Editing Sejanus His Fall

{{Short description|1603 play by Ben Jonson}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
{{Italic title}}
[[File:Sejanus his Fall 1616.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Title page of the 1616 [[Folio (printing)|folio]] edition, with list of actors opposite]]
'''''Sejanus His Fall''''', a 1603 play by [[Ben Jonson]], is a [[tragedy]] about [[Sejanus|Lucius Aelius Sejanus]], the favourite of the [[Roman emperor]] [[Tiberius]].

''Sejanus His Fall'' was performed at court in 1603, and at the [[Globe Theatre]] in 1604. The latter performance was a failure. According to Jonson, an unnamed co-author "had good share" in the version of the play as it was "acted on the public stage". For reasons unknown the play was accused of promoting "[[Catholicism|popery]] and treason". Jonson was questioned, but no action was taken.

Jonson published the play in a revised version, replacing the contributions of his co-author with his own words. The published version was accompanied by copious marginal notes citing its historical sources, in [[quarto]] in 1605 and in [[folio (printing)|folio]] in 1616.

==Stage history==
''Sejanus His Fall'' was first performed by the [[King's Men (playing company)|King's Men]] in 1603, probably at court in the winter of that year.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ayres|1990|p=37}}.</ref> In 1604 it was produced at the [[Globe Theatre]]. Contemporary witnesses, including Jonson, reported that the cast was greeted with heckles and hisses by their first audience at the Globe;<ref name=philo/> the 1604 performance was "hissed off the stage".<ref>{{Harvnb|Ayres|1990|pp=37–38}}.</ref> According to [[Park Honan]], the later Roman works of Shakespeare, who had acted in ''Sejanus'', carefully avoided "''Sejanus''{{'}}s clotted style, lack of irony, and grinding moral emphasis."<ref>Park Honan, ''Shakespeare: A Life'', Oxford University Press, New York, 1999, p. 342.</ref>

The published cast list in Jonson's 1616 [[Folio (printing)|folio]] identifies the principal actors as [[Richard Burbage]], [[Augustine Phillips]], [[William Sly]], [[John Lowin]], [[William Shakespeare]], [[John Heminges]], [[Henry Condell]], and [[Alexander Cooke]] (listed in that order). It is not known which parts were played by which actors. David Grote argues that the published list probably mixes two separate productions, as Lowin did not join the King's Men until after the first production. However Grote suggests that the most likely roles for these performers can be identified:

<blockquote>Sejanus, the largest role and a classic over-reacher in the [[Richard III of England|Richard III]] manner, was obviously played by Burbage. The proud [[Gaius Silius|Silius]], whose confrontation with Tiberius occupies the core of the first three acts and whose suicide is a traditionally noble Roman death, most likely would have gone to Heminges, with the more military Condell as the [[Naevius Sutorius Macro|Guards Captain Macro]]. Phillips, who had been playing dissolute men for some time, would seem very likely for Tiberius if not for Jonson's hint that it was actually Shakespeare. Still, with Shakespeare as Tiberius, there is a very large role for an indignant speechmaker, [[Lucius Arruntius (consul 6)|Arruntius]], that would have taken advantage of Phillips's rhetorical skills.<ref>David Grote, ''The Best Actors in the World: Shakespeare and His Acting Company'', Greenwood Press, Westport, 2002, p. 121.</ref></blockquote> Grote further suggests that the unnamed other members of the company, [[King's Men personnel|Samuel Crosse]], William Sly, and [[Robert Armin]], played the roles of Lepidus, Terentius, and Sabinius.

From 1604 on, there is no record of a performance of ''Sejanus His Fall'' until 1928, when it was put on by [[William Poel]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Ayres|1990|p=38}}.</ref> According to the play's modern editor Philip Ayres, Poel "cut the play by roughly a quarter" to "get away from the 'literary' 1605 published version to the 'hidden' stage play".<ref>{{Harvnb|Ayres|1990|p=38}}.</ref> More recently, the [[Royal Shakespeare Company]] staged the play in 2005.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Taylor |first1=Gary |title=The butcher of Rome |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/jul/18/theatre.stage |access-date=18 May 2021 |work=The Guardian|date=18 July 2005}}</ref> Later, as part of the many staged readings and livestream productions that took place during the [[COVID-19 pandemic]], New York City's Red Bull Theatre produced a "livestream presentation" via YouTube on 17 May 2021 directed and adapted by Nathan Winkelstein, featuring notable Broadway and US television actors including [[Tamara Tunie]] (Sabinus), [[Laila Robins]] (Tiberius Caesar), [[Denis O'Hare]] (Sejanus), [[Keith David]] (Silius), [[Manoel Felciano]] (Natta), Matthew Rauch (Drusus), [[Stephen Spinella]] (Eudemus), and [[Emily Swallow]] (Livia), among others.<ref>{{cite news |title=Laila Robins Replaces Kate Burton in SEJANUS, HIS FALL |url=https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-broadway/article/Laila-Robins-Replaces-Kate-Burton-in-SEJANUS-HIS-FALL-20210512 |access-date=18 May 2021 |publisher=Broadway World |date=12 May 2021}}</ref>

==Printing history==
The play was entered in the [[Stationers' Register]] by [[Edward Blount]] on 2 November 1604.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ayres|1990|p=1}}.</ref> On 6 August 1605 Blount transferred his copyright to [[Thomas Thorpe]], who published it in [[quarto]] that year (STC 14782), printed by [[George Eld]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Ayres|1990|p=1}}.</ref> The printed text is accompanied by "copious marginal notes" citing the play's historical sources, which Jonson informs his readers were "all in the learned tongues, save one, with whose English side I have little to do".<ref>{{Harvnb|Ayres|1990|pp=2–14}}.</ref> The play is prefaced by an epistle "To the Readers" by Jonson, and [[commendatory verse]]s by [[George Chapman]], [[Hugh Holland]], 'Th. R.', generally assumed to be [[Sir Thomas Roe]], [[John Marston (poet)|John Marston]], [[William Strachey]], one 'Everard B.',<ref>Ayres states that this was not, as earlier assumed, Edmund Bolton; {{Harvnb|Ayres|1990|p=69}}.</ref> and two poets who signed their verses as 'Cygnus' and 'Philos'. In 2023, the scholar Chris Laoutaris identified 'Cygnus' as [[William Shakespeare]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Ben Jonson work from 1603 may contain 'lost' Shakespeare sonnet, say experts|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/23/ben-jonson-play-from-1603-may-contain-lost-shakespeare-sonnet-say-experts |access-date=23 March 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=23 March 2023}}</ref>

A 1616 edition in [[folio (printing)|folio]] features Jonson's Epistle to [[Esmé Stewart, 3rd Duke of Lennox|Lord Aubigny]], in which the dramatist again indicates that ''Sejanus'' was a flop when staged at the [[Globe Theatre]].

==Allegations of treason==
In the winter of 1618–19 Jonson told his friend [[William Drummond of Hawthornden|William Drummond]] that the [[Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton|Earl of Northampton]] was his "mortal enemy" because Jonson had beaten one of the Earl's servants, and that Northampton had had Jonson called before the [[Privy Council of the United Kingdom|Privy Council]] on an accusation of "Popery and treason", based on ''Sejanus''.<ref>Chambers, Vol. 3, p. 367.</ref> What led to these accusations is unknown. It might have been something in the text or the performance of the play. Nor is it known exactly when this accusation was made, though it is likely to have been in the early period of James I's reign. However, according to Jonson expert James Loxley, "no action was taken, as far as we know".<ref>James Loxley, ''Complete Critical Guide to Ben Jonson'', Routledge, New York, 2001, p. 25.</ref>

There have been several theories about what may have led to the accusation. One theory is that the fall of Sejanus was thought to mirror that of the [[Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex|Earl of Essex]], who had been executed in 1601. Another writer, [[Samuel Daniel]] was brought before the Privy Council in 1604 because his play ''[[Philotas]]'' was thought "to be a reflection of the dangerous matter of the dead Earl of Essex".<ref>Ian Grant Donaldson, ''Jonson's Magic Houses:Essays in Interpretation'', Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, p. 37.</ref> However Philip Ayres has argued that ''Sejanus'' was thought to parallel the 1603 trial of [[Walter Raleigh]], who had been found guilty of conspiring with Spanish Catholics to murder James I in the [[Main Plot]]. This might explain how a play set in ancient Rome was suspected of promoting "Popery".<ref>Philip Ayres, "Jonson, Northampton, and the Treason in Sejanus", Modern Philology, 80 (1983), 356–63</ref> It has also been suggested that the central theme of the play, the dangers of rule by royal favourites, was the problem. In the early years of his reign, 1603–1605, James was especially sensitive to criticism of his supporters, given the several conspiracies against him, culminating in the 1605 [[Gunpowder Plot]].<ref>Evelyn May Albright, ''Dramatic Publication in England, 1580–1640: A Study of Conditions Affecting Content and Form of Drama'', Modern Language Association of America: New York, 1927, p. 146.</ref>

==Co-author==
Jonson's epistle "To the Readers" in the 1605 quarto states that an unnamed author had "good share" in the version of the play which was performed on the public stage:

<blockquote>Lastly I would inform you that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage, wherein a second pen had good share; in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker (and no doubt less pleasing) of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ayres|1990|p=52}}.</ref></blockquote>

Jonson's reference to "happy genius" have led some to speculate that William Shakespeare—who acted in the play—was Jonson's co-author on the original version of ''Sejanus'', which has not survived.<ref>Andrew Gurr, ''The Shakespeare Company, 1594–1642'', Cambridge University Press, 15 Apr. 2004, p. 144.</ref> Another candidate for co-authorship is [[George Chapman]], who later wrote a poem praising the play.<ref>Anne Barton, ''Ben Jonson, Dramatist'', Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 91.</ref> Jonson was certainly collaborating with Chapman in this period, as his next play, ''[[Eastward Ho]]'', was co-written with Chapman and John Marston.

==Influence on Shakespeare==
John-Mark Philo has suggested that Shakespeare's experience with acting in ''Sejanus'' and its unfavourable reception may have influenced him in writing his ''[[Othello]]'', also written in 1603 and performed by the same theatre company, the [[King's Men (playing company)|King's Men]]. The two plays have "similar plot devices, characterisation, opportunities for audience interaction and ... shared phrasing that doesn't appear anywhere else in Shakespeare's work".<ref name=alberge>{{Cite news |title=Shakespeare inspired to write Othello after being booed off stage |last=Alberge |first=Dalya |newspaper=[[The Observer]] |date=27 August 2022 |url= https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/aug/27/shakespeare-inspired-to-write-othello-after-being-booed-off-stage}}</ref><ref name=philo>{{cite book | last=Philo | first=John-Mark | title=[[Shakespeare Survey]]|volume= 75 |chapter=Ben Jonson's Sejanus And Shakespeare's Othello: Two Plays Performed By The King's Men In 1603 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | date=24 August 2022| doi=10.1017/9781009245845.009 | pages=122–136| isbn=9781009245845 }}</ref>

==References==
===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Bibliography===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{Cite book |editor-last=Ayres |editor-first=Philip |year=1990 |title=Sejanus His Fall |location=Manchester |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0719015427 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/sejanushisfall0000jons }}
* [[Edmund Kerchever Chambers|Chambers, E. K.]] ''The Elizabethan Stage.'' 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
* [[F. E. Halliday|Halliday, F.E.]] ''A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964.'' Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
{{Refend}}

==External links==
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5232 Text of ''Sejanus His Fall''] at [[Project Gutenberg]]
* [http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000002AE8E Digitized Facsimile of 1605 Quarto] at [[British Library]]

{{Ben Jonson}}

[[Category:Plays by Ben Jonson]]
[[Category:English Renaissance plays]]
[[Category:Shakespeare apocrypha]]
[[Category:1603 plays]]
[[Category:Plays set in ancient Rome]]