Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: Karen Sawyer Marsalek
Peer Reviewed

Supplementary Materials

Thomas Nashe: Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to the Devil (excerpt)

London: Abel Jeffes for John Busbie, 1592. (cf. Nashe, ed. Stearne 113)

I will defend it against any cullion, or clubfisted usurer of them all, there is no immortality can be given a man on earth like unto plays. What talk I to them of immortality, that are the only underminers of honor, and do envy any man that is not sprung up by base broker like themselves? They care not if all the ancient houses were rooted out, so that like the burgomasters of the Low Countries they might share the government amongst them as states and be quarter-masters of our monarchy. All arts to them are vanity, and if you tell them what a glorious thing it is to have Henry the Fifth represented on the stage leading the French King prisoner, and forcing both him and the Dauphin to swear fealty, “Aye, but” (will they say) “What do we get by it?”, respecting neither the right of fame that is due to true nobility deceased, or what hopes of eternity are to be proposed to adventurous minds, to encourage them forward, but only their execrable lucre and filthy, unquenchable avarice. (26 recto)