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Sunday, January 19, 2025

The Long and Winding Road to Shakespeare's Bohemian Sea Coast.

In this series:


In our previous article, “Why Shakespeare was Correct: Bohemia did have a seacoast,” we touched on the fact that the playwright's The Winter's Tale was based closely on Robert Greene's 1588 Pandosto: the Triumph of Time also known as Dorastus and Fawnia. Also that the play is almost certainly based upon the 1588, 1592 or 1595 editions of the tale.

The uncertainty as to which edition has to do with the fact that the sole copy of the 1588 edition is missing Signature B of the text. The text of the 1592 appears to have been identical, but it is not possible to be certain, vis-a-vis Signature B, and the 1595 edition to have been printed from the galleys of the 1592. The 1607 edition and later are missing a line quoted verbatim in the play from the three earlier editions.

For this and other reasons, the original source(s) for the tale were those adapted by Robert Greene. There can be no doubt that Greene borrowed widely for his tale. The debate as to just what the sources might have been is perhaps best summarized in the Moorman edition of Shakepeare's The Winter's Tale (1909).

Our eventual goal is to determine how Greene came to describe Bohemia as having a sea coast. As part of the process, we seek to determine any of his source(s) that led to the description. Toward that end, Frederick William Moorman brings to our attention an article that Professor J. Caro

contributed to the second volume of Englische Studien (1878), and entitled "Die historischen Elemente in Shakespeare's 'Sturm' und 'Wintermarchen,'" endeavours to show that the story of Pandosto's jealousy and cruelty towards Bellaria is founded upon an actual incident in the fourteenth century annals of Poland.1

In spite of the vague references to Polish folk history and historical fiction romances, to support his thesis, Caro manages to provide a number of strong clues that will eventually arrive at the answer to our question.

Caro takes his strongest parallel from Book IX of Jan Dlugossi's2 (in Poland and Bohemia famous) fifteenth century Annales seu cronici incliti regni Poloniae.3

When Jagiello returned to Poland from Lithuania in 1388, it was said that his chamberlain Gniewosz4 had whispered to him that William of Austria had been in Krakow in the meantime and had had secret relations with Queen Hedwig during a stay of several days. The king was inflamed with jealousy over this and only the clever intervention of the magnates was the dispute resolved. But new discord and mistrust soon arose and it was clearly evident that the king's slanderers had gained the ear and similar whisperings were poisoning the queen's life.5

The standard version of Dlugossi's chronicle was first published in 1711. During some 400 years prior to that, it was produced for distribution in large numbers by scribes. This means that there were minor differences between even the best copies and some downright blunders. These will prove to be key to identifying how Bohemia came to have a sea coast in Pandosto.

Caro chose the Jagiello-Hedwig historical moment because he wanted the Greene's source to coincide with a 1390-1 visit by an English delegation to Danzig whose ship had been driven off course, by a fierce storm, anchoring near Szczecin at the mouth of the Oder River. He intended to strengthen a separate theory, regarding the source of Shakespeare's The Tempest, by showing that Greene's source must have made its way to England with the return home of the Englishmen. For trying to kill two birds with one stone he ended up failing to kill either but leaving behind a description of what he had discovered in the process.

As fine a source as Dlugossi is, Caro could only bring him to a specific point by referring to the aforesaid folk stories incorporating the Jagiello-Hedwig story. As problematical as such a thing is for a scholar he did name names. Those names came to too little in Dlugossi but came to a great deal in the surprisingly many Silesian chronicles written over much the same time and published in the 18th century.

Caro expands upon the Jagiello-Hedwig story from the text of a purported 16th century manuscript allegedly discovered by the 19th century author Theodor Nasbutt best known for being a “scholar” with a novelistic method of evaluating historical evidence.

This is the tale of a different Duke and Duchess, of Mazovia, Semovit and Ludomilla, married some 20 years earlier.

The lady was of rare beauty, cheerful temperament, exemplary in every respect, charitable, pious, without pride or courtliness. The Duke loved her unconditionally, and with him she had complete freedom in her pleasures as well as in the disposal of treasures.6

Sometime after their marriage rumor came to the Duke that Ludmilla had been pregnant before their marriage. As the rumor went, her companion in this disgrace was none other than the duke's “cupbearer, Dobek, a very popular courtier.”7

The Duke “sent a secret order to [the Bishop of] Plozk[, his right-hand man,] to arrest the cupbearer Dobek, and returned to Mazovia with his wife as quickly as possible without telling anyone.”8 Dobek had already escaped, however.

The Duchess was placed in prison where she had a boy-child, Henry. The Duke ordered that it be disposed of. His Duchess died in the prison. Dobek was lured back to the Duchy and brutally murdered where his corpse revealed that he had actually been a woman. Meanwhile, the child was being brought up by a rustic peasant woman.

If this tale seems far-fetched, to the reader, and lacking a provenance, they are correct on both counts. It seems clearly to take the historical record regarding Ludomila and to fictionalize it with the intent to turn it into a popular pot-boiler and/or to create a connection with Greene's Pandosto. Strange as it may be, however, all of the above amounts to a map to an historical scavenger hunt that arrives in the end at the actual source from which Greene developed the plot of Pandosto's jealousy.

We will follow that map in the next installment.



1Shakespeare, William. The Winter's Tale, F. W. Moorman. Ed, (1912). xviii.

2Generally referred to by his Latin name, Johannes Longinus.

3The 1711 Frankfort edition is entitled: Dlugossi, Joannis. Historiae Poloniae (1711).

4Gniewosz's Latin name in Dlugossi was Gnieuossium de Dalewycze.

5Caro, Die historischen Elemente in Shakespeare's »Sturm« und »Wintermährchen«. Englische Studien 1878. 141ff.@160. Als Jagiello nämlich aus Litthauen 1388 nach Polen zurückgekehrt war, so erzählte man, habe ihm sein unterkämmerer Gniewosz zugeraunt, dass inzwischen Wilhelm von Oesterreich in Krakau gewesen und während eines mehrtägigen aufenthalts geheimen verkehr mit der königin Hedwig gehabt hätte. Darüber sei der könig in eifersucht entbrannt und nur durch die kluge dazwischenkunft der magnaten seien die zwistigkeiten beseitigt worden. Bald aber war neuer Zwiespalt, neues misstrauen eingetreten, und es war deutlich erkennbar, dass Verleumder des königs ohr gewonnen, und ähnliche einflüsterungen auch das leben der königin vergifteten. [translation by Google Translate].

6Caro, 166. Die dame war von seltener Schönheit, fröhlichen temperaments , musterhaft in jeder beziehung, wohlthätig, fromm, ohne stolz oder hoffahrt. Der herzog liebte sie grenzenlos, und sie hatte bei ihm jede freiheit in Vergnü-gungen ebenso wie in der Verfügung über die schätze. [translation by Google Translate]

7Ibid., 167.

8Ibid.



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