The Birth of Merlin or the Child Hath Found His Father

by William Rowley, R.J. Stewart (Contributor), Roy Hudd (Contributor)

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

Genres: Plays, Arthurian

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1622

About the author

William Rowley (1585? – February 1626) was an English Jacobean dramatist, best known for works written in collaboration with more successful writers. His date of birth is estimated to have been c. 1585; he was buried on 11 February 1626. (An unambiguous record of Rowley's death was discovered in 1928, but some authorities persist in listing his death-date as 1642.)

Reviews

[Garry Walton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a great Jacobean play but an interesting one - and a recent performance in Staunton VA by Mary Baldwin students revealed just how much so. Rowley's script reprises some of the attractions of the popular Elizabethan magus plays of 30 years earlier, Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and especially Robert Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. It is based upon Historia Regum Britanniae, Welshman Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century quasihistorical narrative that also inspired the popular early modern plays about contested successions, The Tragedie of Gorboduc and King Leir / King Lear.

At first the play seems to focus on the importance of establishing appropriate and legitimate marital unions. It begins and ends with the rather tangential story of two noble daughters being wooed by the Earl of Cornwall and the son of the Earl of Gloster, and the daughters' conflict between marriage and religious cloistering (1.1; 3.2; 5.2). The apparent main plot concerns the battle for Britain between the forces of Briton King Aurelius and an alliance of Saxon and Welsh opponents. Defeated in battle, the Saxons nearly succeed via a love-plot: beauteous Artesia (sister of Saxon general Ostorius) wins the love of both Aurelius and his younger brother, Prince Uther, and pits them against one another to conquer by love what was not won in battle (1.2; 2.2, 2.3; 3.5, 3.6; 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5; 5.2). The most entertaining, comic and spectacular story line begins with a clownish brother seeking with his pregnant sister for the seducer who fathered her imminent child (2.1; 3.1, 3.3, 3.4; 5.1, 5.2). This third plot features the famous Merlin, who is born full grown, bearded, and blessed with unmatched magical powers.

A series of "wizards' duels" form the heart of the play, featuring Hector vs. Achilles, two dragons, the Christian hermit Anselm vs. the Saxon magician Proximus, Merlin vs. Proximus, and finally Merlin vs. the Devil. The play's final scene ties up all three plots, resolving questions of both personal and national import from the daughters' marriages to the future of the Britons, Saxons, Welsh and Irish. As if echoing the conclusion of Shakespeare and Fletcher's Henry VIII, which celebrated the coming glorious reign of Queen Elizabeth, Merlin ends Rowley's play with a vision of the realm's most legendary ruler, whom his father (Uther Pendragon) names in the play's penultimate word, ARTHUR.

For its mixture of low comedy and high matters of state, its extravagant spectacle, and its contributions to the glorification of Merlin, this neglected play is worth a look -- or a listen, thanks to the LibriVox audiobook recording: https://librivox.org/the-birth-of-mer...

The performance in March 2023 by MFA students in the Shakespeare and Performance program at MBU confirmed several impressions from a quick reading of the text. The marriage plot involving Donobert's two daughters is only loosely and thematically related to the play's main thrust. Merlin is the true star of the show, despite only appearing halfway through the play -- though he is prefigured by the magical hermit Anselm, who disappears from the play (save for 4 words at the end) the moment Merlin appears. The mugging clown is a marvelously comic role, likely crafted by playwright Rowley for himself - but his are far from the only comedic moments in the play: the plot's hairpin romantic turns offer plentiful opportunities for laughs, particularly at the expense of the royal brothers Aurelius and Uther. The play repeatedly invites its audience to contrast parallel characters: not only the wizards Proximus and Anselm and Merlin, and the two love-struck princes, but also the four female characters all approaching marriage differently and attempting by turns to attract or repel advances. One recurring theme is the fickleness of alliance, whether romantic or political. Emerging in performance is the notable absence of women's agency: the daughters' consideration of a cloistered life, Joan Go-to't's efforts to rebuff a second sexual coupling with her son's father, even the vehemence of Briton opposition to the elevation of the Saxon beauty Artesia to become Britain's queen all show the absolute dependence of females on male protection (father, hermit, king, magician) to obtain their own will. MBU students show that Rowley's obscure play can reach across four centuries to reveal its power and relevance.

[Michael Hitchcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

This read a little bit like epic fan fiction- like Rowley knew he wanted Merlin to be born as a powerful and wise bearded adult, a son of the devil. He knew he wanted Merlin to kick the shit out of the devil and save his own Mom's soul and he knew he wanted a funny uncle to say "well... that just happened." and all the rest of the details of the plot- the marriages, the war, the poisoning of the king was all just there to flesh it out.

OR I'm just missing all kinds of significance here because I'm separated by time, culture, and language.

It was a slog through most of it, but all the scenes with the funny uncle, Merlin, or the Devil were entertaining and well done. I actually chuckled at two of his bits- one where he says that usually a woman gets a father before a baby but here we need a father for the baby already got, and another where he does an aside about how good a lord is at controlling and dismissing the woman.

I also think this was a play written without the conventions that help visualize the scene and that it might be much better and more interesting/entertaining live- even if no amount of staging can shore up the weakness of the two noble girls' story about not getting married after all. Why that plot was given such prominence remains a mystery to me.

[Sahel's · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are tons of Merlin and Arthurian accounts out there that I can never get enough of. Some are hard to follow, some like this one are only hard to read in the beginning (like many other Elizabethan or Jacobean plays).

I listened to a Librivox recording of this play while I was reading from the text. I found it engaging, at points a tad bit dull, but rich in humor! The dialogue is not laugh-out-loud funny, but it is clever, witty and makes you laugh inside yourself nonetheless!

There were parts of the story, like the Merlin's birth origin that I didn't know about and learned through this play (interesting how I stopped listening to this for a while to watch Season 03 Episode 01 of The Affair with dinner and all of a sudden a French professor in the show started talking about merlin(!!) and the things I had never heard about Merlin's birth origin, last night I heard twice(!!) )

There were also parts that I had heard about such as King Vortiger's Castle being crookedly built that the miniseries Merlin (with Sam Neill) had covered.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jacobian comedy by comic actor Rowley (and possibly others - first printing attributed co-authorship to Shakespeare, which is quite obviously not so), in which there is court intrigue, in which the High King, Aurelius, is murdered by the Saxons with whom he'd signed a treaty, leaving Prince Uter as the heir; another subplot involves a baron with two daughters who have been promised to two lords, but one has decided to join a convent; and the 3rd subplot has one Clown (a Rowley specialty) dragging his pregnant sister about looking for the father - and when she births her child, it is a full-grown Merlin.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great but kind of light and fun. Forgettable. Modestia was the standout character and her scenes the most memorable. Her unintentionally winning her sister Constantia to religious life just by pleading her own case was funny.

[Robert Barnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting only because it is a non-Shakespearean Elizabethan comedy