Horestes

First staged in 1567, John Pickering’s Horestes seems to be inspired by a momentous political crisis in English politics. As most scholars now agree, the play appropriates the Orestes-Clytaemestra myth to present and dramatize arguments in favour of deposing a queen, namely Mary Stuart (see e.g. Robertson 1990). The myth of the Atreidai looked like an obvious parallel for the events unfolding in Scotland: exactly like Clytaemestra with Aegisthus, few months after the murder of her second husband, Henry Lord Darnley (1567), Mary Stuart married Lord Bothwell, allegedly Darnley’s murderer and Mary’s own lover. In Pickering’s play, Horestes’ matricide is thus presented as both a just revenge and the reclaiming of the throne by a legitimate heir – consequently, Horestes will be forgiven in the final trial. In light of these evident political connections, the author, John Pickering, has been plausibly identified with John Puckering, one of the most outspoken advocates for Mary’s execution later as Speaker of the House and as Lord Keeper in Elizabeth’s government.

At the intersection between classical themes, medieval allegorical tradition and morality plays (George 2004), Pickering’s Horestes holds a special place in the history of English literature. To begin with, it is the first accomplished example of revenge play in early modern English drama, to be followed by Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, to name just two (on revenge plays, see Bowers 2016², Hallett, Hallett 1980, Woodbridge 2010; on the impact of Orestes’ myth, see e.g. Murray 1914, Kott 1967, Kerrigan 1996). Its political tone, moreover, makes Horestes fully compatible with other early modern plays that used ancient texts to convey political messages, such as Preston’s Cambises (see Ward 2004). Furthermore, Pickering’s Horestes paved the way for several dramatic rewritings of Orestes’ myth (Miola 2017, Pollard 2020): see e.g. Heywood’s Iron Age (wr. 1612-5), Goffe’s Orestes (wr. 1613-18), Milton’s use of the Orestes myth as an argument in favour of regicide, and Christopher Wase’s translation of Sophocles’ Electra (1649), a direct return to a Greek source.

Axton, Marie ed. 1982. Three Tudor Classical Interludes. Thersites, Jacke Jugeler, Horestes. Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer.

Bowers, Fredson Thayer. 2016² (1966). Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy 1587-1642. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

George, Jodie Ann. 2004. ‘‘‘A pestelaunce on the crabyd queane’’: The Hybrid Nature of John Pikeryng’s Horestes’, Sederi 14: 65-76.

Hallett, Charles A. and Hallett, Elaine A. 1980. The Revenger’s Madness: A Study of Revenge Tragedy Motifs. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Kerrigan, John. 1996. Revenge Tragedy. Aeschylus to Armageddon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kott, Jan. 1967. ‘Hamlet and Orestes’, PMLA 82: 303-13.

Miola, Robert S. 2017. ‘Representing Orestes’ Revenge’. Classical Receptions Journal 9: 144-65.

Murray, Gilbert. 1914. Hamlet and Orestes: A Study in Traditional Types. New York.

Pollard, Tanya. 2020. ‘Translating and Transgendering Orestes in Early Modern England’, Translation and Literature, 29: 101-16.

Robertson, Karen. 1990. ‘The Body Natural of a Queen: Mary, James, Horestes’, Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme 26: 25-37.

Ward, Allyna. 2008. ‘‘‘Whosever Resisteth Shall get to Themselfes Dampnacioun’’: Tyranny and Resistance in Cambises and Horestes’, Yearbook of English Studies 38: 150-67.

Woodbridge, Linda. 2010. English Revenge Drama: Money, Resistance, Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The volume of Horestes by John Pikering is in quarto and consists of 40 pages. It is held at the British Library (6 0C60).

The frontispiece reads: 

A newe enterlude of vice conteyninge, the historye of Horestes with the cruell reuengment of his fathers death, vpon his one naturill mother, by John Pikering. Imprinted at London to fletestrete, at the signe of the Falcon by Wylliam Gryffith, and are to be ſolde at his shope in S. Dunstons Churcheyearde. Anno. 1567.

At bottom of page, the volume has signatures, starting from A¹, and going to E⁴. 

The whole text is written in gothic characters. No manuscript notes can be found. Stage directions are written as marginal notes throughout the text. Inking defects can be spotted at B³v.

At A¹v, the whole page hosts an illustration showing prancing horses around a coat of arms. At E⁴v, an illustrion shows a copyst at work; the illustration is framed by the title "Astris Sapiens Dominabitur". The frontispiece is framed by a continuous line formed by a sequence of curly brackets. The volume has intricate initials at A²r, B²v, C²r, C⁴r, and D³r.

The EEBO bibliographical number is Greg 48; STC (2nd ed.) / 19917.