“Received in earnest of Patient Grissell by us Tho. Dekker, Hen.
Chettle and Willm. Hawton the sume of 3 li. of good and lawfull
money by a note sent from Mr. Robt. Shaa’s the 19th of December,
1599. By me,
HENRY CHETTLE.
W. HAUGHTON.
THOMAS DEKKER.”
The Robert Shaa or Shaw here mentioned was, Mr. Collier tells us, one of
the temporary managers of the company of the Earl of Nottingham’s
players. The comedy was entered at Stationers’ Hall for publication on
the 28th March, 1600, as “the Plaie of Patient Grissell,” but it did not
appear until three years afterwards.
The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill. As it hath beene sundrie times
lately plaid by the right honorable the Earle of Nottingham (Lord high
Admirall) his servants. London. Imprinted for Henry Rocket, and are to
be solde at the long shop under S. Mildred’s Church in the Poultry.
1603. 4to. 42 leaves.
The play is anonymous, but the entry in Henslowe’s Diary informs us who
the authors were.
Patient Grissil: a Comedy by Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and William
Haughton. Reprinted from the Black-Letter edition of 1603, with an
Introduction and Notes [by J. Payne Collier]. London. Printed for the
Shakespeare Society. 1841. The introduction contains an interesting
account of the history of Griselda.
On August 30th, 1667, Pepys saw at Bartholomew Fair the puppet play of
“Patient Grizill,” and Warton in a note to his _History of English
Poetry_ writes: “I need not mention that it is to this day represented
in England on a stage of the lowest species and of the highest
antiquity: I mean a puppet show.”
“The Patient Countess,” in Percy’s _Reliques_ from Warner’s _Albions
England_, is a totally different story from that of the patient wife of
the Marquis Walter.
Warton mentions a MS. poem by William Forrest, and, as it has lately
been printed, I give the title here, although it contains no notice of
the original Grisild.
The History of Grisild the Second: a Narrative in Verse of the Divorce
of Queen Katharine of Arragon. Written by William Forrest, sometime
Chaplain to Queen Mary I., and now edited for the first time from the
Author’s MS. in the Bodleian Library by the Rev. W. D. Macray, M.A.,
F.S.A. London. Printed by Whittingham and Wilkins at the Chiswick Press,
1875. 4to. Roxburghe Club.
The Griselda literature is a tolerably large one, and it is therefore
scarcely necessary in this place to give more than the above general
indication of an interesting subject. It may be noted that the titles of
the works on the subject in the library of the British Museum occupy
nine pages of the manuscript catalogue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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