I would just add, and I don't think I've read this much in the criticism
or scholarship but I could be missing something, that some of what Marlowe
is purported to have said--specifically the bit about Moses as a
juggler--seems curiously like a mishearing of what somebody like Thomas
Hariot might well believe: that Moses knew about the secret mysteries of
things like a good *magus* and either taught Hermes Trismegistis or
learned from him (Hermes being of course the equivalent of the Egyptian
Thoth (Toth?). In other words, I gather that Thomas Hariot, named in the
Baines material, was interested in what D.P. Walker calls the "prisca
theologia"--Frances Yates territory too, of course--and the servant who
overheard Marlowe might have misinterpreted. Just a thought. But of course
that doesn't explain the bit about St. John. Anne Prescott.
On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Clark Hulse wrote:
> The report that Marlowe would say things like "Moses was a juggler and
> one Hariot Sir Walter Ralegh;'s man could do as much" and "all who
> love not tobacco and boys are fools," plus that bit about Christ and
> the apostle John are all contained in the "Baines note," currently on
> display at the British Library in an exhibition about the history of
> English poetry. The note indeed originates as a deposition by Baines
> to the authorities. For decades it was dismissed by scholars on the
> grounds that Baines was a "professional informant" and didn't know
> Marlowe. The note also contains the accusation of counterfeiting.
>
>
> Everything changed when the great diplomatic historian R. B. Wernham
> turned up the letter recording the arrest of Marlowe and Baines in the
> Netherlands for counterfeiting. Hence the argument that Baines had no
> special knowledge about Marlowe was blown away, and one of his most
> serious charges against Marlowe was corroborated. This doesn't mean
> that the rest is true. Indeed, the letter recording the arrest notes
> that, when questioned separately, Baines and Marlowe accused each other
> of planning to go over to the Spanish (English desertions to the
> Spanish in the Netherlands were a considerable problem). So Baines's
> later statements are likely filtered through personal animus dating
> back to the arrest. But the burden of proof, I would argue, is upon
> those who would claim that Marlowe didn't say such things. There are
> sufficient other grounds (such as Greene's allusions to Marlowe as the
> fool who says in his heart there is no god) supporting the idea that,
> whatever Marlowe <underline>really</underline> said or did, a good
> number of people <underline>believed</underline> that he was operating
> in a zone where "atheism," sodomy, poetry, and addictive substances
> were conjoined.
>
>
> I think the object of our study, as literary scholars, is that cultural
> belief, and the specific texts, both literary and non-literary, that go
> into it or flow from it.
>
>
>
> > I wish I could transcribe the passage Prof. Godshalk is remembering,
> but I don't have my copy of Charles Nicholl's <italic>The
> Reckoning</italic>--a fascinating historical reconstruction of
> Marlowe's final decade. I do remember that the passage included
> something about "they who love not tobacco and boys are fools," an
> avowal of atheism, and also something about "Mary was not a virgin" and
> "John was Jesus' bedfellow." But more importantly the passage came
> from a shady character named Baines who was, along with Marlowe,
> somehow involved in the espionage work between England and the
> Netherlands. The Privy Council exacted this testimony from Baines,
> Nicholl thinks, because Marlowe was on the outs for some reason--I
> can't remember if Nicholl has a definitive theory about that, but it
> may involve counterfeiting coins or playing double agent with the
> Catholics. When an anti-immigrant churchyard poem circulated in
> 1592/3, signed only Tamburlaine, the authorities searched Marlowe's
> room for evidence of his authorship, and I think it was on that
> occasion that they arrested Kyd--Marlowe's roommate at the time--for
> interrogation. They tortured Kyd to get the digs on Marlowe, and poor
> Kyd died, possibly from the effects of the rack, a year later. The
> case against Marlowe ended when he was killed not in a barroom brawl,
> as the story goes, but in a private room in a Deptford hotel where
> three men (including Marlowe) were spending the day. When Marlowe
> turned up dead, of a knife wound to the brain from just above the eye,
> the other men in the room testified that it had been self-defense over
> a dispute concerning the "reckoning," or the food and room charge.
>
> >
>
> > While there's no doubt in my mind that Marlowe must have liked boys
> and tobacco as well as the next guy, the report itself is suspicious
> because it appears to have been fabricated for a political end by an
> adversary--more "state" related than closet, perhaps.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > At 10:31 PM 10/25/00 -0400, you wrote:
>
> > >(since
>
> > >Marlowe liked boys, and kirtles could be worn by males).
>
> > >
>
> > >John Leonard adds in parenthesis.
>
> > >
>
> > >I don't have the Marlowe passage in front of me, but as I recall it
> is a
>
> > >report of one of Marlowe's outrageous comments. And as I further
> vaguely
>
> > >remember, the statement begins as a question: know you not that . .
> . .,
>
> > >and ends as a comment on local sexual fashions.
>
> > >
>
> > >I just checked Bruce Smith's Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's
> England,
>
> > >and found discussions of "Come live with me" and The Shepheardes
> Calender,
>
> > >etc. -- but not the passage I desire!
>
> > >
>
> > >Yours, Bill Godshalk
>
> > >**********************************************
>
> > >* W. L.
> Godshalk *
>
> > >* Professor, Department of English *
>
> > >* University of
> Cincinnati *
>
> > >* Cincinnati OH 45221-0069 * Stellar Disorder
>
>
> > >* [log in to unmask] *
>
> > >*
>
> > > *
>
> > >**********************************************
>
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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