I wish I could transcribe the passage Prof. Godshalk is remembering, but
I don't have my copy of Charles Nicholl's The Reckoning--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
>*
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*
>*
> *
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