7 May, 1595 - The First Part of Hercules

Here's what the Admiral's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: y^e 7 of Maye 1595 ... ne ... R at the firste pte of herculous ... iij^ll xiij^s

In modern English: 7^th May, 1595 ... New ... Received at The First Part of Hercules ... £3 and 13 shillings.

Today, the Admiral's Men premiered a new play! The First Part of Hercules is lost, but it was clearly designed to be the first of a two-part drama retelling the legends of the Greek mythological strongman. Exactly which tales were dramatized is uncertain but there are strong clues that the Twelve Labours of Hercules were among them. Either way, the play attracted an exceptionally large crowd to the Rose, which was at almost full capacity.

The legends of Hercules

Hercules and Cerberus by
Rubens (1636)

There are many legends of Hercules, but the most famous are perhaps the Twelve Labours set him by King Eurystheus. Let's remind ourselves of what they are, following the traditional account in Apollodorus's Library:

1. Slaying the Nemean lion
2. Slaying the Lernean hydra
3. Capturing the Cerynitian hind
4. Capturing the Erymanthian boar
5. Clearing the cattle dung from the stable of Augeus
6. Chasing away the Stymphalian birds
7. Capturing the Cretan bull
8. Capturing the man-eating horses of Diomedes
9. Capturing the belt of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons
10. Capturing the cattle of Geryon the three-bodied giant
11. Fetching the dragon-guarded golden apples of the Hesperides
12. Capturing Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld

Hercules and the Hydra by
Antonio del Pollaiolo (1475)

This seems like enough work for one man, but there are many other legends of Hercules. He is among the team of Argonauts assembled by Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece. He becomes the slave of Omphale and is forced to wear women's clothes. He rescues Alcestis from the land of the dead. And much more besides.

So, which of these stories were included in the Hercules plays? There are clues in the inventories of props and costumes that are among Henslowe's papers. A 1598 list of props vividly proves that several of the Labours of Hercules could have been staged: it includes "one boar's head and Cerberus's three heads", "one tree of golden apples", "one bull's head" and "one lion".

Further evidence suggests that all Twelve Labours may have appeared in the play. In 1612, the playwright Thomas Heywood wrote his Apology for Actors, an attempt at defending theatre from anti-theatrical campaigners. In it, Heywood celebrates the power of the actor to "move the spirits of the beholder to admiration". After describing many examples, he writes,

to see, as I have seen, Hercules in his own shape hunting the boar, knocking down the bull, taming the hart, fighting with Hydra, murdering Geryon, slaughtering Diomed, wounding the Stymphalides, killing the Centaurs, pashing the lion, squeezing the dragon, dragging Cerberus in chains, and, lastly, on his high pyramids writing "nil ultra", oh, these were sights to make an Alexander!

Hercules fighting the Nemean Lion by
Francisco de Zurbarán (1634)

Heywood claims to have seen all twelve labours performed, and the Hercules plays of the Rose may thus have done so.

But how on earth could such events be represented? One explanation is found in another possible eye-witness account: Augustine Vincent's Discovery of Errors in the First Edition of the Catalogue of Nobility (1622). In this book - a critique of a recent catalogue of heraldric information - Vincent accuses its author of using straw man arguments, and thus of being "like Hercules in a play, that made monsters of straw for himself to subdue". The image here describes the lead actor creating dummy creatures that he will then 'defeat' onstage. Perhaps this reflects stage practice, and perhaps Edward Alleyn did indeed "pash" a Nemean Lion made of straw to the delight of his fans.

Hercules Killing the Dragon
in the Garden of the Hesperides
by Lorenzo Vaiani (1568)

The Twelve Labours of Hercules seem like a lot of story for one play, and so, in his book on the Admiral's Men, Andrew Gurr assumes that Hercules was a two-parter because there were six labours in each play. But there is another relevant entry in Henslowe's inventory: "one golden fleece". This suggests that the legend of Jason and the Argonauts was staged at the Rose too. In his catalogue of British drama, Martin Wiggins thus speculates that Part One was about the Labours and Part Two dramatized other adventures. If so, Part One would have been a non-stop action-packed romp with little time for nuance or even dialogue.

FURTHER READING

The First Part of Hercules information

• Apollodorus, The Library, trans. James George Frazer (1921), II.v.
• Thomas Heywood, An Apology for Actors (1612), B3^v-B4^r.
• Augustine Vincent, A Discovery of Errors in the First Edition of the Catalogue of Nobility Published by Raphe Brooke, York Herald, 1619 (1622), ¶3^r
• Andrew Gurr, Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company, 1594-1625 (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 214.
• Martin Wiggins, British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue, vol. 3 (Oxford University Press, 2013), entry 999.

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

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