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From stage to folk: a note on the passages from Addison's Rosamond in the "Truro" mummers' play - Topics, Notes And Comments
Tom PettittFollowing his convincingly documented relocation and re-dating of the "Mylor" play to Truro and the 1780s, Peter Millington devotes more attention to its place in relation to the various sub-traditions of the Hero Combat plays than to the incorporation of substantial amounts of textual material from literary and sub-literary sources, which is this play's major idiosyncracy (Millington 2003). More than legitimate for a folklorist writing in Folklore, this bias has prompted, none the less, the following complementary observations from a literary and theatre historian with an interest in folk drama. While Truro may be unique with regard to the specific sources it uses, such intertextuality may actually be characteristic of the earlier phases of traditional drama, and therefore possibly of some relevance for exploring its origins and development (Pettitt 1981, 16-20). In this note, I deal specifically with the lines in the Truro play deriving from Addison's opera Rosamond, whose plot (of which we will see very little) involves Queen Eleanour's apparent poisoning of Rosamond, King Henry's mistress; when the King repents of the liaison, the Queen reveals that Rosamond is alive (but safely secluded in a nunnery). All the lines concerned were identified long ago by R. J. E. Tiddy (Tiddy 1923, 155-6). What follows rather notes the purposes to which the lines were put in the Truro play, and then speculates on how they got there. To this end, I shall juxtapose the original libretto of the opera (from the edition I identify as the most likely immediate source) with Peter Millington's transcript of the manuscript of the Truro play, which he rediscovered in the course of his research, and which he has made available in the Traditional Drama Research Group's Collection of Scripts.
Most of the untraditional material in the Truro play is used to construct what may once have been a rather less garbled sequel to the usual combat and cure plot, built up around stanzas taken from the ballad "King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France" (no. 164 in Child's standard collection). This ballad may be no older than the early eighteenth century but, to judge from the surviving texts, by the time the Truro play was recorded it would have been readily available in oral tradition or on broadside (Child 1965, 3:320-6). The stanzas taken from it are accompanied by and interspersed with additional material, whose mostly belligerent exclamations (and references to one or other "King Henry") are compatible with its plot, if sometimes anachronistic (like the boasts of the much more recent historical figures, Admiral Byng and Edward Vernon). The sources of this additional material remain obscure, except for the lines identified by Tiddy as deriving from Joseph Addison's opera Rosamond, of 1707.
In the Truro play the lines concerned make up what (in the manuscript's idiosyncratic manner) is designated speech 24, assigned not to a character, but to a named performer, Penty Landin. The last time he spoke in the play (speech 22) he was playing the role of the English messenger from King Henry, demanding (in lines deriving from the ballad's stanza 4) tribute from the King of France. The latter (in the play's speech 23) predictably responds (with lines deriving from the ballad's stanza 5) by offering tennis balls. Since the messenger has already threatened (in speech 22) that, if rebuffed, Henry would rapidly invade, there is some dramatic effect in his responding to the King of France with the following outburst deriving from Rosamond, Act I scene 1:
Rosamond. A Tragic-Opera "A Play for Christmas"
London: J. Harrison, 1778. Cornwall Record Office,
(line-numbering supplied Enys Memoranda f. 22,
from modern editions) transcr. Peter Millington
[www.folkplay.info/Texts
/78sw84em.htm]
1.1 Page. Penty Landin 24
[= Henry's Page?]
68. Hark, hark! what sound invades my ear? Hark hark wot sonding
The conqueror's approach I hear. vads my ears the conquars
a porch I hear tis Henrys
march tis Henry tune/I
now
70. He comes, victorious Henry comes! he comes he comes
Hautboys, trumpets, fifes and drums, victorus Henry comes
In dreadful concert join'd, with obboys Tropats fifes
Send from afar and drums
A sound of war, send from a far
and sound of war
75. And fill with horror ev'ry wind. foll of grief and every
wind.
The interpolation is anachronistic, of course, in the sense that Addison's "Henry" was a quite different one, King Henry II, but (especially in the absence of the Roman numerals) it works in the immediate context, and may have been facilitated by a correspondence in speaker: in Rosamond, these lines are spoken by a page, while the messenger in the ballad is there referred to (stanza 7.1) as a "trusty page" (this comes through in speech 25 of the Truro text as "lovely page," probably influenced by earlier lines in the ballad; stanzas 2.1, 3.1). The narrative logic of the interpolation soon collapses, however, as, when the Truro play resumes following the ballad, as it does immediately (at speech 25), Henry V is still awaiting news of the French King's response to his ultimatum. And before this there is a thematic discontinuity, as the speech in the Truro play under discussion (speech 24) continues with further lines from Rosamond in a quite different mood from a later scene, spoken by Rosamond herself as she longs for the return of her royal lover:
1.4 Rosamond.
1. From walk to walk, from shade to shade, from walk to walk from
From stream to purling stream convey'd, shade to shade from Strim
Through all the mazes of the grove, to poolin strim comvaid
Through all the mingling tracts I rove, thrue all the minglin of
the groove thrue all the
minglin tracks of love
5. Turning, tyrnin
Burning, burnin
Changing, changin
Ranging, Rangin
Full of grief, and full of love! full of grfe [sic] and
full of woe
10. Impatient for my Lord's return, impashent from my Lords
I sigh, I pine, I rave, I mourn. return.
Was ever passion cross'd like mine?
This is not, however, the full extent of the Truro Play's indebtedness to Rosamond, for as Tiddy also noted there is another borrowing earlier in the play, within (if towards the end of) the central, traditional, Hero Combat action. As often in the mummers' plays, that action has pitted St George against the Turkish Knight, who is slain and duly brought back to life by the Quack Doctor. The confused exclamation of surprise with which in some local traditions the slain combatant revives here takes the form of a lyrical outburst (speech 14), originally spoken by Queen Eleanour in Act I scene 1 as she surveys the park where King Henry has secluded Rosamond:
1.1 Queen. P. Langdon 14 [= Turkish
Knight]
1. What place is here! What places is are
What scenes appear! what seens appare
Where'er I turn my eyes, whare ever itorn mine eye
All around tis all around
5. Enchanted ground in chantin ground
And soft Elysiums rise: and soft delusions rise
Flow'ry mountains, floury mountins
Mossy fountains, mosy fountins
Shady woods,
10. Chrystal floods,
With wild variety surprise, what will veriety surprize
As o'er the hollow vaults we walk, tis on the alow walks we
A hundred echoes round us talk: walks an hundred ecos round
From hill to hill the voice is tost, us stock from hils to hils
the voices tost
15. Rocks rebounding rocks rebounding
Caves resounding, ecos resounding
Not a single word is lost. not one single words was
lost.
The mood is evidently catching, as St George (in speech 15) responds with lines originally spoken by the Queen's Page a little later in the same scene:
1.1 Page. Henry Crossrnan 15 [= St George]
34. Behold on yonder rising ground Behould on yander risen ground
35. the bower, that wanders the bour that woander
In meanders,
Ever bending, ever ending
Never ending, ever bending
Glades on glades, glades an glades
40. Shades in shades shades an shades
Running an eternal round, running on eternal round.
Rosamond Performed and Printed
Of the various channels by which this material might have got into the Truro play, the least likely is probably someone recollecting the text from a theatre performance, although the decisive factors are practical and geographical rather than chronological. The Truro play as we have it was recorded some time in the 1780s, and Addison's Rosamond was composed, published, and first performed three quarters of a century earlier, in 1707. But we do not know how long the Addison material had been in the Truro play before it was recorded, and conversely Addison's opera continued to be performed fairly deep into the eighteenth century. With libretto by Addison and music by Thomas Clayton, Rosamond was a failure at Drury Lane in 1707, achieving only three performances (Avery 1960, 142, 143). A later production with new music by composer Thomas ("Rule Britannia") Arne was vastly more successful, with seven performances at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in 1733 (Scouten 1961, 273 [advertisement], 276, 277, 278, 285, 286, 294 [performances]). These were followed by revivals at Drury Lane in 1740 (seven performances), 1741 (two performances), 1745 (thirteen performances) and 1747 (two performances) (Scouten 1961, 824, 825, 826, 827, 829; 892, 900; 1149, 1150, 1151, 1152, 1158, 1164, 1173; cf. 1175 [advertised but not performed]; 1278, 1279).
Except in 1733 and 1741, this version of Rosamond invariably appears as the afterpiece in a double bill, suggesting it may have been shortened, and one of the 1741 performances is indeed advertised as "Reduced to Two Acts"--Addison's original having had three (Scouten 1961, 900). However, there is no way of telling if this was true already of the 1733 production, as this version of the text does not seem to have been published. Finally, there were one-off revivals of the Addison-Arne version (on both occasions as an afterpiece) at Covent Garden in 1754 and at Drury Lane in 1765 (Stone 1962, 423, 1110). In observations on the contemporary stage written in 1760, John Locke had reported a rumour that Arne had recently responded to popular demand by further reducing the work to one act (Stone 1962, 1110). There is no evidence that this ever achieved public performance, but what we do encounter is another production with new music by yet another composer, Samuel Arnold, performed just once (and as an afterpiece) at Covent Garden on 21 April 1767 (Stone 1962, 1237). It was published in the same year by the London printers L. Davis and C. Reymers as Rosamond. an opera, altered from Mr. Addison; the music, entirely new, set by Mr. Arnold. It is not clear whether Arnold made his own adaption of Addison's original libretto, or used (or further adapted) Thomas Arne's version.
The 1767 Covent Garden performance is the last recorded in London in the eighteenth century, and there seems to be no evidence of theatrical performance elsewhere. An edition of Rosamond printed in London for J. Harrison and J. Wenmann in 1778 offers, according to its title page, Rosamond: A Tragic-opera. As it is acted at the Theatres-Royal in Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden, but this is largely an advertising ploy: the claim is repeated verbatim on the title pages of some forty-five other plays issued by the same publishers in the years 1778-81. [1] In the case of Rosamond, at least, "was acted" would have been more honest than "is acted," as this edition actually contains Addison's original text as published and acted at Drury Lane in 1707. It is entirely in keeping with this sales pitch that the frontispiece has an engraving of "Mrs. Oldfield in the Character of Rosamond": no Oldfield acted this or any other role in any recorded public performance of Rosamond, and the reference is probably, by way of further advertisement, to Anne Oldfield, who was indeed the most celebrated actress at the time of the work's composition and first performances, but who did not perform in it (she was not a singer) and died in 1730 (Stephen and Lee 1963-4, 990-4).
The main argument against the scenario of someone returning from London to Truro with odd speeches from Rosamond lodged in his memory is the ready availability of printed editions of the play throughout the eighteenth century, which would have rendered the exercise superfluous. For, whatever its fortunes on the stage, Rosamond was as much or more a success in the book market, and several distinct printing traditions can be identified--all, incidentally, of the libretto without music (and one presumes the Truro mummers knew their lines from Rosamond as speeches, not arias or recitative).
On the periphery of the printing traditions we may discount the text accompanying Samuel Arnold's new music and published in 1767: it actually lacks some of the lines from the Addison text which are borrowed to become part of the Truro play's speech 24 (from "he comes ..." to "... and every wind"). One of the two central traditions in the printing history of Rosamond is publication of the work by itself, starting with what was evidently the authorised first edition printed in London by Jacob Tonson in 1707. Tonson brought out a second edition the same year, and third and fourth editions followed in 1713 and 1725. The editions with the same title printed in Dublin, Glasgow, and London in 1743, 1751, and 1765 are presumably derivatives. Well before this, however, the text had entered its second major printing tradition, encompassed within The Miscellaneous Works, in verse and prose, of the Right HonourabIe Joseph Addison, Esq., edited by Addison's friend Thomas Tickell, the first edition (also printed by Tonson) appearing in 1721. The edition of 1777 (London: W. Strahan et al.) would presumably be the latest that might be the source of the interpolations in the Truro play text of the 1780s.
Determining which of these printing traditions did provide the immediate source for the Truro interpolations might have some relevance for our understanding of the processes involved. Use of the text from a three-volume Miscellaneous Works would suggest someone with a library, or at least with the means to purchase literary publications, and the leisure and taste to enjoy them--say a local schoolmaster or clergyman (by a convenient coincidence, the University of Southern Denmark Library has a copy of the 1777 edition acquired with the library of the Bishops of Odense). Textual differences are minimal in the scenes relevant for the Truro play but, as it happens, in the borrowed stanzas there are discrepancies between the Miscellaneous Works and the single-volume traditions of Rosamond printings that, juxtaposed with the Truro text, suggest (by a margin of two to one) that it derived from the Miscellaneous Works tradition. Thus, at what in modern editions is Act 1 scene 1, line 14, Truro agrees with the Miscellaneous Works that a "voice" is "tost," against the "words" of the single-volume Rosamond, and the same goes for "word" being "lost" as against "voice" at Act 1 scene 1, line 17 (Guthkelch 1914, 301, 306). These two are evidently linked in that, at some point, "word" and "voice" have been swapped between Act 1 scene 1, line 14 and Act 1 scene 1, line 17, probably by a compositor working on one of the editions (it does not really matter which arrangement came first). On the other hand, at Act 1 scene 4, line 4, Truro's "tracks of love" is closer to the single volume's "Tracks I rove" than to the "tracts I rove" of the Miscellaneous Works, but it is difficult to judge whether the difference between the two words could actually be heard, and in the line concerned this change is anyway less significant than, and probably subordinate to, the change from "I rove" to "I love."
That we are none the less not obliged to imagine a schoolmaster or clergyman composing this part of the Truro play with a copy of the Miscellaneous Works at his elbow is due to the final piece of the Rosamond publishing jigsaw, the edition of Rosamond. A Tragic-opera of 1778 touched on earlier because of its opportunistic title-page reference to theatre performances. This follows (at least with regard to the discrepancies already noted) the Miscellaneous Works textual tradition, which apparently lies behind the Truro play interpolations, but makes it available in a single octavo volume in what is evidently a cheap series of dozens of theatre "hits" (plays by Steele, Farquhar, Gay, Shakespeare, Dryden, Fletcher, Garrick, Congreve, and the like) issued by the same publishers in these years, probably within the financial means of Peter Millington's Truro cordwainers, and a few years before the recording of the Truro play in the 1780s.
Rosamond in Truro
Reviewing the derivative material, all of which was quoted earlier, alongside the equivalent lines from Rosamond (quoted from the 1778 edition), one sees that, in purely quantitative terms, the Truro players managed to retain the inserted material with some tenacity: of the, in all, forty-three lines of the segments of text concerned, thirty-eight have been preserved in recognisably derivative forms, almost invariably in the same order. And, assuming that at this period and in this environment spelling is both phonetic and reflects local pronunciation, there are quite a few changes that are probably not changes at all: "seens appare" is probably how "scenes appear" (Act 1 scene 1, line 2) sounded locally. In other cases, however, a definite garbling has occurred, as one word is replaced by another; sometimes, admittedly, with little real damage:
Rosamond Truro
1. 1. 6 And soft Elysiums rise: and soft delusions
rise
sometimes producing nonsense:
Rosamond Truro
1. 1. 13 A hundred echoes round us talk: an hundred ecos
round us stock
1. 1. 68 Hark, hark! what sound invades my ear? Hark hark wot
sonding vads my ears
1. 1. 69 The conqueror's approach I hear. the conquars a porch
I hear
Garblings of this kind could have arisen in the course of the writing down of the text from recitation or memory, the writer attempting to reproduce what he heard or remembered hearing (for example "us stock" for "us talk" in Act 1 scene 1, line 13 just quoted). More interestingly, they might also have occurred in the course of the text's living transmission: the retention of the textual material in the performers' memories between performances and its reproduction from memory in performances. Both factors were probably operative, and by themselves, therefore, such alterations can tell us little about the extent and nature of that living transmission.
We are on firmer ground when the play-text, juxtaposed with the original and in the manner of some Shakespearean "bad quartos," displays the same kind of change as can be detected in traditional songs subjected to sustained oral transmission, essentially the generation of verbal repetitions by a process of internal contamination, with a word or phrase from one line replacing the original formulation in another line (Pettitt 1997; 2001). The lines involved can be adjacent:
Rosamond Truro 1. 1. 37 Ever bending, ever ending 1. 1. 38 Never ending, ever bending
[this is the one instance of the reversal of the order of lines]
1. 4. 3 Through all the mazes of the grove, thrue all the
minglin of the
groove
1. 4. 4 Through all the mingling tracts I rove, thrue all the
or separated by other lines: minglin tracks of
love
Rosamond Truro
1. 1. 13 A hundred echoes round us talk: an hundred ecos
round us stock
From hill to hill the voice is tost, from hils to hils
the voices tost
Rocks rebounding rocks rebounding
Caves resounding, ecos resounding.
The Truro play also has a classic instance of the contamination of a whole phrase, prompted by the occurrence of a similar word at the beginning of the lines concerned:
Rosamond Truro
1. 1. 75 And fill with horror ev'ry wind ... foil of grief and every
wind ... [eight lines
intervene]
1. 4. 9 Full of grief, and full of love! full of grfe [sic] and
full of woe
Given the example of ballad tradition, and the circumstance that each contamination occurs within a speech by a single character (in the Truro play), these instances encourage the assertion that, when the Truro play was recorded in the 1780s, the inserted passages from Rosamond had been in it through several performances, and so perhaps several seasons.
But there is one further instance of contamination in the Truro text that may permit deeper insight. While there are a few cases of the omission of lines within the text segments quoted, there is only one instance of a line being added, and it derives, as Tiddy noted, from another scene in Rosamond, albeit one already used (Act 1 scene 4) for other borrowings:
Rosamond Truro
Page. Penty Landin 24
[= Henry's Page?]
1.1.68 Hark, hark! what sound invades my ear? Hark hark wot sonding
The conqueror's approach I hear. Vads my ears the
tis Henrys march tis Henry tune/I now conquars a porch I
hear
70. He comes, victorious Henry comes! he comes he comes
victorus Henry comes
1.4 Sir Trusty.
71 But hah! a sound my bower invades,
And echoes through the winding shades;
'Tis Henry's march! the tune I know ...
As in the preceding instance, except that the process adds a line rather than substituting a formulation, recollection from memory has been disturbed by the occurrence at two points in the text of similar formulations: "what sound invades my ear" (Act 1 scene 1, line 68), "a sound my bower invades" (Act 1 scene 4, line 71). In this case, the purely verbal parallel is reinforced by a dramatic equivalence: both speeches in Rosamond are the exclamation of a subordinate figure on hearing the approach of the king (respectively, the Page attending on the Queen and the gentleman entrusted with care of Rosamond). These correspondences have induced the performer to introduce into the first instance a line from the second, "Tis Henry's march! the tune I know," before recovering and reverting to the proper sequence. But of course this can only have happened if at least part of Sir Trusty's speech from the end of Rosamond Act 1 scene 4 was once present in the memory of the Truro actor who speaks the Queen's Page's lines from Rosamond Act 1 scene 1 (that is, Penty Landin or a predecessor who transmitted his part).
The Truro play may once have contained more lines from Rosamond than it did when recorded in the 1780s, making the "King Henry" sequel even longer than it is now, but it is just as likely that this gallimaufry of loosely linked popular material is a valuable echo of a tradition of local entertainment among the young cordwainers of eighteenth-century Truro, which comprised dramatic material as well as ballads. In other words, I am suggesting that Rosamond may have been part of the repertoire of the "village theatre" of Truro or the neighbourhood, that as yet largely unresearched tradition of holiday (especially Christmas) performances of interludes, stage jigs (sung farces), and extracts from plays (drolls) by "spouting clubs" of local youth for paying audiences, of which we have sporadic glimpses from Cornwall itself, Shropshire, Wales, and the North (Bottrell 1873, 1-3; Burne 1883, 493-502; Watkins-Jones 1927-9; Baskervill 1965, 125). Rosamond (as a play, rather than an opera) would be suitable for this context. It is very short, its three acts in early editions taking up no more than eight to ten (double-column) pages. This in turn made for the cheap-format single-play edition invoked earlier, and the sentimental plot, enhanced by Addison's lyricism, may have appealed to small-town audiences in the age of sensibility. Scenic extravagances are restricted to the descent in a cloud of two angels, who could easily walk on instead. It has only nine speaking characters, and with doubling could be played by fewer: in connection with the textual contamination of a speech by the page with a line from Sir Trusty, discussed earlier, it might be noted that these two do not appear on stage at the same time and could be doubled by a single performer (Penty Landin or a predecessor).
With village theatre sharing the social and economic disruption that affected much of provincial England at the end of the eighteenth century, lines from Rosamond could then have found refuge in the mummers' play, which increasingly became the main, and ultimately perhaps the only, outlet for the histrionic talents and ambitions of local youth. From some perspectives, mummers' play texts containing untraditional material are a nuisance in traditional drama studies (Boyes 1985). However, if the Truro scenario was repeated elsewhere, it may turn out that other idiosyncratic texts may, by the same token, prove valuable sources of information on rural vernacular culture, including the village theatre, which provided a conduit for the transfer of material from the London stage to the folk tradition.
Note
[1] This statement is based on searching for publishers Harrison and Wenman (http:// www.copac.uk). The bibliographical details in this and following paragraphs are based on searching for Rosamond in this same database and in the BL on-line catalogue (http://blpc.bl. uk); in connection with the edition of 1767, I am grateful for the assistance of Sandra Billington.
References Cited
Avery, Emmett L., comp. The London Stage, 1660-1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments and Afterpieces. Part 2. 1700-1729. 2 vols [continuous pagination]. Carbondale, Ill: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960.
Baskervill, C. R. The Elizabethan Jig. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1929; reprint New York: Dover Books, 1965.
Bottrell, W. Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, 2nd series Penzance: Bottrell, 1873. Boyes, Georgina. "Excellent Examples: The Influence of Exemplar Texts on Traditional Drama Studies." Traditional Drama Studies 1 (1985):21-30.
Burne, C. S. Shropshire Folklore. London: Trubner, 1883.
Child, Francis James, ed. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 5 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1892-98; reprint New York: Dover Books, 1965.
Guthkelch, A. C., ed. The Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Addison. 2 vols. Vol. 1. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1914.
Millington, Peter. "The Truro Cordwainers' Play: a 'New' 18th Century Christmas Play." Folklore 114 (2003):53-73.
Pettitt, Tom. "English Folk Drama in the Eighteenth Century: A Defense of the Revesby Sword Play." Comparative Drama 15 (1981):3-29.
Pettitt, Tom. "The Ballad of Tradition: In Pursuit of a Vernacular Aesthetic." Ballads into Books: The Legacies of Francis James Child, ed. Tom Cheesman and Sigrid Rieuwerts. 111-23. Bern: Peter Lang, 1997.
Pettitt, Tom. "The Living Text: The Play, the Players, and Folk Tradition." Porci ante Margaritam: Essays in Honour of Meg Twycross, ed. Sarah Carpenter, Pamela King and Peter Meredith. 413-29. Leeds Studies in English. NS. 32. Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 2001.
Scouten, Arthur H., comp. The London Stage, 1660-1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments and Afterpieces. Part 3, 1729-1747. 2 vols [continuous pagination]. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961.
Stephen, Sir Lesley and Sir Sidney Lee, ed. The Dictionary of National Biography. 22 vols. Vol. 14, Myllar-Owen. London: Oxford University Press, 1917; reprint 1963-4.
Stone, G. W., comp. The London Stage, 1660-1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments and Afterpieces. Part 4, 1747-1776. 3 vols [continuous pagination]. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1962.
Tiddy, R. J. E. The Mummers' Play. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923. Watkins-Jones, A. "The Interludes of Wales in the Eighteenth Century." Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 4 (1927-9):103-11.
Biographical Note
Tom Pettitt is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense Campus, where he lectures on English literature and culture in the late medieval and early modern periods. His research explores traditional song, narrative, and drama, and their relationship to conventional literary and theatre history.
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