Illustrations

Amor and the Courteous Heart

by Dante Alighieri

Amor and the courteous heart are the same thing,

Just as the wise man has set down in his poems;

When one is there, the other has to be.

You know that from reason and the rational soul.

One day when She was amorous, Nature created them.

Amor as Lord and the heart as his great house,

Within that house, the Lord lies there sleeping;

Perhaps he sleeps briefly, perhaps for years.

True beauty shows itself then in a fine woman.

Her beauty so delights the eyes, that the heart

Conceives at last a desire for this sweet thing.

And sometimes Desire bustles about in the house

So long that Amor wakes from his sleep.

A Woman knows this same joy with a worthy man.

Published in The Soul is here for its own Joy, edited by Robert Bly (Ecco Press)

First published in 2002 by I C Media Productions, UK

This edition published in 2015 by The Francis Bacon Research Trust (FBRT)

UK Registered Charitable Trust #280616

Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

Copyright © Peter Dawkins, 2002

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including these words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

The Wisdom of Shakespeare Series

Other Titles in the Series

The Wisdom of Shakespeare in ‘As You Like It’

The Wisdom of Shakespeare in ‘The Merchant of Venice’

The Wisdom of Shakespeare in ‘The Tempest’

The Wisdom of Shakespeare in ‘Julius Caesar’

ISBN: 9781483550770

Contents

Chapter

Introduction

Foreword

Author’s Preface

Endnotes

About the Author

Educated at King Edward’s High School, Birmingham, and St Catharine’s College, Cambridge University, Peter is a recognised authority on the Baconian-Rosicrucian philosophies and Ancient Wisdom teachings, including the wisdom enshrined in the Shakespeare plays. One specialised area of research has been into Bacon, Shakespeare, the Rosicrucians and other philosophers of the Renaissance, and to this end The Francis Bacon Research Trust was founded in 1979, of which Peter is the founder-director. Since then Peter has been giving seminars, lectures, workshops and summer schools in the UK, Europe and America, and leading many wisdom tours and geomantic pilgrimages world-wide. He has been giving Wisdom of Shakespeare seminars and workshops since 1985, including at the London Shakespeare Globe Theatre during 1997-2005.

www.peterdawkins.com

Dedication

This book I dedicate to the memory of Francis and Anthony.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all who have helped make this book possible, and in particular the following: my wife Sarah, Anne McQueen Johnston, Michèle Beaufoy, Mark Rylance, Claire Van Kampen, Gay Browning, Diana Tinson, the Francis Bacon Research Trust and the Francis Bacon Society.

Illustrations

Illustrations are from the libraries of the Francis Bacon Society and Francis Bacon Research Trust.

Textual Note

All quotations from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night or What You Will are taken from the Arden Shakespeare, edited by J. M. Lothian and T. W. Craik (1975). All quotations from the Bible are taken from The Companion Bible (1974), being the Authorised Version of 1611 as published by the Revisers in their ‘Parallel Bible’ in 1885.

Introduction to the ‘Wisdom of Shakespeare’ Series

This series on the Wisdom of Shakespeare is designed to investigate and make known the extraordinary wisdom, knowledge and philosophy contained in the Shakespeare plays.

Besides the plays themselves, a clue to the greatness of Shakespeare in this respect is given by Ben Jonson in his tribute to the Author prefacing the Shakespeare 1st Folio of 1623, as also by the inscription on the contemporaneous Shakespeare Monument.

On the Shakespeare Monument, erected c. 1620-23 in Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, to honour the memory of Shakespeare, the great Bard is referred to (in Latin) as ‘A Pylus in judgment, a Socrates in genius, a Maro in art’.

Pylus was the appellation of Nestor, King of Pylus, one of the Argonauts who went in search of the Golden Fleece and who was the most perfect of Homer’s heroes in the Trojan War. As a statesman, ruler and judge, Pylus was renowned for his eloquence, address, wisdom, justice and prudence of mind.

Socrates was the most celebrated philosopher of Greece and a renowned orator. The Delphic Oracle proclaimed him as the wisest of mankind. He was the principal instigator of the great philosophies that have constituted the major traditions of Western civilisation, and was the advocate of clarity and the inductive procedure, for which he was particularly famed. His great aim was the happiness and good of his countrymen, and the reformation of their corrupted morals. By introducing moral philosophy, he induced people to consider themselves, their passions, their opinions, their duties, faculties and actions. He used drama to aid him in this, and the tragedies attributed to his pupil Euripides are said to have been at least partly composed by him, although he remained hidden as a playwright behind the mask of his pupil.

Maro was the surname of Virgil, the greatest of the Roman poets. He was known as the prince of poets and Homer’s successor. He was not only a highly learned scholar and refined writer, but also a high initiate of the Orphic Mysteries as practised at Naples, where he lived for the last part of his life. His Æneid was based upon the Mysteries and Homer’s epic tales, the Iliad and Odyssey.

For Shakespeare to be likened to these three illustrious men—not just one, but all three—is an enormous compliment and says a great deal about the Bard.

This viewpoint is supported by Ben Jonson, a renowned playwright and poet in his own right. In his tributary poem to Shakespeare prefacing the Shakespeare 1st Folio, Jonson refers to his ‘beloved’ friend as an Apollo and Mercury, and as the ‘Sweet Swan of Avon’. Furthermore, implying that Shakespeare was, like him, a noted classical scholar, he declares in his tribute that even if Shakespeare had small Latin and less Greek, he (Ben) would still honour him, calling forth the great Roman and Greek tragedians to hear and applaud his tragedies. As for comedies, Ben can think of no one of the ancient Greeks or Romans who even approaches Shakespeare: he is alone, supreme.

To be likened to the gods Apollo and Mercury, rather than just inspired by them, is a mighty tribute, particularly as coming from the talented and critical poet laureate, Ben Jonson. Apollo is the god of poetic inspiration and illumination, and leader of the choir of Muses. Mercury is the god of eloquence and learning.

The ‘sweet swan’ is a reference to the singing swan, which is sweetest when singing its own ‘swan-song’. This was the symbol of Orpheus, musician to the Argonauts and the originator of the Orphic Mysteries that subsequently became the wisdom teachings and Mysteries of Classical Greece and Rome. These Mysteries formed a foundation of Classical philosophy and of all Platonic and Neoplatonic thought. Orpheus was considered to be the representative of Bacchus, the god of Drama, whose drama was in particular the Mysteries that were performed by the bacchants, bacchantes and eumolpoi (‘good singers’), the initiates and hierophants of the Orphic Mysteries. Both comedy and tragedy, and theatre as such, derive from the Bacchanalian Mysteries. Moreover, the white swan, symbol of Orpheus and the Eumolpoi, is an emblem of Apollo.

Mercury (Roman Mercurius) is derived from the Ancient Egyptian Maa Kheru, meaning ‘the True Word’ and ‘he who is of true voice’. It was a title bestowed on the high initiates of the Egyptian Mysteries—i.e. those who had sung their ‘swan-song’ and undergone psychological death and rebirth,—a title which was still used in the Classical Mysteries. Another Greek name for Mercury was Hermes Trismegistus (i.e. Hermes the Thrice Greatest), but this title was applied specifically to the greatest of all the initiates in any epoch. From this name comes the term ‘Hermetic’ for the great wisdom teachings and developing philosophical thought that have been handed on from the time of the Ancient Egyptians to successive generations and cultures, and of which we are inheritors today via the Neoplatonism of the Renaissance and the great poetry of Shakespeare.

The works of Shakespeare declare him to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the Neoplatonists. His plays are suffused with Renaissance Neoplatonism. To understand this is to understand Shakespeare.

Renaissance Neoplatonism

The founders of Renaissance Neoplatonism were Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, both members of the brilliant circle of scholars, writers and artists associated with the Medici court in Florence in the 15th century, under the patronage of the great Cosimo de’ Medici.

Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), a scholar, physician and priest, was commissioned by Cosimo to translate into Latin the Hermetic writings and the dialogues of Plato, together with the Neoplatonic writings of Porphyry, Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysus the Areopagite and Plotinus. The translation of the Corpus Hermeticum was ready in 1464 and published in 1471 under the title of Pimander, and the translations of Plato’s dialogues, completed c. 1468, were published as the Platonic Theology in 1474.

Ficino’s understanding, as that of others including St. Augustine, was that a divine theology or wisdom tradition, based on love, began simultaneously with Zoroaster among the Persians and with Hermes Trismegistus (i.e. Thoth) among the Egyptians. They believed that this wisdom tradition led in an unbroken chain to Plato via Orpheus and Pythagoras. It is this wisdom that is reputed to underlie the Hebrew, Orphic and Christian teachings, all of which developed from the blended Hermetic and Magian origin.

Demonstrating that this wisdom tradition was associated with Christianity, with links via Moses and the Zoroastrian Magi, Ficino was able to reconcile Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophy with Christian theology. He regarded both philosophy and religion as being manifestations of a spiritual life, each needing the other in order to attain the summum bonum or greatest good.

According to the Neoplatonic philosophy that Ficino founded, love is the sustaining principle of the universe, and the attainment of the highest good is dependant not upon the Church but upon an impulse universal to man. The soul is not only immortal, but all souls by an inner urge naturally seek truth and goodness.

Ficino was immeasurably helped in the development of Neoplatonism by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94). Pico joined Ficino’s circle in 1484 and introduced Cabala into Ficino’s Neoplatonism, being the founder or first great exponent of Christian Cabala. In this Pico was following in the footsteps of the poet-philosopher Ramon Lull, who in the 13th century, in Spain, brought together Jewish Cabala, Islamic mysticism and Christian revelation into a single method, which had an enormous influence on succeeding generations. As a result of Pico and Ficino’s partnership, Neoplatonism became a universal philosophy, which blended Hebrew Cabala with the Hermetic, Neoplatonic and Christian teachings, making a synthesis of them all. As a result, the spiritual, magical and scientific core of Renaissance Neoplatonism was born.

Having travelled from Italy into France, this Renaissance Neoplatonism took a strong hold in England in the 16th century, beginning in King Henry VIII’s time and reaching a zenith during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, particularly in the works of William Shakespeare.

The Bible

Shakespeare’s knowledge of the Bible is remarkably extensive and detailed. The teachings of the Bible pervade and underlie all his plays to such a degree that the plays seem, in fact, to be dramatised commentaries on and examples of the scriptural teachings, aided by Cabalistic philosophy and the Hermetic wisdom as well as by Shakespeare’s extraordinary observation, insight into and knowledge of human nature.

Not for nothing then, it would seem, was an Englishman urged to possess a copy of both the Bible and the Shakespeare plays, and to always carry them with him when travelling.

The Teacher

Not only is Shakespeare a great poet, dramatist, Neoplatonic philosopher and Christian cabalist, but he is also a supreme teacher who teaches through entertainment, following the path of the ancients:

The wisdom of the ancients devised a way of inducing men to study truth by means of pious frauds, the delicate Minerva secretly lurking beneath the mask of pleasure.¹

Minerva is the Roman name for the Greek goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athena, the Tenth (and Chief) Muse, and the especial Muse of Shakespeare. Her Greek name literally means ‘Spear Shaker’, and she was renowned for shaking her spear of light at dark ignorance, exactly as Ben Jonson says of Shakespeare in his Folio tribute:

For a good Poet’s made, as well as borne.

And such wert thou. Looke how the father’s face

Lives in his issue, even so, the race

Of Shakespeare’s minde, and manners brightly shines

In his well torned, and true filed lines:

In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance,

As brandish’t at the eyes of Ignorance.

The intention and hope of this series is to help reveal to lovers of Shakespeare some of the extraordinary and brilliant light concealed in Shakespeare’s plays, and to pay homage to one who has been an exceptional friend and teacher to me and countless others—the great English Bard.

Foreword by Mark Rylance

Give us the place alone: we will hear this Divinity

I was sitting with Orsino in an oak-panelled chamber of the Middle Temple Hall last February. To my right, past Viola and Jack, our tiring house man, members of the audience passed shyly by on their way into the hall for our performance. To my left, past Sir Toby and Sebastian, the tall windows revealed the gardens stretching down to Victoria Embankment (a 19th century innovation since the Middle Temple Hall was built) and eventually the River Thames, to which we are all passing innovations in the landscape of her banks.

The time was ripe. What had happened before was close to the skin of our thoughts. The resurgence of increasingly martial and militaristic behaviour between the Christian, Islamic and Judaic peoples, much of which seems fuelled by economic greed and fear, rather than a balanced sense of justice and mercy, not to mention the divine love celebrated by all three faiths, occupied our minds and hearts as we prepared for our 400th anniversary production of Twelfth Night in this old hall of justice, built on the land of the Templar Knights, between the hill of St Paul’s Cathedral and the island of St. Peter’s Westminster Abbey.

As I understand it, amongst other things, the Templars were responsible for the lines of communication and supply, west and east, during pilgrimages or crusades to the Holy Land. Some of the Pembroke family, two of whom have the eternal honour of receiving the dedication of Shakespeare’s first folio in 1623, are still lying with stone-crossed legs on the floor of the ancient Temple Church; their crossed legs a symbol that they had made a crusade to Jerusalem. The term ‘crusade’ had been in the news again; in the mouths of the Islamic fundamentalist fighters when they spoke of the West’s response to the attack of September 11th. Whatever one thinks of the crusades themselves, they must have provided, perhaps through the Templars, an enormous amount of information about the beliefs and culture of Islam. Some of this contact may even have influenced the establishment of the Knights of the Garter of St. George, as the Sufi’s had a similar guardian of souls in the character of Khidr, who was followed by men determined to reveal and celebrate the essential truths which they felt were shared by followers of Islam, Christ and Judaism.

Anyway, while the audience watched us prepare before our mirrors, Orsino and I, who by this time was dressed in the black silk and wool dress of the Countess Olivia, had been talking about books we were reading. Orsino shared a wonderful book of the Mayan Cosmology—a kind of astrology book with twenty different signs compared to our familiar twelve. We were beguiled by the accuracy and subtlety with which the book described, according to their birth dates and the movements of the heavens, the other members of the cast and their relationships with each other. Its descriptions crossed boundaries of race, nationality, sex and religion by observing ‘tribes’ of people linked through an archetypal imagination drawn from the heavens. I wondered whether I might find a common ground if I were ever able to meet my Mayan birth fellows amongst the Islamic, Christian and Judaic fighters who now so divide me.

Perhaps the way to disarm these patterns of religious division is to overwhelm them with older patterns drawn from natural observation and celebrating the different relationships between ourselves, as much as our individual self? The Mayan Cosmology appeared to be such a pattern. But then the pattern we were about to play, the pattern of a Shakespeare play, how natural and universal are its characters and relationships? I don’t know of any theatre under the Taliban rule, but I am told that the Sufi poet, Rumi, is the most highly regarded poet amongst American poets. When I read Rumi, I experience a similar landscape of insight as I do from a Shakespeare play.

The book I had been reading was an excellent collection of sacred poems from many cultures, The Soul Is Here For Its Own Joy, edited by the American poet Robert Bly. In it he introduces a chapter entitled, ‘Loving God through Loving a Woman or a Man’. In his introduction he describes one of the greatest periods of Western literature, when the Provencal language of 12th century France became the ecstatic medium for men and women to describe love relationships and divine relationships in the same poem. This chivalric respect for women and the feminine soul within us all has deep connections to the work of Shakespeare, and indications are that its conception as an idea, and journey into the orders of chivalry, originated in Persia.

The word used for love was amor. A particular aspect of the tradition was the love from far away of a distant and untouchable lover, I told my friend playing the far away lover Orsino. Persian poets of the time, such as Rumi, give the suggestion that a chivalric man loved a woman, but he also looked through her to the Divine Feminine on the other side. When I, as the Countess Olivia, allowed Viola, dressed as the young man Cesario, to speak to me in private, I said to my lady in waiting, ‘Give us the place alone; we will hear this Divinity.’ This story, Twelfth Night, is widely recognized for its exquisitely human love story, but to me it also tells a story of the deeper esoteric nature of life. It is another song in the quiet chorus of observations on our relationship with the divine male and feminine. It is a disarmer of division, as surely as the Mayan Cosmology, French Chivalry, or Persian Poetry. In all our cultures, the movement away from death to life through love is the only fundamentalism that I understand. And I only understand that, and all the things I remember today of that February day in the Middle Temple Hall, because of my dear friend and teacher Peter Dawkins, who took me to Shakespeare’s heart and introduced me to his divine amor.

I hope that you enjoy his book. To me, after the play itself, it is the most beautiful book one could possibly read on Twelfth Night.

Mark Rylance, 2002

Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe (1995-2005)

Author’s Preface

Twelfth Night or What You Will is one of Shakespeare’s most delightful plays, full of love, wit, humour and excitement, yet with a darker side to give it an edge. In fact it is a play full of opposites, which is probably not surprising since the two principal characters are twins! In particular, the play provides an intriguing exercise in the duality of things open and secret, revealed and concealed, and the creative tension that exists between them. Moreover, when one looks beneath the veil it is possible to discover two major Wisdom traditions that Shakespeare has used, forming another example of ‘twins’. There may, of course, be more than this, but two stand out above all else. These two are the Cabala and Alchemy. The play is a brilliant example and allegory of the Cabalistic and Alchemical wisdom teachings.

In performance the play is entertaining, moving and exciting, and throws up many challenges and many questions. Concealed behind the performance of the play are its hidden secrets—its Mystery. This book is about this wonderland of knowledge and wisdom, which bestows the immortality for which this and other Shakespeare plays are renowned. It is not possible to give a complete exposition of these things, and even if it were possible I wouldn’t even want to try. What I have endeavoured to provide is a gateway for you to look in and see what is there, so that if you want to you can go through that gateway and into the amazing world of wisdom that lies in this play—and, indeed, in all the Shakespeare plays. I have found that such knowledge not only enriches my experience of each play dramatically but also helps me to understand my fellow man and myself far better. It provides insights into how we create our problems and how we can solve those problems, and provides a map of the human soul and spirit.

As you may have discovered for yourself or through reading previous volumes in this Wisdom of Shakespeare series, Shakespeare was intimately involved in the Rosicrucian movement of the 16th/17th century. Indeed, there is no doubt in my mind that he was a Rosicrucian. There are many clues in Twelfth Night as to this, and for those who are interested in the historical, social and philosophical background of the Shakespeare plays, and of Shakespeare himself, this play provides a rich mine of information and leads. In fact, it almost gives the game away!

This book is written at the time of the 400th anniversary of the first recorded performance of Twelfth Night. The actors of the Globe Theatre, led by Mark Rylance, celebrated this anniversary with performances of the play at the Middle Temple Hall in London, where the first recorded performance of the play took place 400 years ago. The research for this book was done well before this anniversary—indeed, it is the result of many years of experiencing the play in production by various companies and giving many seminars on it; but witnessing the anniversary performance this year has, as it were, put the cream on the cake as far as I am concerned. It has made the writing of this book an extra joy and brought about many more insights into the play, and for this I am most grateful.

For the plan of the book I begin with a sketch of the play’s background and the sources that Shakespeare drew upon or which influenced him. These alone are fascinating and most revealing.

The second chapter summarises the story of the play, scene by scene. This is not only for the benefit of those who do not know the play very well but also as a help to those who do, as it emphasises the key points that will be discussed in the book.

The third chapter looks at the various plots and sub-plots of which the play is composed, and introduces the various themes that run through the play. The following four chapters look at these themes in detail.

The eighth chapter investigates the reason for the play’s title, which is of considerable importance, and leads into the following chapter that looks at the Hermetic or Alchemical basis of the whole play.

Likewise, the tenth chapter, which explains the meanings and mythology of the names of the characters in the play, leads into the last chapter of the book, which looks at the Cabalistic basis of the play and the Tree of Life arrangement of the characters.

As in the previous books of this series, I have used the Arden edition of The Tempest when quoting from the play, which I recommend both for its text and notes. Reference to a facsimile copy of the original Shakespeare Folio of plays is always worth the effort, if this is possible for you, and I always have one by me when I am reading or writing about the Shakespeare plays. Biblical quotes are from the Companion Bible, which is based upon the King James’ Authorised Version of the Holy Bible that was published in Shakespeare’s lifetime. The works of Shakespeare and the Bible go together very well, and I recommend anyone who wishes to enjoy Shakespeare to the full, and understand the Bible more deeply, to have both on hand. As you will see when you read this book, Twelfth Night incorporates some profound biblical teaching.

In this series I am not attempting to provide a bibliography as such, since this could be a weighty matter that unbalances the main subject matter of each book; but the endnote references should provide ample scope for further research, and the treasure trail can be followed in this way, from one book or author to the next.

P.D.

February 2002

1. Background

Contemporary Allusions and Dating

Twelfth Night was first printed in the 1623 Shakespeare Folio, under the title Twelfe Night, or, What you will.² It had previously been entered in the Stationer’s Register on the 8th November 1623, together with fifteen other Shakespeare plays that also had their first printing in the 1623 Folio. Intriguingly, it is the only Shakespeare play to have a double title (Henry VIII has an alternative title, All is True, but this is not the same as a double title).

The first recorded performance of Twelfth Night was on Candlemas, 2nd February 1602, at the Middle Temple Inn of Court in London. The performance would have taken place in the large, beautiful and well-illuminated Elizabethan hall, with its clerestory of sparkling glazed windows on both north and south walls, two bay windows at the west end, a finely carved screen at its east end, and a magnificent double hammer-beam roof, the finest domestic example in existence at the time it was built. Queen Elizabeth I opened it in 1572. This hall still exists today and, as these words are written, is the setting of the quatercentenary celebration of the first recorded performance of Twelfth Night, acted this time by the 21st century company of the new Shakespeare Globe Theatre.

It was John Manningham, a fourth-year student at the Middle Temple Inn of Court, who made the first record of a Twelfth Night performance. He noted it in his diary for the 2nd February 1601 (1602 by modern reckoning—the New Year at that time commencing on Lady Day, 25th March)³:-

at our feast wee had a play called Twelve Night or what you will, much like the comedy of errors or Menechmi in plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called Inganni… a good practise in it to make the steward believe his Lady widdowe was in Love with him by counterfayting a letter as from his Lady in generall tearms, telling him what shee liked best in him and prescribing his gesture in smiling his apparraile &c. And then when he came to practise making him believe they took him to be mad.

There are many good reasons for believing that this was not just the first recorded performance of Twelfth Night but also the actual first performance, or ‘first night’, of the play, and that the play may therefore have been specially commissioned by Sir John Shurley, the Treasurer and head of the Inn at that time, for the finale of the Inn’s Christmas Revels. These Revels ended at Candlemas, so it was also the last night of the Revels. Candlemas was not only one of the great feast days in the Inn, when plays were frequently performed, but also one of the two most important dates in the Middle Temple’s calendar, when the Inn specially entertained those members who had achieved certain professional honours or status. A modern-day senior barrister of Middle Temple, Anthony Arlidge, the Master of Entertainments responsible for the 2002 quatercentenary celebration of Twelfth Night, makes a strong case for this in his book, Shakespeare and the Prince of Love.⁴

For instance, buried in the text of Twelfth Night are two allusions to John Shurley’s family—Sir John Shurley being, as already mentioned, the Treasurer of Middle Temple. (The Treasurer is the chairman of the Masters of the Bench, the governing body of the Inn, who themselves are usually judges, eminent in law.) The references are to two men by the name of Sherley, Sir Anthony and Sir Robert, brothers-in-law to the Treasurer’s nephew, also named John Shurley and a member of Middle Temple. These two brothers, Anthony and Robert, were educated at the Inns of Court, became followers of the Earl of Essex and, under Essex’s patronage, went on an expedition to visit the Shah of Persia, arriving at the Shah’s court in 1599. Between November 1599 and April 1601 Sir Anthony Sherley made visits to Moscow, Prague and Rome, purportedly as the Shah’s ambassador, whilst his brother Robert remained in Persia both as a hostage and a military adviser. Sir Robert eventually married the daughter of Ishmael Khan, Prince of Circassia, and in 1622 went to visit the Pope in Rome as an ambassador of the Shah. Whilst there, his portrait was painted by Van Dyke, showing Sir Robert in Turkish costume and sporting a large sword. Sir Anthony, however, returned to England in a ship named The Sophie. Two accounts of his journeys and exploits were published in England: A True Report of Sir Anthonie Shierlies Journey (September 1600) and A New and Large Discourse of the Travels of Sir Anthony Shirley (late 1601).

‘The Sophie’ was the name by which the Shah was known, and there are two jokes in Twelfth Night about him that allude to the Sherley brothers and their expedition. Fabian’s remark in the play, as he watches Malvolio being tricked by Maria’s forged letter, refers to Sir Anthony Sherley, who claimed the Shah gave him a pension of 30,000 crowns. Sir Tobie’s attempt to frighten Sir Andrew by presenting Cesario as a swordsman to be feared refers to Sir Robert Sherley, the Shah’s military adviser.

(II, v, 180)

(III, iv, 283)

Fabian is a character in the play who appears to have been added late into the plot by the author, together with another character called Curio. Both these names are new to the Shakespeare canon and unique to Twelfth Night. They happen to be the nicknames of two students of the Inns of Court that appeared the most frequently in the many satires and epigrams written by the young lawyers around that time. The playwright John Marston, for instance, who was a student member of Middle Temple and living in chambers in the Inn of Court, refers to Fabian as a good dancer in his Ad Rithmum, and in his First Satire as someone who ‘hath been at feasts and led the measuring at court’. In his Third Satire, which is largely devoted to Fabian, Marston mentions that Fabian was not only a ‘silken dancer’ but also that he was more than a simple reveller and ‘had some doings with the Prince D’Amour / And play’d a noble man’s part in a play’. This refers to the playing of an actor’s part in a play performed at one of the Middle Temple’s Christmas Revels, which were presided over by a Lord of Misrule known in the Middle Temple as the Prince D’Amour (i.e. Prince of Love). Since the satires were published in 1598 and 1599, it seems most likely that the revels referred to were those of 1597/8, which were then the most recent ones.