Seneca his tenne tragedies, translated into Englysh, 1581

Seneca his tenne tragedies, translated into Englysh. Imprinted at London in Fleetstreete neere vnto Saincte Dunstans church by Thomas Marsh, 1581.

The Elizabethan translation of Seneca's Ten Tragedies was Shakespeare's source for the famous lines "When the hurley-burley's done" and "Tomorrow and tomorrow . . . the way to dusty death" in Macbeth, and influenced Titus Andronicus and Richard II as well. See Kenneth Muir, Shakespeare's Sources (London, 1957), p. 180.

T. S. Eliot described the publication of Seneca's Ten Tragedies as heralding "the transformation of the older form of versification into the new," and argued that "few things that can happen to a nation are more important than the invention of a new form of verse."

Seneca his Tenne Tragedies was the first printed collection of Seneca's plays in English. Editor and translator Thomas Newton brought together translations of ten plays, seven of which had previously been published individually. The ten plays were Hercules Furens (trans. Jasper Heywood), Thyestes (trans. Jasper Heywood), Thebais (trans. Thomas Newton), Hippolytus (trans. John Studley), Oedipus (trans. Alexander Neville), Troas (trans. Jasper Heywood), Medea (trans. John Studley), Agamemnon (trans. John Studley), Octavia (trans. Thomas Nuce), and Hercules Oetaeus (trans. John Studley).

First Edition. Quarto: B-2C8 2D, folios 1-199 [lacking A4 (title-page and dedication) and nine leaves after 2D (folios 200-218)].

Original vellum binding with handwritten title on spine. Early ownership inscription "John Emirton/Emerton" on the vellum. Custom quarter-calf slipcase.

There were several John Emertons active in the seventeenth century. A John Emerton, Esq., was the owner of Thrumpton Hall, near Nottingham, in 1685. Another John Emerton, a resident of Southwark in London, died in 1652, leaving a will that suggests he had the means to own books. Yet another John Emerton entered into an illicit marriage with his twelve-year-old cousin Bridget Hyde, which was revealed in the late 1670s when she became engaged to marry Peregrine Osborne, the future Duke of Leeds. A lengthy court case over the ownership of her property ensued.

References: STC 22221, Greg, III, p. 1105-6, Pforzheimer 867