additions of the same Author. For William Ponsonby. [The description of the entertainment follows Astrophel and Stella among the 'new additions', beginning at the head of sig. 3 B3^v, without title or date.] Reprints in 1599, 1605, 1613, 1621, 1622, 1623, 1627, 1629, 1633, 1638, 1655, 1662, 1674 editions of the Arcadia. Editions in Nichols, Elizabeth^{1, 2}, ii. 94 (1788-1823), and Collections of Sidney's Works. The entertainment was in the Garden. As the Queen entered the grove, An Honest Man's Wife of the Country delivered a speech and a written supplication in verse, for decision of the case of her daughter. Then came the daughter, chosen May Lady, and haled this way by six Shepherds on behalf of her lover Espilus and six Foresters on behalf of her lover Therion. The case was put to the Queen by Laius an old Shepherd, Rombus a Schoolmaster, and finally the May Lady herself. Espilus, accompanied by the Shepherds with recorders, and Therion, accompanied by the Foresters with cornets, sang in rivalry. A 'contention' followed between Dorcas, an old Shepherd, and Rixus, a young Forester, 'whether of their fellows had sung better, and whether the estate of shepherds or foresters were the more worshipful'. Rombus tried to intervene. The May Lady appealed to the Queen, who decided for Espilus. Shepherds and Foresters made a consort together, Espilus sang a song, and the May Lady took her leave. Nichols assigns the entertainment to Elizabeth's Wanstead visit of 1578. But it might also belong to that of 1579, and possibly to that of 1582. In 1579, but not in 1578, the visit covered May Day. The references in the text are, however, to the month of May, rather than to May Day.
Pastoral Dialogue, c. 1580
1598. A Dialogue between two Shepherds, Vttered in a Pastorall Show at Wilton. [Appended to Arcadia; cf. supra.]
Edition in A. B. Grosart, Poems of Sidney (1877), ii. 50.
This dialogue between Dick and Will appears to belong to the series of poems motived by Sidney's love for Penelope Devereux. It must therefore date between August 1577, when Sidney first visited his sister, Lady Pembroke, at Wilton, and his own marriage on 20 Sept. 1583. There is no indication that the Queen was present; not improbably the 'Show' took place while Sidney was out of favour at Court, and was living at Wilton from March to August 1580.
JOHN SINGER (?-1603 <).
On Singer's career as an actor, see ch. xv.
On 13 Jan. 1603, about which date he apparently retired from the Admiral's, Henslowe paid him £5 'for his playe called Syngers vallentarey' (Greg, Henslowe, i. 173; ii. 226). I think the term 'vallentarey' must be used by Henslowe, rightly or wrongly, in the sense of 'valedictory'. Quips on Questions (1600), a book of 'themes', is not his, but Armin's (q.v.).
