The Brazen Age

The third of four instalments (Ages) declined in five plays, The Brazen Age is part of a vast "panorama of Greek myth" (Brooke and Shaaber, II, 544) drawn by Thomas Heywood (c. 1573-1641). An actor-playwright, Heywood was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1591, and had a strong and enduring relationship with classical antiquity throughout his whole life. In particular, the years 1607-1613 mark a development toward a learned type of literature: in these years, Heywood wrote Lucrece (1607, first published in 1608) and Troia Britanica (published in 1609), and most likely brought to the stage the four Ages (see Wiggins and Richardson 2015: 134-46). The dating of the Ages was hotly debated by scholars: even in recent times, an earlier date was proposed for The Silver Age and The Brazen Age, based on the use of props that may be related to the equipment featured in Admiral's Men's inventories in 1598 (Mann 2013), and an attempt was made to connect the Ages with two earlier – and lost – anonymous plays, 1 and 2 Heracles (Arrell 2014; a discussion in Rowland 2021; 124).

The Ages drew heavily from Heywood's Troia, which in turn relied strongly on William Caxton's translation of Raoul Lefèvre's 1464 Recueil des Histoires de Troyes (The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, 1473/74), on Ovid's poems (some of which Heywood translated himself, as he claims in the preface of The Brazen Age), an on other Latin and vernacular poetic and mythographical sources. Through the reference to different materials, the Ages seem to presuppose a sort of evolution in the mythical history of antiquity. Such dynamic can be interpreted as a movement from the era of gods to that of men, and eventually to the world's end: as Homer puts it at the beginning of The Golden Age (1.1),

                                Oh then suffer me,
You that are in the world's decrepit Age,
When it is neere his universall grave,
To sing an old song; and in this Iron Age
Shew you the state of the first golden world ...

This movement is mostly a decline (thus, for instance, McLuskie 1994: 22), as Homer explains at the outset of The Brazen Age (B1r):

As the world growes in yeares (‘tis the Heavens curse)

Mens sinnes increase; the pristine times were best:
The Ages in their growth wax worse and worse
The first was pretious, full of golden rest.

Silver succeeded; good, but not so pure:
Then love and harmelesse lusts might currant passe:
The third that followes we finde more obdure,
And that we title by the Age of Brasse.

"The pristine times were best" seems a perfect synthesis of Heywood's agenda in writing the Ages. However, Heywood himself warns us against interpreting this movement solely as a decline: as he declares in the preface to The Silver Age,

Let not the Title of this booke I entreate bee any weakening of his worth, in the generall opinion. Though wee begunne with Gold, follow with Silver, proceede with Brasse, and purpose by Gods grace, to end with Iron. I hope the declining Titles shall no whit blemish the reputation of the Workes (A2r).

The exact aim of the Ages has been long debated. Even though it is not the only possible explanation, that Heywood pursued an encyclopaedic goal seems evident. As Homer summarizes in The Silver Age (1.1), the aim of the poet is "the ruder censures to refine", as well as "to unlocke the Casket long time shut" of Poetry – of which casket "none but the learned keepe the key". This programme is confirmed in The Iron Age, where Heywood emphasises the strong relationship with classical antiquity, which ensures "the antiquity and noblenesse of the history". This is not to say, of course, that Heywood's audience at the Red Bull Theatre, where the Ages were first performed, was utterly illiterate and uninstructed (see Griffith 2013 and Coffin 2017: 74-5). However, it is undeniable that the Ages follow an erudite agenda, with the explicit aim of spreading the knowledge of myths told by ancient poets. This erudite posture also shows from Heywood's work with his sources: the author frequently mixes more versions of the same myth, providing an original telling which is in fact a learned conflation of several sources. This is certainly due to the fact that classical myths did not come to Heywood in a stabilised form; but such plurality was an opportunity for the author, who could then cherry-pick the most useful version, or merge more versions, and by so doing display his own dramatic skills and literary knowledge. An interesting case study is offered by the duration of the night that Jupiter spends with Alcmena in The Silver Age: Heywood has Jove merge three nights, whereas Ovid has him merge only two nights, and Caxton and Plautus's Amphitruo do not provide precise information. Heywood must have found the detail in Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods, excerpts of which he later translated, or in other mythographic compendia (Peyré 2021: 102).

In spite of their erudite aim, we must resist the temptation of reading the Ages as simply a disconnected list of mythical anecdotes. Of course, none of the Ages develops a single plot, but rather works by means of the creation of a network of differing narratives, adopting an open dramatic form. However, as has been rightly shown, a coherent poetic design can be retraced (see for instance Peyré 2021 on The Silver Age). The Brazen Age is no exception to this observation. Once again, the plot of the play includes several disjointed episodes from different mythical cycles: the killing of the centaur Nessus, Hercules' labours and his death brought about accidentally by his wife Deaineira; the Calydonian boar hunt and Meleager's death caused by his mother Althea; the love of Venus and ADonis; Jason's capture of the golden fleece, his love with Medea and Medea's killing of her own brother Apsyrtus; the love of Venus and Mars and their ridiculing by Hephaestus. Despite the narrative incoherence between all these episodes and a substantial absence of dramatic structure (unlike the other Ages, the Brazen Age is only divided into two acts, the second of which occupies two thirds of the whole play), a predominant poetic and narrative interest can be found. All episodes narrate tragic – and often violent – loves: Nessus' attempted rape of Deianeira; Jason and Medea (and this latter's love for her brother Apsyrtus); Hercules and Deianeira; Hercules and Omphale; Meleager and his mother Althea; even Venus and Mars, although in a comic key, offer yet another example of love gone wrong. Heywood is certainly pursuing a moralizing aim, as he himself admits in the introductory verses of the play, where Homer speaks openly of "sinnes" and "vice" (B1r). Curiously enough, a few lines later, Heywood offers Hercules' labours ("victorious acts") as a noble and moral alternative to those sins ("And these, I hope, may (with some mixtures) passe"). This is in keeping with Heywood's idea of heroism as the only benchmark of nobility and virtue, and it reflects a longstanding interest of modern authors in the adventures of Heracles (see Rowland 2021: 124 ff.). However, Heywood's moralistic interpretation of Hercules incurs a paradox: Hercules' stories are no more edifying than the other stories dramatized in the play – quite the contrary. While he displays heroism and prowess, Hercules also displays baseless violence and complete lack of compassion. This attitude emerges even more clearly when it is compared to the two female characters of Deianeira and Omphale, who are often vilified, both sentimentally and physically, by Hercules. This can be attributed to the ferocious mysogynistic stance of the times, but it is somewhat strident even within the play: both Deianeira and Omphale are depicted as loving, caring, and utterly sympathetic characters. On one hand, Heywood notably innovates the traditional version of Hercules' enslaving by Omphale by having the Lybian queen fall in love with the hero, and follow him to the site of his sacrificial rite; on the other hand, Heywood's depiction of Deianeira is quite benevolent, and emphasises frequently her suffering and her solitude (an image that could have come to Heywood directly from Sophocles' Trachiniae, which the author could have read in a Latin translation: Rowland 2021: 131). In sum, Hercules is the true protagonist of the ages, his adventures marking the beginning and the end of the play (interestingly, in the print edition the title that we find after the preface and before the first act does not list all the stories that will be dramatized throughout, but only Hercules' labours). However, his figure is far from being that of an utterly positive and uplifting hero – and his path to immortality is full of strident detours.

Arrell, Douglas. 2014. "Heywood, Henslowe and Hercules: tracking 1 and 2 Hercules in Heywood’s Silver and Brazen Ages". Early Modern Literary Studies. 17: 1-22.

Baugh Albert C. ed. 1967 (1948). A Literary History of England. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Brooke, Tucker and Shaaber, Mathias A. 1967 (1948). The Renaissance, 1500–1660. In Baugh 1967: vol. 2.

Coffin, Charlotte. 2017. "Heywood’s Ages and Chapman’s Homer: nothing in common?". In Pollard and Demetriou 2017: 55–78.

Demetriou, Tania and Valls-Russell, Janice eds. 2021. Thomas Heywood and the classical tradition. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Griffith, Eva. 2013. A Jacobean Company and its Playhouse: The Queen’s Servants at the Red Bull Theatre (c. 1605–1619).Cambridge: CUP.

Mann, David. 2013. "Heywood’s Silver Age: a flight too far?", Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England. 26: 184-203.

McLuskie, Kathleen E. 1994. Dekker and Heywood: Professional Dramatists. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Peyré, Yves. 2021. "'Interlaced with sundry histories': the open structure of The Silver Age". In Demetriou and Valls-Russell 2021: 99-122.

Pollard, Tanya and Demetriou, Tania eds. 2017. Homer and Greek Tragedy in Early Modern England’s Theatres = Classical Receptions Journal. 9.

Rowland, Richard. 2021. "A 'glorious Greek'? Thomas Heywood and Hercules". In Demetriou and Valls-Russell 2021: 123-38.

Wiggins, Martin and Richardson, Catherine. 2015. British Drama 1533-1642: A Catalogue. Vol. 6: 1609-1616. Oxford: OUP.

The volume of The Brazen Age by Thomas Heywood is in quarto and consists of 82 pages. It is held at the Boston Public Library (G3972.12).

The frontispiece reads: 

The brazen age, The first act containing, the death of the centaure Nessus, the second, the tragedy of Meleager: the third the tragedy of Jason and Medea. The fourth. Vulcans net The fifth. The labours and death of Hercules:

Written by Thomas Heywood

London,

Printed by Nicholas Okes,  for Samuel Rand dwelling neere Holborne-Bridge.  

1613.

At bottom of page, the volume has signatures, starting from A² and going to L³.

Latin and Greek names, stage directions, characters' names, Homer's lines are in italics. The text is mostly in verse; Gallus' lines are in prose (H²v–H³v). There are no manuscripts notes and no major inking defects. The volume has ornaments and intricate initials at A²r-v, B¹r.

The EEBO bibliographical number is STC (2nd ed.) / 13310.3.