Horestes
A late Tudor hybrid morality play on the Orestes myth.
John Pickering, a Tudor dramatist, wrote the morality play Horestes, first printed in 1567. That year, Lord Rich’s men likely staged it during the court’s Christmas festivities. Its full title describes it as a new interlude of Vice recounting Horestes’s cruel revenge for his father’s death on his own mother. Pickering may be the lawyer and politician Sir John Puckering.
Quick Facts
- Writer
- John Pickering
- Premiere date
- 1567
- Genre
- Morality play
Facts from the source article.
Source and text
The play retells the ancient Greek myth of Orestes, but its inspiration comes from William Caxton's 1475 translation of the French romance Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, not from Aeschylus's Oresteia. As a result, its themes and dramatic structure feel medieval rather than classical. A single copy survives, kept at the British Museum. It was printed by William Griffith of Fleet Street, London, and sold at his shop in St. Dunstan's churchyard.
Structure and genre
Along with Thomas Preston's Cambises, Horestes has been identified as a hybrid morality, articulating classical themes and characters with the medieval allegorical tradition. The central allegorical figure of the Vice vies with the non-allegorical classical protagonist Horestes; though their roles are about the same size, Horestes controls the important action. The play has an episodic structure alternating comic and tragic scenes, unified by the theme of revenge. It is one of the earliest English revenge plays. Unlike traditional moralities, it presents an ambiguous ending: Horestes is forgiven for the murders, but the justification remains unresolved, and forgiveness is not prompted by his repentance.
Staging demands
Horestes runs to 1,205 lines, longer than most older moralities. It was designed for a company of six players, each performing between three and seven roles. The actor playing Horestes also played the Woman in a brief scene, while a boy actor played Clytemnestra, Hermione, Hempstring, and Provision. Unusually, the role of Idumeus is shared between two different actors. The sizes of the roles of Horestes (521 lines) and the Vice (557 lines), along with the alternation of tragic and burlesque scenes, suggest the company needed two leading actors adept at both serious and comic acting.
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