12 February, 1596 - The Blind Beggar of Alexandria

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 12 of febreary 1595 ... ne ... R at the blind beger of elexendrea  ... iij^ll 

In modern English: 12^th February, [1596] ... New ... Received at The Blind Beggar of Alexandria ... £3

George Chapman, from a 1616 edition of his
translation of Homer.

Today, the Admiral's Men premiered a new play! And, unusually enough, this one can still be read today. The Blind Beggar of Alexandria was written by George Chapman and first published in 1598.

Chapman was in the early years of his career in 1596, but he would go on to be a famous playwright and poet with a classicist bent. He would be admired for his stage comedies and tragedies, but perhaps best known for his translations of Homer (the reading of which made John Keats feel like "like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken").

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria was one of Chapman's first plays, but he hit the ground running: as we'll see in future entries, the Rose audience loved it and made it a popular part of the repertoire.

The play

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria is set in the titular Egyptian city during the Hellenistic era. The beggar in question is a fortune-teller named Irus, who is sought out by Queen Aegiale to help her find an admirer, the general Duke Cleanthes, whom she had earlier banished for making inappropriate advances, but whom she now would like to see again. Irus recommends that she offer a reward.

Beggars in Alexandria; an undated photograph
from Brooklyn Museum's Lantern Slide Collection

But here's the twist: Irus and Cleanthes are the same person! Born a mere shepherd, Irus is neither blind nor a beggar, but is a master of disguise who is busily achieving power and sexual conquest via an array of false identities, 'Duke Cleanthes' being just one of them. In the role of 'Count Hermes', a crazy aristocrat, he marries a young woman called Elimine, and as 'Leon', an old usurer, he marries Psamathis. Things get more bizarre when he begins cheating on himself, using his various guises.

But bigger events are afoot. A prophecy states that if King Ptolemy can marry off his daughter Aspatia to Prince Doricles of Arcadia, he will be able to conquer his neighbouring kingdoms. The neighbouring kings are worried about this and decide to invade, having heard that the great general Cleanthes is missing. Irus sees an opportunity for power.

Irus uses his 'Hermes' persona to assassinate Doricles and then fakes the deaths of 'Leon' and 'Hermes'. When the other kings invade Egypt and kill King Ptolemy, the Egyptians seek out 'Cleanthes', who leads them to victory and is elected king. To make peace, 'Cleanthes' gives away his 'widows' to the neighbouring kings.

And so, a mere shepherd becomes the King of Egypt! In the play's last lines, our hero tells the assembled Egyptian lords,

So let us go to frolic in our court,
Carousing free whole bowls of Greekish wine
In honour of the conquest we have made,
That at our banquet all the gods may tend,
Plauding our victory and this happy end.

If you would like to read The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, you'll need to track down a copy of T.M. Parrott's 1910 edition of Chapman.

What we learn from this

Illustration of the historical Tamburlaine
from Richard Knolles' General History
of the Turks (1603).

This story of the shepherd who becomes king would no doubt have reminded the Rose audience of the eponymous protagonist of Tamburlaine, a Scythian shepherd who becomes the ruler of a vast empire through conquest. Irus achieves power in rather a different way - with some military prowess, to be sure, but also with a great deal of comical trickery and disguise.

Edward Alleyn, the star actor at the Rose who had achieved fame as Tamburlaine, no doubt played Irus the beggar, revelling in the comic twist on his own role, and enjoying the fun of his frenetic costume changes and rapid switching of personae. As with so many of the Rose plays, this one can be read as a love letter to Alleyn.

FURTHER READING

Blind Beggar of Alexandria information

• Andrew Gurr, Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company, 1594-1625 (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 22-24
• Martin Wiggins, British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue, vol. 3 (Oxford University Press, 2013), entry 1032.

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)
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Comments?

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