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    David and Bethsabe: 'Of Israel's sweetest singer now I sing, His holy style and happy victories''
    David and Bethsabe: 'Of Israel's sweetest singer now I sing, His holy style and happy victories''
    David and Bethsabe: 'Of Israel's sweetest singer now I sing, His holy style and happy victories''
    Ebook95 pages59 minutes

    David and Bethsabe: 'Of Israel's sweetest singer now I sing, His holy style and happy victories''

    By George Peele

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    About this ebook

    George Peele was born in July 1556 and baptised on the 25th at St James Garlickhythe in the City of London.

    A completely accurate record of his life is not possible but enough accounts and records exist to provide some background.

    His father, James was a clerk at Christ's Hospital, then a central London school, and authored two treatises on bookkeeping.

    Peele himself was initially educated at Christ's Hospital before entering Broadgates Hall, Oxford, in 1571. Three years after in 1574 he moved to Christ Church and took his B.A. there in 1577, and then his M.A. in 1579. Something appears to have so upset the Governors that they requested their clerk to ‘discharge his house of his son, George Peele.’

    His mother, Anne, died on July 1st, 1580, and his father remarried to Christian Widers, a nurse at the hospital a few months later.

    Peele himself appears to have married, around this time, Ann Cooke, a heiress. He appears to have been rather reckless with her assets and they were soon gone.

    What he did appear to be hard at work on was his writing. His pastoral comedy ‘The Arraignment of Paris’ was presented by the Children of the Chapel Royal before Queen Elizabeth perhaps by 1581, and was printed anonymously in 1584.

    He was praised in 1585 for his translation from the Greek of one of the ‘Iphigenias of Euripides’. That same year, 1585, he was employed to write the ‘Device of the Pageant’, and in 1591 he devised a pageant in honour of another Lord Mayor, Sir William Webbe. This was the ‘Descensus Astraeae’, in which Queen Elizabeth is honoured as Astraea.

    Much of the rest of his life is not certain and various facts, accounts and information is in dispute.

    He may have married for a second time but what happened to Ann is not recorded. He was also awarded the authorship of several plays many of which have now fallen away although modern research methods. However, knowing the collaboration between many of the dramatists of that time his hand has been detected and confirmed in some other plays.

    Perhaps the most famous of these is Shakespeare’s ‘Titus Andronicus’. It is now thought that Peele wrote the first act as well as the first two scenes in Act II, with Shakespeare responsible for the rest. The exact measure of each is difficult to ascertain any further.

    As a writer he is acknowledged to be one of the era’s finest and ranked alongside Marlowe, Spenser, and Shakespeare.

    The other plays for which Peele can reliably be given authorship are ‘Edward I’, (printed 1593) ‘The Old Wives' Tale’, ‘The Battle of Alcazar’ (printed 1594) and David and Bethsabe (printed 1599). ‘The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England’, the immediate source for Shakespeare's King John, has been published under Peele’s name.

    George Peel died, accounts say of the pox, and was buried on the 9th November 1596 in St James's Church, Clerkenwell.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStage Door
    Release dateMar 25, 2019
    ISBN9781787804975
    David and Bethsabe: 'Of Israel's sweetest singer now I sing, His holy style and happy victories''

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      Book preview

      David and Bethsabe - George Peele

      David and Bethsabe by George Peele

      Performed c. 1596.  First Published 1599

      The love of King David and Fair Bethsabe.

      With the Tragedie of Absalon.

      As it hath ben diuers times plaied on the stage.

      http://elizabethandrama.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/David-and-Bethsabe-Play-Alone.htm

      Index of Contents

      PROLOGUS

      SCENE I - The Royal Palace, Jerusalem

      SCENE II - Before the Walls of the City of Rabbah, the Capital City of Ammon

      SCENE III - The House of Amnon in Jerusalem

      SCENE IV - Outside the Door to Amnon's House

      SCENE V - Jerusalem

      CHORUS I

      SCENE VI - The Royal Palace at Jerusalem

      SCENE VII - The Palace

      SCENE VIII - A Field

      SCENE IX - Rabbah, Outside the City's Walls

      SCENE X - The Mount of Olives

      SCENE XI - The Palace in Jerusalem

      SCENE XII - The Road Near the Village of Bahurim

      SCENE XIII - The House of Achitophel

      SCENE XIV - The Wood of Ephraim

      SCENE XV - The Wood of Ephraim

      CHORUS II

      SCENE XVI - Near the Battlefield

      SCENE XVII - David's Headquarters at Manahaim

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      David and his Family:

      David, King of Israel and Judah.

      Cusay, a lord, and follower of David.

      Amnon, son of David by Ahinoam

      Jethray, Servant to Amnon.

      Chileab, son of David by Abigail.

      Absalon, son of David by Maacah.

      Thamar, daughter of David by Maacah.

      Adonia, son of David by Haggith.

      Salomon, son of David by Bethsabe.

      Joab, captain of the host to David, and nephew of

      David and son of his sister Zeruia.

      Abisai, nephew of David and son of his sister Zeruia.

      Amasa, nephew of David and son of his sister Abigail; also captain of the host to Absalon.

      Jonadab, nephew of David and son of his brother

      Shimeah; also friend to Amnon.

      Other Characters:

      Urias, a warrior in David's army.

      Bethsabe, wife of Uriah.

      Maid to Bethsabe.

      Nathan, a prophet.

      Sadoc, high-priest.

      Ahimaas, his son.

      Abiathar, a priest.

      Jonathan, his son.

      Achitophel, chief counsellor to Absalon.

      Ithay, a Captain from Gath.

      Semei.

      Hanon, King of Ammon.

      Machaas, King of Gath.

      Woman of Thecoa.

      Messenger, Soldiers, Shepherds, and Attendants.

      Concubines to David.

      Chorus.

      PROLOGUS

      Of Israel's sweetest singer now I sing,

      His holy style and happy victories;

      Whose Muse was dipt in that inspiring dew

      Arch-angels stillèd from the breath of Jove,

      Decking her temples with the glorious flowers

      Heavens rained on tops of Sion and Mount Sinai.

      Upon the bosom of his ivory lute

      The cherubins and angels laid their breasts;

      And, when his consecrated fingers strook

      The golden wires of his ravishing harp,

      He gave alarum to the host of Heaven,

      That, winged with lightning, brake the clouds, and cast

      Their crystal armour at his conquering feet.

      Of this sweet poet, Jove's musiciän,

      And of his beauteous son, I prease to sing.

      Then help, divine Adonai, to conduct

      Upon the wings of my well-tempered verse

      The hearers' minds above the towers of Heaven,

      And guide them so in this thrice-haughty flight,

      Their mounting feathers scorch not with the fire

      That none can temper but thy holy hand:

      To thee for succour flies my feeble Muse,

      And at thy feet her iron pen doth use.

      [The PROLOGUE-SPEAKER, before going out, draws a curtain and discovers BETHSABE, with her MAID, bathing over a spring: she sings, and DAVID sits above viewing her.

      SCENE I

      The Royal Palace, Jerusalem.

      DAVID sitting on the Palace roof, watching BETHSABE below bathing over a spring.

      THE SONG.

      Hot sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,

      Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair:

      Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me;

      Black shade, fair nurse; shroud me, and please me:

      Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning,

      Make not my glad cause cause of mourning.

      Let not my beauty's fire

      Inflame unstaid desire,

      Nor pierce any bright eye

      That wandereth lightly.

      BETHSABE

      Come, gentle Zephyr, tricked with those perfumes

      That erst in Eden sweetened Adam's love,

      And stroke my bosom with thy silken fan:

      This shade, sun-proof, is yet no proof for thee;

      Thy body, smoother than this waveless spring,

      And purer than the substance of the same,

      Can creep through that his lances cannot pierce:

      Thou, and thy sister, soft and sacred Air,

      Goddess of life, and governess of health,

      Keep every fountain fresh and arbour sweet;

      No brazen gate her passage can repulse,

      Nor bushly thicket bar thy subtle breath:

      Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes,

      And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes,

      To play the wantons with us through the leaves.

      DAVID

      What tunes, what words, what looks, what wonders pierce

      My soul, incensèd with a sudden fire?

      What tree, what shade, what spring, what paradise,

      Enjoys the beauty of so fair a dame?

      Fair Eva, placed in perfect happiness,

      Lending her praise-notes to the liberal heavens,

      Strook with the accents of arch-angels' tunes,

      Wrought not more

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