A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare'sThe Tempest

by Hobson Woodward

  History and layout of Masquing House: Thurley, Whitehall, 68-82; Law, “Produced,” 150, 152-53, 159, 162-63; Demaray, Spectacles, 8-9, 75-77, 95, 153. Likely composition of Tempest cast: Sturgess, Jacobean, 76; ARD, 8. “The imagination,” “had in her hair”: Law, “Produced,” 163. “Waves capering,” “a tempest so artificial”: Demaray, Spectacles, 92-93. Strachey visited Blackfriars Theater up to three times a week as a shareholder: Culliford, Strachey, 54-55.

  Shakespeare’s life during the time when he wrote Tempest: Greenblatt, Will, 361, 366, 370, 373, 377. Closures of London theaters during plague epidemics: Chute, Shakespeare, 290; Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), viii-ix; Bradbrook, Shakespeare, 207, 250. Popularity of the London theater: Gurr, Playgoing , 64-69; Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), vii-viii, xiii. Document that places Shakespeare in Stratford in June 1609, stage directions in Tempest suggest Shakespeare was away from London and did not expect to attend rehearsals: Ackroyd, Shakespeare, 471-72, 477-78.

  Similarity of names in Thomas’s Historie of Italie and Tempest: Nosworthy, “Narrative,” 282-83; Chambers, Study, 1:494; Orgel in Shakespeare, Tempest (Oxford), 42-43. England’s Mediterranean trade may have inspired Tempest setting: Cawley, Unpathed, 237. Shakespeare’s fondness for Mediterranean settings: Bullough, Sources, 8:245. Shakespeare’s overlay of New World story on Old World setting in Tempest: Hulme, Encounters, 107-9, and “Hurricanes,” 71-72.

  Complexity is mark of Shakespeare’s work: Bullough, Sources, 8:247, 271-72. Shakespeare often drew material from books and contemporary events: Wood, Search, 354-78. Literacy of Shakespeare’s audience: Gurr, Playgoing, 64-65. Shakespeare’s use in Tempest of Virgil, Ovid, Montaigne: Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), xxix-xxx; Dymkowski, “Production,” 3. Montaigne’s Golden Age theme in Tempest: Bullough, Sources, 8:243, 255; ARD, 193, 196; Fitzmaurice, “Every,” 32-35, 41; Ebner, “Ideal,” 161, 165, 167, 173. Shakespeare’s use of Montaigne shows New World focus: Hart, Columbus, 137. Shakespeare characters frequently debate topical issues: Ackroyd, Shakespeare, 468-69, 472-74; Hamlin, “Inde,” 34-35; Willis, “Shakespeare’s,” 258, 265; McDonald, “Reading,” 15.

  Shakespeare’s use of travel narratives in earlier plays: Bullough, Sources, 8:240, 242, 249, 255; Hamlin, “Inde,” 16, 38. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (“Gonzalus Ferdinandus Oviedus”): Willes, Travayle, 185. Shakespeare’s possible use of Oviedo’s name: Gayley, Shakespeare, 62; Cawley, “Use,” 715; Brockbank, “Conventions,” 193. Patagonian deity Setebos: Pigafetta in Willes, Travayle, 434 (verso), 435 (verso). Shakespeare’s use of Pigafetta’s narrative: ARD, 40-41, 176. Caliban’s references to Setebos: 1.2.374, 5.1.261, ARD, 176, 280.

  Bermuda sea monster: Hartop in Hakluyt, Navigations, 3:493. Hartop biography: Mancall, Hakluyt’s, 232-33. Shakespeare’s possible use of Hartop’s account: Bristol, Shakespeare, 83; Mathew, Image, 53; Payne, By Me, 370. Other uses of Hakluyt’s Navigations in Tempest: ARD, 49. Bremo in Mucedorus as model for Caliban: Vaughan, Caliban, 69; ARD, 60; Hamlin, “Inde,” 28-29, 31-33, 37, 42; Demaray, Spectacles, 21. Thirty-five New World people displayed in England during Shakespeare’s lifetime: Vaughan, “Trinculo’s,” 50, 51, 58, 59. Dates of Namontack’s visits to England, Jonson’s allusion to Namontack in Epicoene: Vaughan, Transatlantic, 46-48. “Shrewd, subtle”: SMI, 1:216. Namontack’s positive report about England: NAR, 450-51.

  Public enthusiasm for the Virginia enterprise: Marx, Machine, 34, 68; Rowse, Southampton, 238; Bullough, Sources, 8:240; Bradbrook, Shakespeare, 228-29. Shakespeare’s connection to men affiliated with the Virginia Company: Gayley, Shakespeare, 18, 20-22, 24, 27-30, 37; Ebner, “Ideal,” 166; Bullough, Sources, 8:239; Fitzmaurice, Humanism, 62. Earl of Southampton’s connections to Shakespeare and the Virginia Company: Rowse, Southampton, 234-62; Ebner, “Ideal,” 166; Bailey, “Founders,” 10. Earl’s name first on list in second charter: NEW, 207. King James’s skeptical interest in Jamestown: FIR, 1:119. James’s interest important for the success of any London play: Brown, “Darkness,” 48. Number of King’s Men royal performances: Demaray, Spectacles, 10, 74-75. King’s Men perform for king during plague epidemic: Ackroyd, Shakespeare, 465. Vetting of plays by court officials, “rehearsed, perfected”: Demaray, Spectacles, 7-8, 50, 75.

  “Nothing that is good”: Crashaw, Sermon [61]. Earlier references to Virginia in London plays: Demaray, Spectacles, 5-7; Gayley, Shakespeare, 76-80. Tempest audience would have recognized New World elements: Demaray, Spectacles, 14-16, 57-58, 101-9, 142; Gillies, “Masque,” 676. Shakespeare may have had Princess Elizabeth’s engagement in mind when he wrote Tempest: Srigley, Images, 116-22; Demaray, Spectacles, 10-11, 13, 20, 145. “Tragical comedy”: EST, 26 (NEW, 253). Shakespeare’s experiment with tragicomedy late in his career: Demaray, Spectacles, 18-19, 46-47, 64-65.

  Vaughan, Caliban, 118, and Chalmers, Account, 20, note that in 1797 modern scholars first proposed parallels between The Tempest and the Virginia chronicles. The question of whether the correlations are legitimate has been debated ever since, most actively in the early twentieth century. Cawley was an ardent proponent from 1926 to 1940, and contends in Elizabethan, 339, that “nobody in his right mind” can deny the parallels. Stoll in “Fallacies,” 487, takes the opposite point of view, arguing “this proof rests upon a few slight verbal parallels, most precariously.” While a few scholars still dispute the point (Bergeron, Romances, 178, for example, admits only “an occasional parallel”), the prevailing opinion today is that the play is indeed based on the narratives. To Ebner, “Ideal,” 166, it is “universally agreed”; to Bullough, Sources, 8:271, “the adventures of the Virginian voyagers suggested both his title and setting”; to Marx, Machine, 34-35, there are “unmistakable echoes”; to Vaughan and Vaughan in ARD, 1, 40-42, 54, 73, 100-101, 287, scholars are “almost unanimous” in agreeing that the parallels exist, though their importance remains open to question. The most recent treatments are Stritmatter and Kositsky, “Revisited” (dispute connection), and Vaughan, “Evidence” (favors connection).

  Phrases from four Virginia narratives echo unmistakably in Tempest—Strachey’s “True Reportory” in PIL; Jourdain’s DIS; Virginia Company’s TRU and EST: Bullough, Sources, 8:238-39; Gayley, Shakespeare, 45-46, 49; Gillies, “Masque,” 681, 703; editor Haile in NAR, 381-82; Culliford, Strachey, 151-52. Shakespeare may also have used Rich’s Newes and John Smith’s True Relation (SMI, 1:23-117): editors Vaughan and Vaughan in ARD, 42-43. Shakespeare may also have used Crashaw’s Sermon: Gillies, “Masque,” 704. Beyond specific language parallels, Shakespeare drew the general theme of colonial expansion from the travel narratives: Marx, Machine, 68; Brown, “Darkness,” 48; Bullough, Sources, 8:240; Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), xxix; editors Vaughan and Vaughan in ARD, 47; Salingar, “World,” 209, 212.

  Shakespeare’s most important source, Strachey’s “True Reportory,” was not published until 1625 in PIL (no manuscript is extant). The 1625 published work carries a date of July 15, 1610, and was evidently circulating in England at the time Shakespeare was writing The Tempest (a common practice of the day). Schmidgall, “Primaleon,” 433-35, proposes Welby as Shakespeare’s source for Strachey’s manuscript. Welby in Jourdain, Plaine, 8, says “more full.” Hotson, I, William, 217-26, proposes that Shakespeare’s associate Dudley Digges was the source. Sanders, “Colony,” 119, reports a tradition among Strachey’s descendants that his accounts were a Tempest source.

  Capacity of the Blackfriars and similar theaters: Greenblatt, Will, 368; Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), xi. Onstage seating: Ackroyd, Shakespeare , 466. Estimate of weekly theater attendance, capacity of circular playhouses: Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), viii. Parallel history of open-air and enclosed theaters: Gurr, Playgoing, 14. Globe and Blackfriars ticket price comparison: Gurr, “Tempest’s,” 101. All classes mixed in both theaters: Chute, Shakespeare , 291. “A man shall not be”: Gurr, Playgoing, 45. History of the Blackfriars: Greenblatt, Will, 367; Ackroyd, Shakespeare, 465-6
6; Seltzer, “Last,” 127; Chute, Shakespeare, 290. Blackfriars religious exemptions persisted: Bradbrook, Shakespeare , 205; Gurr, Playgoing, 27. Changes in playwriting caused by rise of enclosed venues: Seltzer, “Last,” 127, 130, 152, 158; Dymkowski, “Production,” 5; Ackroyd, Shakespeare, 466-467; Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), xi. Tempest elements suggest it was written for the Blackfriars: Seltzer, “Last,” 128-29; Ackroyd, Shakespeare, 487; Dymkowski, “Production,” 4; Gurr, “Tempest’s,” 92-94; Demaray, Spectacles, 74.

  A 1669 publication states Tempest previously played at the Blackfriars: Dymkowski, “Production,” 5; Demaray, Spectacles, 11-12, 144. Early Tempest performances in Blackfriars and Globe may be presumed: Demaray, Spectacles, 75; Nagler, Stage, 102. No document places Strachey at a performance of Tempest; I have presumed he would have attended based on his interests in theater and the New World. Blackfriars description, standard 2:00 p.m. start time: Fraser, Shakespeare , 207-10; R. Frye, Life, plates 58, 96; Gurr, Playgoing, 30-34, 39. Blackfriars description: Nagler, Stage, 93-97; Demaray, Spectacles, 4-5, 12, 96; Stephenson, London, 307. Blackfriars description, site of Henry VIII’s divorce trial: Bradbrook, Shakespeare, 206, 250-51.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Into something”: 1.2.402, ARD, 178. “First, the Tempest”: TRU, 17 (NAR, 367, modernized). Parallel “tempest” passages: Cawley, “Use,” 690; Bristol, Shakespeare , 67. Word “Tempest” also in John Smith’s True Relation: SMI, 1:27, 83, 85. Imagery evoked by “tempest”: Cummings, “Alchemical,” 131-40. “A tempestuous noise”: stage direction before 1.1.1, ARD, 143. Stage directions are by Shakespeare or later editor: ARD, 127, 141-43. “Gape at widest”: 1.1.59, ARD, 148. “Glut of water”: PIL, 4:1735 (NAR, 385). Parallel “glut” passages: Cawley, “Use,” 692, 699; Gayley, Shakespeare, 55; ARD, 148 (Shakespeare also uses “glut” in 3.2, Henry IV, Part 1). “Mercy on us!”: 1.1.60, ARD, 148. “There was not,” muffled cries of passengers: PIL, 4:1735 (NAR, 385-86). “A plague upon”: 1.1.35-36, ARD, 146. Parallel muffled cries passages: Cawley, “Use,” 692-93; Gayley, Shakespeare, 54-55; Bullough, Sources, 8:240. “As leaky as”: 1.1.46-47, ARD, 147. Parallel leaky ship passages: Gayley, Shakespeare, 54.

  “An honest old”: cast list, ARD, 140. “Roaring,” “a hell of,” “the sea swelled,” “at length did”: PIL, 4:1735 (NAR, 384-85). “Put the wild,” “stinking pitch,” “the sea, mounting,” “dashes the fire”: 1.2.2-5, ARD, 149. Parallel stormy sky passages: Bullough, Sources, 8:240; Cawley, “Use,” 691; Gayley, Shakespeare, 56. Blackfriars stage effects: Gurr, “Tempest’s,” 95; Nagler, Stage, 97. Shakespeare’s “sulphurous” and “stinking pitch” lines evoke stage effects: ARD, 149, 163. Strachey uses “amazement”: PIL, 4:1735-37 (NAR, 384, 386, 389). Shakespeare uses “amazement”: 1.2.14, 1.2.198, 5.1.104, ARD, 150, 163, 270. Parallel “amazement” passages: Gayley, Shakespeare , 54; Cawley, “Use,” 692; Bullough, Sources, 8:240. Ariel’s likely costume: Egan, “Costume,” 63; Law, “Produced,” 161-62; Saenger, “Costumes”; Demaray, Spectacles, 71, 78.

  “I boarded,” “all but mariners”: 1.2.196-201, 210-15, ARD, 162-64. “Make many constructions,” “an apparition”: PIL, 4:1737 (NAR, 388-89). Parallel St. Elmo’s fire/Ariel passages: Bullough, Sources, 8:240; Brockbank, “Conventions,” 187; Bailey, “Founders,” 9; Brown, Republic, 114. Science of St. Elmo’s fire: Schonland, Thunderbolts, 44-48, 61, 92, 146; Barry, Weather, 355. Nautical maneuvers in Tempest: Allen, “Shakespeare’s.” “Safely in harbour”: 1.2.226-29, ARD, 165. Analysis of Tempest Bermuda reference: Vaughan and Vaughan, ARD, 165; Bullough, Sources, 8:266; Gayley, Shakespeare, 59; Kathman, “Dating.” Interpretation of Ariel’s line to mean Tempest ship is hidden in a place from which Ariel was sent to Bermuda and not one on Bermuda: Stoll, “Fallacies,” 487; Knapp, Empire, 220-21.

  Bermuda’s reputation as a Devil’s Isle influenced crafting of Tempest: Gayley, Shakespeare, 54; Kathman, “Dating.” Word “devil” used a dozen times in Tempest : Kathman, “Dating.” Parallel enchanted island passages: Gayley, Shakespeare , 54; Bullough, Sources, 8:240, 243; Cawley, “Use,” 696-98, 705; Vaughan and Vaughan in ARD, 41-42; Brockbank, “Conventions,” 184-85, 189-90. “Shut up hatches”: PIL, 4:1737 (NAR, 390). “They were so overwearied,” “fallen asleep”: Jourdain, DIS, 6 (VOY, 106-7). “The mariners all,” “to the King’s ship,” “we were dead”: 1.2.230-32, 5.1.97-99, 5.1.230-31, ARD, 165, 269, 278. Parallel sleepy mariner passages: Bullough, Sources, 8:240; Brockbank, “Conventions,” 189; Cawley, “Use,” 695-96. “The rest o’th’ fleet”: 1.2.232-37, ARD, 165-66. Parallel fleet unification passages: Salingar, “World,” 213-14; Kathman, “Dating.” “Sadly up the river”: PIL, 4:1748 (NAR, 419).

  “A savage”: cast list, ARD, 140. Caliban’s likely costume: Saenger, “Costumes”; Demaray, Spectacles, 71. Terms used to describe Caliban in Tempest: ARD, 216, 225-26, 280-83. “Tortoise”: 1.2.317, ARD, 172; “a man or a fish”: 2.2.24-25, 208; “half a fish”: 3.2.28, 226; “legged like a man”: 2.2.32-33, 208-9; “mooncalf”: 2.2.105, 109, 132-33 and 3.2.20-21, 213, 214, 226. “A kind of meat,” “feeding upon sea-grass”: PIL, 4:1741 (NAR, 400). Parallel sea turtle and moon passages: Gayley, Shakespeare, 60; Cawley, “Use,” 717; Kathman, “Dating.” “Wouldst give me”: 1.2.334-35, ARD, 173. “The berries whereof”: PIL, 4:1739 (NAR, 395). Parallel berry drink passages: Gayley, Shakespeare, 60; Cawley, “Use,” 709; Bullough, Sources, 8:240; Kathman, “Dating.” “Upon the coast”: PIL, 4:1735 (NAR, 386). Strachey’s voyage to Turkey: Culliford, Strachey, 68-70. Sycorax’s banishment from Algiers: 1.2.260-66, ARD, 167-68. Parallel Algiers passages: Gayley, Shakespeare, 58.

  “Powhatan, understanding,” “most trusty messenger”: SMI, 1:93-95 (“nonpareil” repeated: SMI, 1:274). “And that most deeply”: 3.2.98-103, ARD, 230; “a savage”: cast list, 140. Parallel “nonpareil” and Rawhunt passages: Luce in Shakespeare, Tempest (1901), 159-60; Knapp, Empire, 337-38; Vaughan and Vaughan, ARD, 230. Bullough, Sources, 8:241, rejects link between Pocahontas and Miranda. Cooke in his 1885 novel My Lady Pocahontas has a fictionalized Pocahontas attend a performance of The Tempest at the Globe (there is no evidence that she actually did so), see Mossiker, Pocahontas, 266-67. “No more dams”: 2.2.176, ARD, 217 (a footnote cautions that weirs were also used in England). Analysis of Caliban’s statement on dams: Kupperman, Project, 249-50. “When they will not,” “were I in England”: 2.2.27-29, 31-32, ARD, 208 (a footnote cautions that Trinculo may also have meant he would have an advertising sign painted). Analysis of Caliban as New World man: Hamlin, “Inde,” 23-26, 36-37. Ferdinando Weynman mentioned: PIL, 4:1752, 1754 (NAR, 427, 433). Parallel Ferdinand/Ferdinando names: Frey, “Tempest,” 38. “Wooden slavery,” “for your sake”: 3.1.62, 3.1.66-67, ARD, 222-23. “To fell, carry”: PIL, 4:1743 (NAR, 404). “Full fathom five”: 1.2.397-402, ARD, 178. Parallel undersea passages: Salingar, “World,” 210: Hayward, Bermuda, 119.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Such stuff”: 4.1.156-57, ARD, 254. Remora story: PIL, 4:1736 (NAR, 388). “What strange fish”: 2.1.113-14, ARD, 191. Franciso suggests Ferdinand survived: 2.1.114-23, ARD, 191-92; “have more widows”: 2.1.133-35, 192; “uninhabitable”: 2.1.40, 188. Parallel “inaccessible” and “uninhabitable” passages: Cawley, “Use,” 702; Kathman, “Dating.” “Some monster”: 2.2.64-65, ARD, 211; “pied ninny,” “scurvy patch”: 3.2.61, 228. Background on Trinculo descriptions: ARD, 140, 142, 228. Parallel Stephen/Stephano names: Gayley, Shakespeare, 63-65; Cawley, “Use,” 715; Kennedy, Isle, 62. “Many a butt”: PIL, 4:1737 (NAR, 389) (the Sea Venture casks were emptied over the side while the Tempest casks went overboard whole). “I escaped upon”: 2.2.118-20, ARD, 213-14. Parallel cask passages: Bullough, Sources, 8:267; Gayley, Shakespeare, 61; Cawley, “Use,” 690.

  “Get thee young”: 2.2.168-69, ARD, 217. “Sea-mew”: PIL, 4:1740 (NAR, 398). “Scamel” possible misprint of “seamel”: Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), 45. Tempest only known use of the word “scamel” (with the exception of “doubtful” 1866 ref
erence): Oxford English Dictionary. Parallel “sea-mews”/“scamels” passages: Gayley, Shakespeare, 60; Cawley, “Use,” 711; Bullough, Sources, 8:240. “Bat-fowling”: 2.1.185, ARD, 197. “Lowbelling”: PIL, 4:1741 (NAR, 399). Parallel “bat-fowling”/“lowbelling” passages: Vaughan and Vaughan, ARD, 197; Gayley, Shakespeare, 60; Cawley, “Use,” 711. “Hollow burst”: 2.1.312-13, ARD, 206; “be not afeard”: 3.2.135-38, 232; “strange and several”: 5.1.232-34, 278.

  “Bloody issues,” “desire forever”: PIL, 4:1743, 1745 (NAR, 404, 410). “Bloody thoughts”: 4.1.220-21, ARD, 258; “let me live here”: 4.1.122, 251; “had I plantation”: 2.1.144, 193. Parallel mutineer motivations passages: Gayley, Shakespeare, 61; Bullough, Sources, 8:240; Kathman, “Dating”; Cawley, “Use,” 713. Ariel similar to English indentured servants: Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), xxxi. Caliban similar to Bermuda mutineers: Brockbank, “Conventions,” 196. “Had I plantation,” “Golden Age,” “no occupation,” “everything advantageous,” “true, save means,” “all idle—whores”: 2.1.52-53, 144, 155-57, 167, 169, ARD, 188, 193, 195, 196. Shakespeare’s use of Montaigne: Vaughan and Vaughan in ARD, 193; Bullough, Sources, 8:243, 255; Ebner, “Ideal,” 161, 164-68, 173. Parallels between Gonzalo’s speech (and his mocking colleagues) and Virginia Company’s publications (and the company’s critics): Marx, Machine, 36-66; Vaughan and Vaughan, ARD, 4-5; Holland in Shakespeare, Tempest (Pelican), xxix-xxx; Cheyfitz, Poetics, 67-68; Knapp, Empire, 221-22; Gillies, “Masque,” 682-83; Hamlin, Image, 118-24.

  Prospero and Caliban threaten to force others to drink brine: 1.2.463, 3.2.64- 65, ARD, 182, 228. “Fens, marshes”: PIL, 4:1740 (NAR, 398). “All the infections”: 2.2.1-3, ARD, 207; “filthy-mantled”: 4.1.182, 256; “I do smell”: 4.1.199, 257. Parallel contaminated water passages: Gillies, “Masque,” 684, 691; Gayley, Shakespeare, 59-60; Cawley, “Use,” 702, 708; Kathman, “Dating.” “A low level”: PIL, 4:1752 (NAR, 428-29). Tempest debate on Queen Dido: 2.1.77-102, ARD, 189-91. Parallel Dido passages: Cawley, “Use,” 706; Kathman, “Dating”; Salingar, “World,” 209-10.