Knights, Pigeons, and Chapman’s All Fools

Edelman narrates that of all the writers providing comedies for Philip Henslowe at the Rose Theatre in 1596 and 1597, none was more successful than George Chapman. Henslowe's records of box-office takings show that Chapman's Blind Beggar of Alexandria was the most successful offering of 1596, and Chapman followed that with the biggest hit of 1597, An Humorous Day's Mirth. Unfortunately, all these works are lost, what is left is Chapman's next Rose comedy, All Fools, a splendid adaptation of two plays by Terence, The Self-Tormenter and The Brothers. The date of this play is rendered problematic by a number of factors. The one part of All Fools that does show signs of either revision or new addition to the text is the prologue. Here, he comments that while this presents a strong argument for 1600 or 1601 as the date of the prologue, there is no way to tell if it replaced one spoken at the Rose, or if the Rose production was without a prologue. He suspects that it is the latter since Chapman's two previous Rose comedies have no prologue.