rap for that I spilde,
As made the bloud run downe about mine eares.
Jup. What dares she strike the darling of my thoughts?
By Saturnes souIe,and this earth threatning aire.
That shaken thrise,makes Natures buildings quake,
I vow, if she but once frownc on thee more.
To hang her meteor like twixt heaven and earth.
And bind her hand and foote with golden cordes.
As once I did for harming Hercules.
Gan. Might I but see that pretie sport a foote,
O how would I with Helens brother laugh,
And bring the Gods to wonder at the game;
The composition date is not often mentioned among scholars because it causes problems. Nashe was 17 or 18 years of age at the time — as immature as the passage indicates. Still, its title-page advertises that it was played by “the Children of Her Majesties Chappell” and the children ceased playing in 1585. They were only revived in 1600.
Curiously, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, had purchased the lease of the first version of the Blackfriars Theater, where the children played, and signed it over to his secretary John Lyly. The two men would have been the managers who selected the play for production (along with a number of others now famous for being among the great early works of Elizabethan theater). This is almost certainly the means by which the four become acquainted.
It is worth mentioning that the Player's Speech, in Hamlet, is generally thought to be a jab at the rhetoric of Dido. I have offered the conjecture that the speech was originally an epilogue to Vere's Ulysses and Agamemnon (1584) played by the Children soon after.1
This is hardly the only occasion in which knowing the logistics of play publishing is important. Plays (owned by others than Philip Henslowe) were generally published after their popularity had faded, and was not expected to revive, or after a major related headline event. In the case of Marlowe's plays (other than those owned by Henslowe), they began to be published after his death in 1593. Thus the title page of Dido informs us that he and Nashe wrote the play circa 1584, it remained popular through the time of his death and was published in 1594, by whoever owned it at the time, in order to take advantage of the lurid manner of the playwright's sensational death (reason to revive and publish while the iron was hot).
The play The Raigne of King Edward III has come to be attributed, in recent years, to Marlowe and William Shakespeare, as will be mentioned in a study I expect to publish at any day. The title page neither shows author(s) nor the venue(s) in which the play was presented. This because it was left unfinished at Marlowe's death. The unfinished manuscript seems to have been handed along to Edward de Vere. In the case of Dido, Vere may well have owned the rights, but it was completed in 1584 and given a run on the Blackfriars stage. There was no need for Nashe to complete it. He was far more likely the co-author in 1584.
Robert Greene was also an alum of Cambridge (receiving his Masters in 1583). He engaged Nashe to write a now famous letter by way of introduction to his Menaphon: Camillas alarum to slumbering Euphues, in his melancholie cell at Silexedra (1589). He is often credited with recognizing Nashe's talent although the younger man had no previous publications but we have seen that Greene could well have visited his old school or Blackfriars to watch the play. Also, Nashe's Anatomie of Absurditie had been registered with the Stationers in September of 1588 and may already have been published. The tone of the Anatomie and of the Letter is identical.
So then, by 1589 Thomas Nashe had already gotten in tight with Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, John Lyly, Edward de Vere and others of considerable importance not so well known to history. He clearly had an equal talent as hail-fellow-well-met combined with ambition. His wit already bordered on the manic and went over the border into unwise lack of restraint. Life was short and he had a lot of writing and partying to do.
1New Variorum Hamlet (1918). II.ii.416-8. “Hamlet. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted ; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general ;...”
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”
On Shakespeare's lameness and historical-fiction biography, etc. August 5, 2023. “Those who support Sogliardo of Stratford and other authorship candidates generally stop by from time to time to remark...”
- Shakespeare CSI: Sir Thomas More, Hand-D. April 22, 2023. “What a glory to have an actual hand-written manuscript from the greatest English writer of all time!”
- Robert Greene and the Construction Shakespeare Never Used. August 9, 2022. 'Our first foray “staring intently into” the texts of Robert Greene has noted that his work utilized far fewer feminine endings than Shakespeare’s.'
A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years. Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
- Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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